LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald
February 3, 2020
By Ed Condon
Whether he turns his attention to the furthest corner of the Amazon, or to reforming his own curia in Rome, Francis may find that all roads lead through Berlin in 2020
The year 2020 is one month old and already stacked high with expectation for Pope Francis.
The long-awaited McCarrick report is due “early” this year; so too is an expected apostolic exhortation following the Synod on the Amazon. Also on the horizon is a long-trailed but still to be delivered new constitution reforming the Roman curia.
But bubbling under the surface is one question which could ultimately define the whole of Francis’s papacy: what will he do about the Germans?
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The issue of clerical celibacy has been a contested topic in Rome, before and after the Amazon synod. Cardinals Marc Ouellet and Beniamino Stella made public interventions defending the discipline in October. More recently, Cardinal Sarah published a book with contributions from Benedict XVI mounting a resolute defense of the practice.
While official papal spokesmen have underscored Francis’s personal commitment to celibacy, the settled wisdom is that a narrow carve-out for the Amazon might meet with papal approval. But the pope’s freedom to treat the Amazonian question discretely may prove limited.
An end to mandatory celibacy is widely touted as one of the expected outputs of the German synodal process, and the bishops there have been explicit that they would seize on any exception made for the Amazon.
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