Amazon Catholics pledge to press on after Pope says no to married priests

[webfact]

Amazon Catholics pledge to press on after Pope says no to married priests

By Gabriel Stargardter and Maria Cervantes

 

FILE PHOTO: A Catholic church is pictured as a fire burns a tract of Amazon jungle being cleared by loggers and farmers near Porto Velho, Brazil August 27, 2019. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes

 

RIO DE JANEIRO/LIMA (Reuters) - Catholic communities across the Amazon said they would keep pushing for married men to be allowed to celebrate Mass in the remote rainforest region, after a papal decision on Wednesday blocked their path to the priesthood.

 

In one of the most significant decisions of his papacy, Pope Francis on Wednesday dismissed the proposal designed to ease an acute scarcity of priests in the Amazon, where the Roman Catholic Church faces growing competition from Evangelical Christian faiths.

 

The proposal, put forward by Latin American bishops in 2019, had alarmed conservatives in the deeply divided 1.3 billion-member Church, who feared it could chip away at the centuries-old commitment to celibacy among priests.

 

The Argentine pontiff's decision affects isolated communities in Brazil, Peru, Colombia and other countries in the Amazon basin. It places Amazon Catholics in a delicate position, forced to temper their desire for change with religious obedience.

 

Although some said they were disappointed, many more held out hope the pope could change his mind.

 

Martín Quijano, a bishop in Pucallpa in the Peruvian Amazon and a participant in the synod of Amazon bishops that proposed allowing married priests, said he had faith the decision was not final.

 

"The door is still open," he told Reuters. "The pope is asking for reflection. This proposal is still ongoing."

 

Giuliano Frigeni, the bishop of Parintins, a Brazilian town on the banks of the Amazon river, pledged to fight on, despite the obstacles. "Now we have to roll up our sleeves and work even harder," he said.

 

Francis delivered his response in an Apostolic Exhortation, three months after the proposal passed the synod by 128 votes to 41. Apostolic Exhortations are used to instruct and encourage the Catholic faithful but do not define Church doctrine.

 

Under the synod-formulated proposal, older married deacons with stable families who were proven leaders of remote Catholic communities would have been free to be ordained as priests.

 

Deacons, like priests, are ordained ministers. They can preach, teach, baptise and run parishes, but they cannot say Mass. Married men can become deacons.

 

Because only priests can say Mass, people in at least 85% of Amazon villages cannot attend the liturgy every week and some have not done so for years.

 

Frigeni said he had only managed to ordain 20 priests in his 20-odd years in Parintins, while there is only one bishop in the Brazilian Amazon who hails from the region.

 

He added his deacons were severely overworked. On Saturdays and Sundays, they would spend up to 11 hours in canoes travelling to preach in remote riverside communities. But despite those efforts, he said their top priority would always be to their families, rather than the Church.

 

"We need bishops and priests from here," Frigeni said.

 

Alfredo Ferro, a Jesuit priest in Leticia, the capital of Colombia's Amazonas province, said he believed that sooner or later a more progressive policy would emerge.

 

"The Church is a little slow, it's not easy to move. It's like an elephant," he said.

 

(Reporting by Gabriel Stargardter in Rio, Maria Cervantes in Lima and Oliver Griffin in Bogota, Writing by Gabriel Stargardter; editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Rosalba O'Brien)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-02-13

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[Hayduke]

13 minutes ago, webfact said:

The proposal, put forward by Latin American bishops in 2019, had alarmed conservatives in the deeply divided 1.3 billion-member Church, who feared it could chip away at the....centuries-old commitment to celibacy among priests.

 

...centuries-old commitment to child abuse among priests.

 

 

[Odysseus123]

Good!

 

This farce was only promulgated by the Church in the 12-13th centuries.

 

It is not enshrined in Holy Writ.

 

As many Popes after that can testify-need I mention Pope Alexander the VIth?

[Langsuan Man]

It's all about the Benjamins

 

The Catholic Church does not want to accept the expense of maintaining a priest's spouse and the resulting expense of children.  Not to mention the divided loyalties a spouse would bring to a "parish"  

[Odysseus123]

1 minute ago, Langsuan Man said:

It's all about the Benjamins

 

The Catholic Church does not want to accept the expense of maintaining a priest's spouse and the resulting expense of children.  Not to mention the divided loyalties a spouse would bring to a "parish"  

Possibly..but the Lutherans and Anglicans have managed it-to name but a few.

 

..and a parish is nothing without a priest.

[gk10002000]

well, if you want to belong to something, you follow the rules.  If you do not like it, then fine, go join another group.  Most things man-made are arbitrary and capricious anyway.  Just go do what you want.

[justin case]

6 hours ago, Langsuan Man said:

It's all about the Benjamins

 

The Catholic Church does not want to accept the expense of maintaining a priest's spouse and the resulting expense of children.  Not to mention the divided loyalties a spouse would bring to a "parish"  

you are half right

 

when the priest dies, his parents are already dead, normally

 

the church will get everything the priest owned... that is why the church does not want priests to be married

[fvw53]

In the Vatican they are suspicious of women ....they remember what "Church Father" Tertullian wrote during early 3rd century A.D.

 

De Cultu Feminarum, section I.I, part 2 
 "Do you not know that you are Eve? The judgment of God upon this sex lives on in this age; therefore, necessarily the guilt should live on also. You are the gateway of the devil; you are the one who unseals the curse of that tree, and you are the first one to turn your back on the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the devil was not capable of corrupting; you easily destroyed the image of God, Adam. Because of what you deserve, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die." 

[mrfill]

Do the Amazon Catholics come with next day delivery?

[Langsuan Man]

15 hours ago, mrfill said:

Do the Amazon Catholics come with next day delivery?

Only if they have Prime 

[Baerboxer]

On 2/13/2020 at 7:53 AM, Langsuan Man said:

It's all about the Benjamins

 

The Catholic Church does not want to accept the expense of maintaining a priest's spouse and the resulting expense of children.  Not to mention the divided loyalties a spouse would bring to a "parish"  

 

Of course. The money making corrupt organization focus is on maximizing its wealth.

[Baerboxer]

19 hours ago, fvw53 said:

In the Vatican they are suspicious of women ....they remember what "Church Father" Tertullian wrote during early 3rd century A.D.

 

De Cultu Feminarum, section I.I, part 2 
 "Do you not know that you are Eve? The judgment of God upon this sex lives on in this age; therefore, necessarily the guilt should live on also. You are the gateway of the devil; you are the one who unseals the curse of that tree, and you are the first one to turn your back on the divine law; you are the one who persuaded him whom the devil was not capable of corrupting; you easily destroyed the image of God, Adam. Because of what you deserve, that is, death, even the Son of God had to die." 

 

Wonder if he was a boy abuser?

[overherebc]

22 hours ago, Baerboxer said:

 

Wonder if he was a boy abuser?

At his time he would have to wait till he was grown up.

????????