Vatican synod proposes ordaining married men as priests in the Amazon

VATICAN CIT (Reuters) - An assembly of Roman Catholic bishops from the Amazon yesterday proposed that married men in the remote area be allowed to be ordained priests, which could lead to a landmark change in the Church’s centuries-old discipline of celibacy.

The proposal, made in a final document from a three-week assembly, known as a synod, passed by 128 votes in favour to 41 against.

Pope Francis will consider it, along with many other proposals on issues including the environment and the role of women, in a future document of his own, known as an Apostolic Exhortation.

Separately, when he closed the synod’s final working session earlier yesterday, Francis announced that he would reconvene a commission to study the history of women deacons in the early centuries of the Catholic Church, responding to calls by women that they be allowed to take up the role today.

But the issue of a married priesthood for the Amazon region was by far the most contentious item in the 120-paragraph final document.

The proposal calls for married men who are already deacons in the Church, have a stable family relationship, and are proven leaders in their communities to be ordained as priests.

It said the ordination to the priesthood would have to be preceded by an “adequate formation.”

This solution to the shortage of priests, backed by many South American bishops, would allow Catholics in isolated areas to attend Mass and receive the sacraments more regularly.

At least 85 per cent of Amazon villages cannot attend Mass every week and some cannot do so for years.

Conservatives oppose the change, fearing it would be a slippery slope leading to a married priesthood throughout the 1.3 billion member Church.

They fear that if one part of the Church was allowed to ordain married men as an exception, there would be nothing to stop other areas with a shortage of priests doing the same, even in developed countries.

A CBS News poll last year said nearly 70 per cent of American Catholics favour letting priests marry.

The document said that some bishops in the synod thought the issue should be discussed on a universal basis.

WOMEN DEACONS

Conservatives are also opposed to women deacons, saying the deaconate is linked with the male priesthood.

Many deacons in the Church around the world today are married men.

Deacons, like priests, are ordained ministers. They may not celebrate Mass, but they may preach, teach in the name of the Church, baptise and conduct wedding, wake and funeral services and even run a parish with the permission of a bishop.

In his closing comments to the synod, Francis said: “We still have not grasped the significance of women in the Church.”

Scholars have debated the precise role of women deacons in the early Church.

Some say they ministered only to other women, such as at immersion rites at baptism and to inspect the bodies of women in cases where Christian men were accused of domestic violence and brought before Church tribunals.

Others believe women deacons in the early Church were fully ordained and on a par with the male deacons at the time. The Church did away with female deacons altogether in later centuries.

A commission that handed its report to the pope this year was inconclusive. Francis, who ends the synod ceremoniously with a Mass in St Peter’s Basilica today, gave no details on when the new commission would start its work.

Francis and his predecessors have ruled out allowing women to become priests.

But advocates of women priests see a female deaconate might eventually make it easier for a future pope to study the possibility of women priests.

LA PAZ (Reuters) - Bolivian President Evo Morales yesterday vowed to hold a run-off election if an audit of a vote count that gave him an outright win turns up evidence of fraud, as he sought to calm a sixth day of protests and international criticism over his disputed re-election to a fourth term.

Morales, already Latin America’s longest-serving president, is the lone survivor of a group of fiery leftist leaders who took office in the previous decade, most of whom have since been replaced by right-leaning governments.

He has overseen a rare period of economic and political stability in South America’s poorest country. But charges of vote-rigging lodged by the opposition and doubts about the legitimacy of the vote raised by official observers threaten to dog his 2020-2025 term and tarnish his reputation as a democrat.

In a speech at a military event, Morales invited countries in the region that have called for him to hold a run-off vote - the United States, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia - to take part in an audit of the official tally.

“Let’s do an audit vote by vote,” Morales said in the coca-growing region of Cochabamba. “I’ll join (the audit). If there’s fraud, the next day we’ll convene a second-round” election, he added in comments broadcast on state TV.

Shortly after Morales spoke, his chief rival in the race Carlos Mesa, a former president, announced his supporters were forming a commission to pressure the international community to not recognise the election’s results.

Brazil, landlocked Bolivia’s biggest trade partner, has already said it would reject Morales’s win until the regional group Organization of American States (OAS) finishes an audit of the vote count that has not yet started.

The European Union and Washingtonbased OAS, both of whom sent observer missions to Bolivia, have also pushed Morales to convene a second-round vote to calm unrest and restore credibility to the election.

Protesters blocked roads in parts of the highland capital of La Paz yesterday, chanting “fraud” and waving Bolivia’s red-yellow-and-red flag as anti-government strikes continued in different cities in the South American country.

‘SCANDALOUS FRAUD’

The country’s embattled electoral board, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and Morales’ government have both denied any foul play and invited the OAS to audit the official tally. But they have not said whether they would accept the OAS’ condition for the audit’s conclusions to be legally binding.

Peru said yesterday that it would take part in the audit at Bolivia’s request, but it called for the process to be carried out respecting Bolivian laws.

The vote count by the TSE at 100% on Friday showed Morales had 47.08% of votes versus Mesa’s 36.51% in a crowded race of nine candidates. That gave him the 10-point lead needed to face Mesa in a Dec. 15 second-round vote, when the opposition would likely rally behind Mesa to defeat Morales.

The TSE sparked an uproar after the election on Sunday when it halted publication of a quick vote count that showed Morales headed to a second-round with Mesa. When the quick count resumed after an outcry, it confirmed Morales’ prediction on Sunday that he would pull off an outright win with the help of rural votes.

Mesa’s campaign has also said that it has found 100,000 votes that should have been annulled due to irregularities but instead swung in Morales’ favor.

“This is a scandalous fraud never seen before. That’s why the people are reacting,” retiree Fredy Salinas, 67, said as he bought vegetables in a market in La Paz. “The people in the government are really shameless.”

Morales said his detractors were “envious” of his achievements and accused the opposition, without providing evidence, of trying to stir up unrest to try to unseat him illegally. “With lies and tricks they’re trying to instigate hatred and racism,” he said.