Pope Francis has a lot to say – but none of it on the subjects journalists were expecting A good deal of the early reporting on Querida Amazonia focused on whether the door to “married priests” was open or shut. It’s understandable. The door — so to speak — is one that opens and shuts with a fair degree of regularity.

In any case, Pope Francis’s post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation makes no mention of the specific disciplinary question. It does not even use the word “celibacy” or any of its cognates. Instead, Francis proposes a recovery of attitudes that were standard fare and staples of Catholic life until very recently: prayer for vocations from the laity and bishops who foster generosity of spirit and practice what they preach. CNA’s headline summed it up nicely: “[E]xhortation calls for holiness, not married priests.”

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