VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis, in one of the most significant decisions of his papacy, on Wednesday dismissed a proposal to allow some married men to be ordained in the Amazon region to ease an acute scarcity of priests. Conservatives balked, fearing that even a circumscribed change would be a slippery slope leading to a married priesthood throughout the Church. In what some viewed as a strategically timed appeal to Francis not to approve the Amazon proposal, a book published last month by Church conservatives defended the tradition of priestly celibacy. Vatican officials said the pope completed the document on Dec. 27, before the book controversy, and handed it in for translations. “This urgent need leads me to urge all bishops, especially those in Latin America… to be more generous in encouraging those who display a missionary vocation to opt for the Amazon region,” he wrote.

Source: National Post February 12, 2020 11:03 UTC