Julio Algañaraz
02/13/2020 - 9:39
- Clarín.com
- World
In his Apostolic Exhortation that concluded the Synod of the Amazon, which was to consecrate some important dreams of the progressives of the Church, the Pope produced the most important and spectacular stop of his almost seven years of the pontificate. He denied the ecclesial changes that he himself had promoted to an assembly of bishops that seemed destined to be a model of reformism and the openings of his pontificate of almost seven years.
With a gigantic virtual cut Francisco canceled the experience of granting the priesthood to married deacons , who are very few in the vast Amazon, requested by two thirds of the synod bishops in the sessions of the final document presented by the bishops October.
The “no” was extended to women , denying them ministries to at least raise them to the altars to help in the masses, read the Gospels and distribute the hosts among the faithful. He also silenced in the revival of the commission for the female diaconate, which is on a dead track.
Conservatives rightly sing victory. The Pope, of course, eluded to go ahead and collide with the menacing resistance of the traditionalists, aware that the majority of the 5 thousand bishops of the world were against married priests even if they were restricted to the Amazonian sphere.
“It is a document of reconciliation,” celebrates Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, a former important guardian of orthodoxy who was not renewed by the Pope two years ago. Mueller since then is the true leader of the conspiracy against the Pope . He said that Francisco's conciliatory announcement with his adversaries "will help prevent internal factions from forming and reduce manifest opposition."
The abandonment of the reformist experience in Amazonia disappoints the liberals, rages the progressives, ignites the militant Catholic women and, above all, causes great relief to the conservatives.
The American anti-business activist Thomas Rettier writes from the United States: “ Deo Gratias . The Holy Spirit has saved the Church. ”
Many remember that the idea of the Amazonian Synod was of the group around Brazilian cardinal Claudio Hummes, who was bishop of St. Paul and "minister" in the Vatican. His friend Jorge Bergoglio enthusiastically assumed his ideas , encouraged discussion about the promotion to the priesthood of the elder community leaders and their insertion in the Synod debate. Francisco also authorized that the matter be explicitly included in the Instrumentum Laboris distributed before the Synod.
It is unreasonable to believe that the 169 Synod Fathers voted for two thirds of this issue, making it more passable by demanding that the candidates be already married deacons, without the Pope being aware and supporting the experience. No one heard any perplexity.
Jorge Bergoglio told Amazon bishops who asked him about the issue at the beginning of his term that it was they themselves who had to raise the exceptional admission of married priests in the Amazon area to alleviate the enormous lack of priests in the vast space of 7 million square kilometers where many of its 35 million inhabitants lived in isolated communities and saw a priest sometimes once a year, so they did not receive the Eucharist.
In the Spanish site "Digital Religion", which has sustained the Argentine Pope in his reform efforts, José María Castillo attempts a justification. “Francisco has made the decision that he could. The decision that can cause less damage to the Church at this time and how things are. And that decision is to keep the Church together , avoiding the threatening schism. A divided Church is a more dangerous threat than a Church in which the fundamentalist clericalism continues to have too much force. ”
Pope Francis / DPA
Another specialist, the Italian professor Daniele Menozzi reflects: “At this moment the ecclesiastical balances do not consent to make the changes that have been requested. It is probably the finding that the Pope has reached the maximum limit of his government . ”
In the German Church, committed to its own synodal path from which avant-garde initiatives begin to be launched, such as the female priesthood, optional celibacy, extraordinary ecumenical steps of integration with the Protestants, a wave of disappointment and skepticism spread. It is no accident that Cardinal Reinhard Marx, one of the promoters of the German synod, a close collaborator of the Pope in the reforms of the Vatican Curia, announced on Wednesday that he will not present himself for re-election as president of the German episcopate. "Let us give way to the young generations," he said without convincing that this is the real reason for his announced retirement.
Some analysts believe that Cardinal Marx has understood that the reformism of the current pontificate has entered a phase of stagnation .
Vatican, correspondent