The pope’s “Synod on Synodality” ended Saturday without progress on female deacons, married priests or LGBTQ+ outreach.

The Vatican’s most highly anticipated gathering since the 1960s ended Saturday with the thorniest issues facing the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics largely unanswered.

The Synod of Bishops, which met in October 2023 and again this month, pledged administrative changes that could give more power to local dioceses. But it referred questions on the ordination of female deacons, further outreach to the LGBTQ+ community and married priests for further study.

The outcome calmed the fears of church conservatives that Pope Francis’s “Synod on Synodality” would serve as a smokescreen for radical change while leaving liberals, who had seen it as their best opportunity since Vatican II to promote reform, empty-handed for now.

“It’s hard to say whether this synod has actually taken any decision,” said Massimo Faggioli, a Catholic theologian at Villanova University.

The…