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The Other Chiapas. Indigenous Clergy Yes, But Celibate PRIESTS ???
From myth to facts. In the Mexican Diocese of Chiapas in the Yucatan.
WWW.CHIESA
[ Emphasis and {commentary} in red type by Abyssum ]
ROME, December 12, 2015 – Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, in Chiapas, where Pope Francis will go in mid-February, is among the many who read the previous article from http://www.chiesa, which was about his diocese:
> The Next Synod Is Already in the Works. On Married Priests
And in respect to what he found written he has sent us additions and corrections of significant interest.
In order to understand their {what Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquvel sent to Sandro Magister} significance one must take a step backward.
During the forty years of the episcopate of Bishop Samuel Ruiz García, from 1959 to 2000, the diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas became a testing ground that was watched from many parts of the world, in view of the creation of a married indigenous clergy. {Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia, like my distant cousin by marriage, Bishop Sergio Méndez Arceo (1952–1982) Bishop of Cuernavaca, whom I visited in 1974, was infamous as a “Red” bishop. One who was in love with Liberation Theology. Sergio Mendez Arceo was sprayed with red paint by Mexican conservatives when he got off the airplane returning from a visit to Fidel Castro.}
The intermediate stage designed to reach the finish faster was the ordination in that diocese of an enormous number of indigenous married deacons, who it was thought might one day be ordained as priests.
But from Rome, in the reign of John Paul II, the experiment was viewed with disfavor. And after a case study entrusted to the major curial dicasteries, on July 20, 2000 the congregation for divine worship and the discipline of the sacraments prohibited the ordination of more deacons {to the permanent diaconate} in the diocese, the latest of which had taken place in January of the same year, at the end of Ruiz García’s long episcopate.
In March, 2000, Bishop Samuel Ruiz García was replaced by new bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel. And the letter sent from Rome to inform him of the ban on continuing along the same path as his predecessor lamented the fact that “in the last 40 years only 8 priests were ordained in the diocese of San Cristóbal de Las Casas, versus more than 400 deacons”:
Today, according to the statistics of the Annuario pontificio, there are still more than 300 deacons in that diocese, while only a few dozen priests are left. And this would lead one to think that things have not changed substantially.
On the contrary, the fact that in May of 2014 the Holy See, in the reign of Francis, revoked the ban on ordaining new deacons and announced an upcoming visit of the pope to that diocese have been interpreted as a green light for the resumption of that experiment, this time with the possibility of truly arriving at the creation of a married indigenous clergy, not only in Chiapas but also in other regions of the world, especially in Latin America.
Bishop Arizmendi Esquivel however writes to us that presenting the upcoming visit of Pope Francis as a form of support for this solution is very “negative” for the diocese. {In other words do not suggest this because you might encourage those around Pope Francis to do exactly that.}
And this is how he explains the reasons:
“We do not want a married clergy. This was considered some time ago, but not today. Our seminary has grown as by an inexplicable grace. Sixteen years ago, in 2000, there were 20 seminarians, today there are 76, almost all from Chiapas, 42 of whom are indigenous, without ideological prejudice concerning celibacy. We already have 8 indigenous priests who are celibate according to the norms. The married deacons have never made it known to me that they aspire to a married priesthood. In 2000 there were 66 priests, the majority of them from other dioceses and religious congregations; today we have 101, with a substantial increase of the local clergy.”
The “shortage of ordained ministers” was the first of the “key issues” that Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini proposed in 1999 for discussion by a Church in a permanent synodal state.
The implied solution was naturally that of setting up a married clergy alongside of the declining celibate clergy.
Chiapas had been, in the last forty years of the twentieth century, the emblem of this shortage of celibate clergy, to be made up for with a flourishing harvest of married and indigenous clergy.
But this is not the case anymore, according to the testimony of the Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, bishop of San Cristóbal de Las Casas. It may be an “inexplicable grace,” but there a celibate and indigenous clergy is in full flower, while what is wilting is the campaign in favor of a married clergy.
What lesson will Pope Francis draw from this? {We must pray that the lesson Pope Francis will draw from this is that Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel must be removed and a new bishop more like Bishop Samuel Ruiz García should be appointed. After his appointment of Archbishop Blase Cupich to Chicago, and his prior removal of Cardinal Burke from the Apostolic Signatura, this is more likely what will happen. Pray that it does not happen !!!}
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English translation by Matthew Sherry, Ballwin, Missouri, U.S.A.
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ABYSSUS ABYSSUM INVOCAT / DEEP CALLS TO DEEP 