Like rats to the river

The furor over a proposal to let married men act as priests is a fine example of someone shouting "fire" in a packed theater. Everybody reacted instinctively without bothering to check the facts. The rush to condemn without first knowing what there is to condemn resulted in the unfortunate and misdirected criticism of the pope.

But the pope had nothing to do with the proposal. And the proposal was never about allowing married men "to become priests" but merely to let them "act like one." There is a whale of a difference between the two. Even more importantly, the proposal was never about allowing priests to marry. At no time was celibacy ever in the picture.

Here is what actually happened. Two ranking Brazilian members of the Roman Catholic Church, a cardinal and a bishop holding high positions in the Episcopalian Commission for the

Amazon, are getting alarmed by the lack of priests to minister to such a large area of nearly a dozen countries that make up the Amazon basin in South America. They fear that without priests, the Catholics in the region will move to other religions or worse, get swallowed up by paganism again.

To solve the problem, they proposed to Pope Francis that married men be allowed "to act as priests" in order to save what can still be saved of the faithful in the Amazon left without enough shepherds to minister to their faith. They never proposed that priests be allowed to marry. Why would they even think of that when there are not even single priests to go around, hence their alarm.

On hearing the proposal, and like any good father, Pope Francis refused to reject it right off the bat. So this was what the pope did, he told the cardinal and the bishop that he will be allowing the proposal to be included in the agenda for the next synod of bishops from the Amazon basin scheduled in 2019 so it can be discussed at the proper forum.

There. That is what happened. Those are the facts. Pope Francis himself did not make the proposal. The proposal is not to allow married men "to become priests" or to allow priests to marry. The proposal is about letting married men "act as priests" to address a shortage of priests in the Amazon. The proposal does not affect anyone outside of that area. And the proposal is still to be discussed in 2019.

And yet, the way almost everybody reacted, it is as if married priests are already banging at the door, about to kick it in. I really had a great time reading all the reactions based on sheer ignorance of the facts. Some even went too far out on a limb they are already debating on letting priests marry and whether celibacy is divine law.

It would have been so funny if it had not been so tragic -this thing about people setting off in all directions without first knowing why they are setting off in the first place. Thank God the panic button merely triggered mighty but eventually harmless discussions. But what if the matter involved an issue where it becomes necessary to sound a call to arms? Maybe this is why man cannot be left alone to his own devices and must constantly be ministered to by a shepherd.

‘It would have been so funny if it had not been so tragic this thing about people setting off in all directions without first knowing why they are setting off in the first place.’