Marriage followed by the priesthood: Will priestly celibacy be abolished?

What critics have been predicting for almost two years has come to pass.  Pope Francis officially convenes an Amazon Special Synod.  It is about "new ways" for the "evangelisation of the indigenous population" according to Pope Francis and the Brazilian Pope's friend, Claudio Cardinal Hummes. "The indigenous population as a pretext for the introduction of married priests", on the other hand, writes Secretum meum mihi.

The "Amazon Workshop", very active since 2014.

On 9 December 2015, Vaticanist, Sandro Magister was the first to report on plans by Pope Francis to use the next Synod of Bishops to abolish priestly celibacy.  Magister named the Amazon region as the starting point and the Brazilian bishops, Cardinal Claudio Hummes and Erwin Kräutler as the main actors.  The fact that both are of German descent is a not-so-insignificant detail.


Bishop Erwin Kräutler 




and Cardinal Hummes : key players against celibacy

In Rome, they remained silent.  However, the fog slowly began to lift.  Magister's report received quick confirmation as to the declared intentions of Hummes and Kräutler, who had set up an "Amazon workshop" for a new priesthood whose main goal is the abolition of priestly celibacy as a constitutive element of the priesthood.

The goal is as old as the modernist West German student movement in the Church.  The vocation crisis is very convenient for this faction to bring about a "vocation turnaround" with structural changes.

Kräutler's statement, which he himself recounted after his first visit to Pope Francis in 2014, is perfectly timed.  Francis had shown himself open-minded and encouraged him to make "bold" proposals on the vocation question, the Austrian missionary bishop said.  Under Pope Benedict XVI, it was quite different.  When he, Kräutler, complained to the German Pope about the lack of priests among the Indians in the Amazon region, the Pope asked him to pray for priestly vocations.  "I won't take part in that," was Kräutler's reply.

250,000 Amazon Indians as a pretext for abolishing celibacy

Critics therefore say that the lack of priests for 250,000 Indians in the Amazon is only a pretext to lay a hand on the priesthood of the Latin Church and to abolish priestly celibacy.

The point is to set a precedent, however small.  For most people, the Amazon is far away and tainted with all kinds of socially romantic clichés.  The real situation in the Amazon is unknown to most Catholics.  This state of affairs is supposed to facilitate the creation of a "distant" special regime.  However, the exception would only serve as a crowbar to thereby undermine celibacy as an essential feature of the priesthood worldwide.

When a meeting was held in a Brazilian diocese in September 2016, Cardinal Hummes also spoke and lamented the difficult situation of the Indians, who too rarely get to see a priest in the remote areas of Amazonia and can therefore only rarely receive the sacraments.  He then presented plans for an "indigenous clergy" who should be allowed to be married because celibacy is foreign to the Indians.  When a conference participant suggested that one should ask each missionary order of the universal Church to send two priests to the Amazon, then the problem would be more than solved, the real intentions behind the "Amazon workshop" were exposed.  Cardinal Hummes reacted energetically and rejected the proposal.  "No, no, the Pope does not want that".  Not only did he categorically reject the alternative proposal but he also invoked Pope Francis.  The reason?  "Since the Second Vatican Council" there should only be one native clergy.

No more mission then?

New version of the synod strategy

What Magister did not know at the beginning of December 2015, but his colleague Marco Tosatti added a few months later: the Synod of Bishops in Rome was to be preceded by an Amazon Synod.  All dioceses that have a share in the Amazon basin should participate in it.  According to Tosatti, the choreography for the abolition of celibacy is provided by the holding of the Amazon Synod.  This will formulate a complaint about the lack of priests among the Indians and a request to Pope Francis to allow a special form of the sacrament of Holy Orders.  Francis would then convene a Synod of Bishops in Rome and present the complaint and request to it.  In the case of the Synod on the Family, he spoke before the Synod began of a "cry of the people" that must be heard.  It will be similar with the new topic.

The fear: the Synod could end the same way as the Family Synod.  Despite all the trickery of the Synod's direction, the Synod members affirm Catholic teaching, but Francis nevertheless decides what he had planned from the beginning, as a chronology of facts from March 2013 to October 2014 proves.  Openly, however, he has not said and admitted that until today.  The result would be that a new priesthood would be created within the framework of the Amazon workshop in the primeval forests of Brazil, which would at least provide the entry point for the abolition of priestly celibacy worldwide in the future.

The formulation that one is committed to an "indigenous clergy" in order to promote the "evangelisation of the indigenous population" and to counter the shortage of priests sounds very good, but is "only a façade", according to Secretum meum mihi.

Pope Francis told the bishops and more than 80 priests of the Archdiocese of Lyon on 5 October that he saw no reason "at the moment" for anything to change related to priestly celibacy.  The affirmation of celibacy is vaguely worded.  Francis also continues to declare that nothing has changed in the doctrine of the indissolubility of sacramental marriage, but at the same time promotes the recognition of adultery, divorce and second marriages in his own Diocese of Rome and in other dioceses that want to follow him in this.  Words are patient.  Clarity looks different, as the refusal to answer the dubia (doubts) of Cardinals shows.

The announcement of the Amazon Synod

Yesterday, Francis officially announced the convening of the Amazon Synod in his address before the Angelus (15 October 2017).   He justified this by referring to a wish of the Bishops' Conferences of Latin America, which he was accommodating.  The Special Synod will take place in Rome in October 2019.




The main goal of the Synod is to "find new ways to evangelize that part of the people of God, especially the Indigenous."

Cardinal Hummes was the first church representative to respond to the announcement. He thanked the Pope excessively for the convocation.

"It will be a very important ecclesial event for the Church's mission". The Cardinal spoke of the jungle and the climate. The "whole world" has a "special interest in the Amazon because of the world climate", but then to say more interesting things:

"The Synod is above all important for the evangelization of this region, the evangelization of the indigenous people who are there who hope with great hope the presence of the Church and the Word of God."
Intervista con il card. Hummes

Grande soddisfazione del card. Claudio Hummes, presidente della REPAM, Rete Ecclesiale, Pan-amazzonica, per l'annuncio del Papa di una assemblea speciale del Sinodo dei vescovi per la Pan-amazzonia, da tenersi nell'ottobre del 2019. Guarda la nostra intervista

Posted by News.va on Sunday, October 15, 2017
What is not said is more important than what has been said - does Amoris laetitia II?

Neither Pope Francis nor Cardinal Hummes mentioned the priesthood, the priestly deficiency, or celibacy. Francis had asked Archbishop Bruno Forte at the end of the family synod not to mention the remarried divorced in the final report, because the defenders of the esacracement "make us a swirl". He, Francis, would do everything. What he "made" has been known since Amoris laetitia and the consequent division of the church.

What could happen in the family synod, according to the fears, could be repeated at the Amazon Synod. The real reason for the convocation, the admission of the remarried divorced to the communion in the family synod, and the admission of married men to the priesthood at the Amazon Synod, could be concealed and introduced with a document Amoris laetitia II, which is neither officially confirmed nor denied ,

Archbishop Forte commented on the papal statement of October 2015 "typical Jesuit". The Amazon Synod could now proceed as a matter of course, and before the church was ready, the attack on priest celibacy was already carried out, so concerned church circles.

The "real topic": the "viri probati"

The confirmation that pope critics do not see "ghosts" comes from the papal side. As in the family syntax, Bergoglians understand the papal intentions, even if these are not clearly stated. This is also the case with Amazon and Celibacy. While Francis and Cardinal Hummes spoke only of the "evangelization of the indigenous population," Francis was very close to Faro di Roma:

"At the Synod for the Amazon, the 'Viri probati'. The real question "
"The real question" is not the evangelization and, in this case, not the world climate, but the admission of married men to the priesthood.

The main goal of the Synod is to "find new ways of evangelising that part of God's people, especially the indigenous people".

Cardinal Hummes was the first Church representative to react to the announcement. He thanked the Pope effusively for the convocation.

"It will be a very important ecclesial event for the mission of the Church".  The Cardinal spoke of the jungle and the climate.  He said the "whole world" has a "special interest in Amazonia because of the world's climate", only to say something more interesting:

"The Synod is above all important for the evangelisation of this region, the evangelisation of the indigenous people who are there, who hope with great hope for the presence of the Church and the Word of God."

Intervista con il card. Hummes

Grande soddisfazione del card. Claudio Hummes, presidente della REPAM, Rete Ecclesiale Pan-amazzonica, per l'annuncio del Papa di un' assemblea speciale del Sinodo dei vescovi per la Pan-amazzonia, da tenersi nell'ottobre del 2019. Guarda la nostra intervista

Posted by News.va Italiano on Sunday 15 October 2017

What is not being said is more important than what is said - Is Amoris laetitia II coming?

Neither Pope Francis nor Cardinal Hummes mentioned the priesthood, the priestly shortage or celibacy.  At the end of the Synod on the Family, Francis had asked Archbishop Bruno Forte not to mention the remarried divorced in the Final Report because the defenders of the sacrament of marriage would "otherwise give us a fuss".  He, Francis, would then do everything.  What he has "done" is known since Amoris laetitia and the resulting division of the Church.

What happened at the Synod on the Family could, according to fears, be repeated at the Amazon Synod.  The real reason for the convocation, the admission of remarried divorcees to communion at the Synod on the Family and the admission of married men to the priesthood at the Amazon Synod, could be concealed and sneakily introduced with a document Amoris laetitia II, which is neither officially confirmed nor denied.

"Typically Jesuitical" is Archbishop Forte's thoroughly benevolent comment on the Papal Instruction of October 2015.  "Typically Jesuitical" could now also be how the Amazon Synod goes and before the Church knows it, the attack on priestly celibacy has already been carried out, according to concerned Church circles.

The "real issue": the "viri probati"

Confirmation that Pope critics are not seeing "ghosts" comes from sources close to the Pope.  As with the Family Synod, Bergoglians understand papal intentions, even if they are not clearly stated.  This is also emerging in the matter of the Amazon and celibacy.  While Francis and Cardinal Hummes only spoke of the "evangelisation of the indigenous population", the website Faro di Roma, which is very close to Francis, headlined:

"At the Synod for Amazonia, the 'Viri probati'.  The real question"

"The real issue" at stake is thus not evangelisation, nor in this case the world climate, but the admission of married men to the priesthood.

The "viri probati" are married men admitted to the diaconate, the lowest level of the sacrament of Holy Orders.  Thus, since the Second Vatican Council, the Sacrament of Holy Orders has already been interfered with in a first stage.  There is no doubt that modernist church circles saw the admission to the diaconate only as a first step towards the desired abolition of celibacy.  But when Paul VI did not agree to this, tens of thousands of priests gave up their priesthood and allowed themselves to be laicised.  John Paul II and Benedict XVI did not reverse the admission of "viri probati", but left no doubt that celibacy is an essential feature of the priesthood.  Through it and in it, even the claim of the Catholic Church to be the true Church of Jesus Christ is confirmed, since only the Latin Church among all Christian churches, denominations and denominations has upheld the sacramental priesthood and priestly celibacy. It was predictable that a differently minded Pope could start here. He has ruled in Rome since 2013.


Update in the event, Querida Amazonia did not mention the issue, as discretion became the better part of valour given the controversy that had been stirred by these cynical manoevres.


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