Pope to abolish celibacy?

BREAKING: Pope Francis opens door to abolish priestly celibacy according to leaked Amazon Synod doc

Pope Francis’ post-synodal exhortation of the Amazon Synod will abolish celibacy, according to several bishops who have leaked the document.

ROME, January 31, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Catholic historian Roberto de Mattei is claiming, based on documents he has received from “several bishops,” that Pope Francis’ post-synodal exhortation of the Amazon Synod will open the door to abolishing priestly celibacy in the Latin church.

According to documents obtained by Corrispondenza Romana, the apostolic exhortation, due for release in February, substantially reproduces a paragraph dedicated to priestly celibacy in the synod’s final document.


De Mattei argues that the essential reproduction of this text in the apostolic exhortation (its final form is not yet known) effectively “opens the door” for the German Bishops, and others, to create a married clergy. “There is no reason to prohibit in other regions of the world what will be permitted in some parts of the Amazon,” he writes.

Benedict XVI and Cardinal Robert Sarah have co-authored a new book on priestly celibacy, taking a firm stand against the priestly ordination of married men in the Latin Church.

In the work, Benedict XVI writes:

The ability to renounce marriage in order to place oneself totally at the Lord’s disposal is a criterion for the priestly ministry. As for the concrete form of celibacy in the ancient Church, it should also be pointed out that married men could only receive the sacrament of Holy Orders if they had committed themselves to sexual abstinence, that is to say, to a Josephite marriage. Such a situation seems to have been quite normal during the first centuries

his statement echoes his reaffirmation of the sacred meaning and obligatory character of priestly celibacy, in his 2007 post-apostolic exhortation on the Eucharist, Sacramentum Caritatis:

“In union with the great ecclesial Tradition, with the Second Vatican Council and my Predecessors in the Petrine Ministry, I affirm the beauty and the importance of a priestly life lived in celibacy as an expressive sign of total and exclusive dedication to Christ, to the Church and to the Kingdom of God, and consequently confirm its obligatory character for the Latin tradition” (n. 24).”

In a recent interview on their co-authored book, Cardinal Robert Sarah has also asserted:

Priestly celibacy is not a simple canonical discipline. If the law of celibacy is weakened, even for a single region, it will open a breach, a wound in the mystery of the Church. There is an ontological-sacramental link between the priesthood and celibacy. This link reminds us that the Church is a mystery, a gift from God that does not belong to us. We cannot create a priesthood for married men without damaging the priesthood of Jesus Christ and His Bride, the Church. (Synod on the Amazon, final document, n. 111)

Here below is an English translation of Prof. Roberto de Mattei’s article, published this evening in Rome.