Brazilian bishop wants to ordain married community elders as priest shortage grows
BELEM, Brazil – The largest Roman Catholic geographical district in Brazil, located deep in the Amazon along the Xingu River, has more than 800 Catholic congregations but only 27 priests.
Bishop Erwin Krautler, prelate of Xingu, has argued that the situation calls for drastic measures. In April, he took his case to the Vatican, where he met with Pope Francis. Recently, Krautler and Cardinal Claudio Hummes, a friend of Pope Francis, presented the idea of ordaining married community elders to Brazil’s National Conference of Bishops, which is now in the process of forming a commission to delve deeper into the matter.
Krautler said he counted himself among a group of bishops, mostly in the developing world, who see the ordination of such elders as a potential solution for the countless rural congregations that cannot receive the sacraments, including Communion, marriage, and baptism.
“The situation of Xingu is not an exceptional situation,” Krautler said. “All of the Amazon has the same problem of very few fathers for a large number of communities.”
Krautler said Pope Francis has encouraged open dialogue on the issue and urged bishops at the national level to come up with “courageous” proposals to address the priest shortage.
The Brazilian bishop is not the first to propose ordaining married men. Krautler said Fritz Lobinger — retired bishop of Aliwal, in South Africa — put forward the case for ordaining married men in underserved areas.
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