A retired bishop who led Brazil’s largest territorial diocese for some 34 years says he’s hoping the 2019 special Synod for the Pan-Amazon region will lead to the ordination of married men to the priesthood and women to the permanent diaconate.
Bishop Erwin Kräutler, an Austrian-born missionary who headed the sprawling Diocese of Xingu in the Brazilian rain forest from 1981-2015, told Kathpress that the “horrendous” priest shortage has left the indigenous people of the Amazon deprived of the Eucharist.
The 78-year-old bishop, who is still secretary of the Brazilian bishops’ commission for the Amazon region, said in an October 19th interview with the Austrian Catholic news agency that this disastrous pastoral situation means 90% of the Catholic faithful in the region could not celebrate the Eucharist regularly.
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