Pope Francis has advocated for the Catholic priests to be given rights to get married following a request made by Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the president of Episcopal Commission for the Amazon.
The request has been put on the agenda for an upcoming synod(church council) in the Amazon region, which has one priest for every 10,000 Catholics.
In an interview with Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper, the pontiff said “We must consider if viri probati is a possibility. Then we must determine what tasks they can perform, for example, in remote communities.
Cardinal Hummes reportedly asked Francis to consider ordaining so-called viri probati, married men of great faith, capable of ministering spiritually to the many remote communities in the Amazon where there is a shortage of priests, and evangelical Christians and pagan sects are displacing Catholicism. He has also suggested that the bishops attending the synod in 2019 on the Amazon, now being prepared in Rome, should consider ordaining women deacons as priests.