Pope Francis considers lifting celibacy requirement for priests due to shortage

As the Catholic Church struggles to address a growing clergy shortage, Pope Francis has an unexpected plan in place to address the slide.

Pope Francis has urged South American bishops to speak “courageously” at a high-profile meeting on the Amazon, where the shortage of priests is so acute that the Vatican is considering ordaining married men and giving women official church ministries. 

Francis opened the work of the three-week synod, or meeting of bishops, after indigenous leaders, missionary groups and a handful of bishops chanted and performed native dances in front of the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Led in procession by the pope, the bishops then headed to the synod hall to chart new ways for the Catholic Church to better minister to remote indigenous communities and care for the rainforest they call home.

Among the most contentious proposals on the agenda is whether married elders could be ordained priests, a potentially revolutionary change in church tradition given Roman Rite Catholic priests take a vow of celibacy.

The proposal is on the table because indigenous Catholics in remote parts of the Amazon can go months without seeing a priest or receiving the sacraments, threatening the very future of the church and its centuries-old mission to spread the faith in the region.

Another proposal calls for bishops to identify new “official ministries” for women, though priestly ordination for them is off the table. Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the retired archbishop of Sao Paulo and the lead organiser of the synod, said the priest shortage had led to an “almost total absence of the Eucharist and other sacraments essential for daily Christian life.”

It will be necessary to define new paths for the future, he said, calling the proposal for married priests and ministries for women one of the six “core issues” that the synod bishops must address.

The church lives on the Eucharist, and the Eucharist is the foundation of the church, he said, citing St. John Paul II.

Francis opened the meeting by extolling native cultures and urging bishops to respect their histories and traditions as they discern ways to better spread the faith.

History’s first Latin American pope has long held enormous respect for indigenous peoples, and denounced how they are exploited, marginalised and treated as second-class citizens and “barbarians” by governments and corporations that extract timber, gold and other natural resources from their homes.