Posts Tagged ‘Viri probati’

Amazon bishops let down by Pope’s response to lay assistance

Monday, July 15th, 2024
Amazon bishops

Amazon bishops did their best to offer the Pope fresh ideas at the 2019 Amazon Synod – just as he asked for, Bishop Erwin Kräutler says. Pope Francis provokes “an insane hope” he says. Hope of reform. Hope that may remain unfulfilled. “I am one of those people who – as Pope Francis says – Read more

Pope backflips on female deacons?

Thursday, May 23rd, 2024
female deacons

Pope Francis seems to have changed his mind about female deacons. This week, in a CBS TV interview, he explained that ordaining women has never been on his agenda, but non-ordained female deacons could be. Female diaconate supported In February, one of Francis’ theological advisers, Sr Linda Pocher, said while the Church wasn’t considering women’s Read more

Choosing voluntary celibacy or marriage “does not touch the priesthood in itself”

Thursday, February 24th, 2022
https://www.ncronline.org/sites/default/files/styles/article_full_width/public/20200825T0930-GERMANY-BISHOPS-PARISHES-1004100%20c.jpg?itok=TtZwDrMf

Voluntary celibacy or marriage – the call for priests to be able to choose which state they prefer is growing stronger in Germany. German bishops’ conference president Bishop Georg Bätzing (pictured) and Archbishop Ludwig Schick have added their support to Cardinal Reinhard Marx who spoke strongly in favour of voluntary celibacy at the beginning of Read more

Why the pope said no to married priests

Monday, September 7th, 2020

Lack of prayerful discernment is the reason Pope Francis said no to the Amazon synod’s suggestion that the Catholic Church should allow priests to be married. The question of addressing a priest shortage in the Amazon by ordaining older, mature and married men (viri probati) from local communities was one of the issues raised at Read more

The problem with ordaining Viri Probati, ‘men of proven virtue’

Thursday, May 28th, 2020
shaping the assembly

It seems that every few months we begin talking again about the chronic shortage of presbyters in the many parts of the Catholic world today. Then someone suggests the ordination of suitable married men, Viri Probati. But after some discussion, a solidly based argument (not based on dubious notions of ritual purity) is presented: how Read more

Door still open on married priests, women deacons

Monday, February 17th, 2020

The door is still open on married priests and women deacons. Although Pope Francis’s exhortation on the Amazon bypasses making decisions about women deacons and married priests, there is still room to move, say number of the pope’s close advisors. In the post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Querida Amazonia (Beloved Amazon), Pope Francis released last week , Read more

Pope Francis slams those who exploit Amazon region

Thursday, February 13th, 2020

A new document by Pope Francis slams countries and companies exploiting the Amazon region and calls on the Catholic Church to find new paths and methods to minister to its indigenous people. But those new paths do not include the ordination of married men to the priesthood in the region. The document, called “Querida Amazonia” Read more

Vatican guidelines for priests’ children released from secrecy

Thursday, February 13th, 2020

Vatican guidelines for the way the Church should treat children of priests have been released after after a meeting with Vincent Doyle, a prominent campaigner on the issue. Doyle, whose father was a priest, is a member of  Coping International, an organisation that campaigns for the rights of priests’ children. Although the guidelines are not Read more

Married priests, a female diaconite and a new rite

Thursday, October 31st, 2019

Three issues coming out of the Amazon synod’s final document include ordaining married men to the priesthood, the female diaconate and creating an Amazonian Rite. Two-thirds of the 180 bishops at the synod approved all the 140-paragraph document’s findings, which they voted on paragraph by paragraph. One of the document’s main focuses further including laity Read more

Ordained elders not married priests

Thursday, October 10th, 2019

It is amazing what a synod can do for a person. German Bishop Fritz Lobinger, a 90-year-old retired missionary bishop in South Africa, has suddenly become the talk of Rome. Lobinger’s idea of ordained elders in order to provide local communities regular access to the sacraments has been the root of discussions about “married priests” Read more