Organizers of a Vatican meeting on the Amazon defended plans to introduce debate on married priests, saying Thursday the proposal represents the “the voice of the local church” and isn’t an official proposal of the pope. Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri acknowledged the Oct. 6-27 synod on the Amazon has generated criticism, including from cardinals who have accused organizers of making “heretical” proposals in the working document. Pope Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, called the meeting in 2017 to address the ecological, social and spiritual needs of indigenous peoples in the Amazon, where poverty is rampant, isolation hinders the church’s ministry and rapid deforestation is threatening the environment.
