Can Married Priests Help Save the Amazon?

Last week, The New York Times reported that Pope Francis had "open[ed] the door to limited ordination of married men as priests." Specifically, in trying to meet the pastoral needs of the Pan-Amazon region, including remote communities in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela, the Vatican mentioned in a planning document that the Church may start ordaining married or elderly viri probati, the Latin term for men of proven character. "It is the kind of exception to the celibacy requirement that church experts say—and church traditionalists worry—could be a step toward the ordination of married men in other areas of the world," reporter Jason Horowitz wrote.

Any move to chip away at clerical celibacy, mandated since the twelfth century, is potentially a major step in the Church's history. It's also another source of controversy for a pontiff who has attracted both praise and condemnation for his efforts to make Catholicism a more welcoming and accommodating faith. Given the likely pushback and its potentially momentous implications, one might wonder why Pope Francis decided to compromise on this mainstay of canon law merely to reach a little further into the sparsely populated Latin American rainforest. While early coverage made much of the move as a way to help the Catholic Church compete with evangelical Protestantism, the shift arguably has as much to do with the needs of underserved individuals in remote areas, as well as broader theological points Pope Francis has made about protecting the environment, and the Amazon in particular. All three reasons have political implications—something Francis is uniquely equipped to appreciate.