While away on my recent trip, I had occasion to read the preparatory document for the Pan-Amazonian Synod which was released last Friday.
“Amazonia: New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology,” is the official preparatory document for the October 2019 synod on the Pan-Amazonian region of South America, which includes parts of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guyana, Guyana, Peru, Venezuela and Suriname.
Key themes for the meeting will be the rights and traditions of indigenous people, the role of women in the Church and efforts to find “new ways” to provide greater access to the Eucharist in response to “the cry of thousands of communities deprived of the Sunday Eucharist for long periods of time.”
The text stresses the importance of creating the possibility “for all the baptized to participate in the Sunday Mass.”
Most curious to me is the fact that the document speaks of “a Church with an Amazonian face and a Church with a native face.”
It further stresses that “new ways should be considered for the People of God to have better and more frequent access to the Eucharist, the center of Christian life.”
In March 2017, Pope Francis suggested openness to the possibility that married men of proven virtue might be ordained Priests in some Roman Catholic dioceses where there are few Priests.
Those comments sparked speculation that the Pan-Amazonian synod could open the door to the ordination of married men of proven virtue universally.
My question is: why not?
What is so unique to the Amazon when it comes to parochial communities being deprived of adequate pastoral and sacramental care due to a critical shortage of Priests?
In earlier articles, I have discussed the question of a married Priesthood in the Latin Church and have insisted that a return to this most ancient tradition is a certainty in the the future of the Church.
But I have also noted that the Church best be mature in its decision to re-institute this most ancient custom.
With a married Priesthood, the Church will need to honestly and compassionately address the real issues with which it will have to contend: just compensation for Priests with wives and families, divorces which may occur, scandals of marital abuse, infidelity or misdeeds by errant children.
In addition, a married Priesthood certainly will raise the curtain on a question that is beginning to haunt the Church which thus far has been sadly insufficient in providing a clear and cogent response, and that is the question of the ordination of women to the Priesthood.
Thus far, Popes have considered it within the realm of the Petrine Office alone to answer "no" to the question of women’s ordination.
I believe the question must best be answered within the forum of the Church’s most formal magisterial authority, that of an ecumenical council.
In fact, I believe the entire question of the future face of the Priesthood should be the subject of reflection and discretion within the context of what I hope may be “Vatican III”.
Anyone who believes that the ordination of married men that may be permitted in the Amazon will remain only in the Amazon is a fool.
I place in evidence the re-institution of the Permanent Diaconate and the thousands of married Deacons ministering throughout the world, most prolifically in the United States!
Only the Providence of the Holy Spirit knows if Pope Francis will be alive and still vital when the 2019 Synod is scheduled to take place.
However, begging the Spirit’s indulgence, I am inclined to believe that, should Francis not survive that meeting, the Synod itself will be cancelled, never to be convened -- neo-conservative reactionaries would never permit it in the wake of Francis' passing.
However, should Pope Francis be alive and permit the ordination of married men in the Amazon, he must be prepared to call a council to resolve the furor which will result from such a concession.
We are standing at the threshold of unchartered waters the Barque of Peter may have to navigate.
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