The gathering of bishops from across the world for the Synod of Bishops on the family is tough for reporters, who are never quite sure what the story is. How do you report a discussion among 300 people, most of which takes place in small groups speaking five different languages?

We are not so much reporting on the synod, as reporting what we are told about the synod: the proceedings themselves are closed, and we rely on summaries of the speeches and the notes taken by Vatican press officials sitting in on the small groups.

Yet there is plenty of other material to go on. This is the most open synod ever: those inside are free to publish their “interventions,” or speeches (but not other people’s), can give interviews, blog and tweet (at least outside the synod hours), and at least two synod fathers or auditors (non-voting invited guests) are picked out each day for the reporters to quiz at the daily lunchtime briefing.

But still, what’s the story? Listening to dozens of synod fathers give three-minute speeches, said the Archbishop of Brisbane, Australia, on his must-read blog, was “like watching corn pop. Stuff was going off in all directions.”

It has been much like that for journalists. The story going in was that the synod was grappling with communion for divorcées and how to respond to same-sex unions. Yet the first has been discussed in very general terms – of the tension between truth and mercy – while the second was treated in one third of one speech out of more than 70 in the first week. The topics that have been talked about are almost too numerous to mention.

Imagine the relief, therefore, when a good old-fashioned conspiracy made its appearance at the start of week two, one that had all the elements of Roman melodrama: leaked documents, a rebellion inside the synod and cardinals’ denials that seemed to contradict each other.

The letter was leaked to a well-known conservative Italian blogger who has in the past been the vehicle of choice for Vatican officials wanting to discredit Cardinal George Pell, the head of the Secretariat for the Economy, which is cleaning up Vatican finances. Cardinal Pell was one of the signatories of the letter, and the one who passed it onto the Pope.

In it, Cardinal Pell and the other dozen signatories complain about the new format of the synod – in which at least half the time is spent in small-group discussions, modifying the working document, in order to produce a new document at the end – as one that is skewed towards reaching a conclusion they fear.

The letter appears to be the main reason why Pope Francis decided unexpectedly to speak on the second day of the synod to deplore seeing plots where there were none (he actually spoke of a “hermeneutic of conspiracy” which was “spiritually unhelpful”), and to remind the synod that church teaching was not in question at the synod.

The story has been developing almost every hour, with cardinals admitting they had signed a letter but not the one published, or not signing one at all. At the end of it, the only certainty was that a bunch of bishops had queried the composition of the drafting commission; but had done so, insisted Cardinal Pell, privately and seeking clarification rather than criticizing.

The hullaboo has overshadowed the reality of the synod, which is working well despite an uncertain start. The disagreements among the bishops weren’t created by the synod, which has allowed them to listen to each other.

“I had never been in a synod that has been as open,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington said of the 2014 gathering, “and the one we’re in right now follows that same openness.”

What are the emerging trends? Judging by the number of times the topic has come up, the final synod document is likely to contain a commitment to three future developments: a far more solid and lengthy marriage preparation, that will result in fewer, but more valid, Catholic marriages; allowing the Church to develop its pastoral strategy at a more local level, possibly in future regional assemblies; and a commitment to a new, more grounded language, that speaks to the realities of contemporary society.

What else ends up in that final document is, at this stage, anyone’s guess.