What may be the most important meeting for the Catholic Church in more than a half-century began Wednesday, as bishops and other leaders of the Church convened in the Vatican under a cloud of controversy for the Synod on Synodality.

Synods, which are meetings of bishops to discuss pressing issues in the Catholic Church, have been a part of the Church's governing structure for several decades. The purpose of the body is to advise the pope on various matters.

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But the "Synod on Synodality," which will conclude next year, has been marked by controversy in the lead-up to the formal sessions. Conservative Catholics, including several bishops, have raised alarms that the synod may be used to enact a series of liberal changes, including allowing same-sex couples to receive blessings and for women to be ordained as deacons.

With its focus on so many issues long seen as unchangeable, the synod has the potential to be the most consequential meeting of the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council concluded in 1965.

The synod already broke revolutionary ground when the Vatican and Pope Francis announced that a portion of the voting members of the synod would be women and non-clergy, a first in the history of the Church.

This week, a group of five Cardinals, bishops who are part of the body that can elect the next pope, announced that they had sent a letter known as a "dubia" to Pope Francis that asked the pope to clarify in yes or no answers the church's teaching on same-sex relationships and the ordination of women to clerical positions, after liberal churchmen, indicated that both topics could be discussed at the synod.

Pope Francis has repeatedly said that women cannot be ordained to the priesthood but has been far less clear about ordaining women to be deacons, a step below priests. Similarly, while he has made comments that have been seen as friendly to the LGBT community, the pope has repeatedly re-asserted that homosexual activity is sinful and that marriage is between a man and a woman.

The five cardinals who signed the letter are Raymond Burke of the United States, Robert Sarah of Guinea, Joseph Zen, a Hong Kong native who was arrested by the Chinese Communist Party, Mexican cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniquez, and the German Walter Brandmuller.

None of the five cardinals hold prominent positions in the church anymore, and several of them are older than 80, the maximum age to vote in a papal conclave. The dubia with yes or no questions was the second submitted by the group after the pope provided a seven-page response to their initial request.

Those responses, which were recently made public, included a statement that "pastoral prudence" may be exercised to provide blessings to people in same-sex relationships "that do not convey a mistaken concept of marriage."

"When a blessing is requested, it is expressing a plea to God for help, a supplication to live better, a trust in a Father who can help us live better," the pope wrote.

The pope's responses prompted the five cardinals to issue a public letter urging Catholics to "pray for the universal Church and, in particular, the Roman Pontiff that the Gospel may be taught ever more clearly and followed ever more faithfully."

The cardinal's letter underscores the sentiment among some conservative Catholics that the synod and Pope Francis's public statements have created confusion around Catholic teaching on certain issues.

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Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, said in an August letter that those who would use the synod to change Church teaching would reveal themselves to be "true schismatics."

"We must remain unabashedly and truly Catholic, regardless of what may be brought forth," Strickland wrote. "We must be aware also that it is not leaving the Church to stand firm against these proposed changes."