Disappointment in Amazonia Over Pope’s Decision Not to Ordain Married Clergy

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Catholic Bishops’ proposal to ordain as priests men of indigenous origin,to serve in remote villages in Amazonia, even if they are married, will not be set aside or placed in a drawer, according to the bishops of Brazil, despite the Pope’s recent decisions not to diminish the celibacy requirement for clergy, nor to permit women to be ordained as deacons.

“This matter must now be worked on with the Pope in the instances of the Holy See. It will be taken up again,” said Cardinal Claudio Hummes, rapporteur for the Amazon Synod in Brasília. But Pope Francis’ reply, detailed in 33 pages, was not what the Catholics of Amazonia desired. There is disappointment in the waning community.

“We expected a little more. Mainly in relation to issues related to the greater presence of the Church,” explains Marcia Oliveira, who attended the Synod as an expert. According to the sociologist, “it is a fallacy to speak of the interiorization of missionaries when there are not even enough missionaries to reach the cities’ outskirts”.

She regrets above all that the Pontiff “missed an historic occasion to bring forward practical proposals for a more equitable participation of women”, in reference to female deacons.

According to Spanish missionary Luis Miguel Modino, 49, who has been in the region for four years, more than two in indigenous communities, “the final and courageous solution to the precarious presence of the Church in the region has not come”, but he praises other aspects of the exhortation.

From São Gabriel da Cachoeira (Amazonas), the most indigenous diocese in Brazil, 41 year-old Denis Gama da Silva, an indigenous catholic, emphasizes: “I believe that if they lived here, in our reality, they would be in favor (of ordaining married men and female deacons) because we rely on people from outside to have priests”.

The scarcity of Catholic vocations is contrasted by the power of evangelical churches in Amazonia. They come to the communities and within a few weeks or months they have local pastors or female pastors on the ground, preaching and helping the community.

The Catholic Church, on the other hand, demands celibacy and long studies to ordain priests. For those who may feel frustrated, the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) recalled that “the synod is not the end of the process”.

Although Gama da Silva explains that he did not have time to read the document because he has been working all day, he is well aware that the matter is thorny and knows the caliber of the internal resistances. As the greatest exponent, he mentions “the book in which the Pope Emeritus advocates celibacy”.

This family father joined thousands of Catholic followers in a process of consultations that lasted months in the nine Amazon countries and enlightened other proposals, such as the creation of ecological sin.

The missionary Modino points out that “Pope Francis succeeded in spreading the word and the Church about the significance of the Amazon. In the defense of the territory and the peoples, he was clear and explicit”. In other aspects, sociologist Oliveira argues that he did not. “I expected a better defined position from the whole Church in defense of the systematically threatened indigenous and social leaders”.