Pope Francis has a lot to say – but none of it on the subjects journalists were expecting
A good deal of the early reporting on Querida Amazonia focused on whether the door to “married priests” was open or shut. It’s understandable. Indeed it was inevitable after all the time and energy spent on the question — before, during, and after the Amazon synod — by observers and journalists, participants, and synod managers. Nevertheless, the ‘Door Open/Door Shut’ frame of the issue is unhelpful.
The door — so to speak — is one that opens and shuts with a fair degree of regularity. Even in the Latin Church, where there is a tradition of preference for celibate clerics of all ranks and states of life that goes back deep into the first millennium of Christianity. Celibacy for priests and bishops has been the universal discipline of that Church for a thousand years.
