■ LifeSite ■ The former primate of Belgium, Archbishop André Léonard, has issued a strong appeal to his “brother bishops,” asking them to join the pope emeritus’s and Cardinal Sarah’s “supplication” to Pope Francis not to create “exceptions” to the principle of priestly celibacy.
The archbishop emeritus of Mechelen-Brussels made his appeal in an open letter published on Friday by the French Catholic bimonthly, L’Homme nouveau, arguing that neither he himself nor Pope Benedict is “interfering” or “failing” their duty of discretion when expressing “theological and pastoral convictions.”
Archbishop Léonard does not only invoke the issue of priestly celibacy, which is at stake in view of the upcoming apostolic exhortation that Pope Francis is expected to publish shortly as his own conclusion to the Amazon Synod. Instead, Léonard lists a number of “ambiguities” related to acts, writings, and declarations by the present pope, ranging from the possibility for divorced and illegitimately remarried Catholics to be allowed to receive absolution and Holy Communion to the statement in the Abu Dhabi Declaration that God “willed” the diversity of religions.
“It is not enough orally to correct the ambiguity of this formulation,” wrote Léonard.
He went on to regret the further “ambiguities” related to “a form of veneration” of the Pachamama at the Amazon Synod, hoping that the upcoming post-synodal exhortation penned by Francis will “dispel” those ambiguities.
In bringing his full support to Cardinal Sarah and the pope emeritus, which he hopes other bishops will share, Archbishop Léonard called on another example by which he created a parallel between their supplication and the formulation of “dubia” by four cardinals about Amoris Laetitia and its “ambiguous aspects.” He does not explicitly recall that those “dubia” never received an answer from Pope Francis.
Clearly, Archbishop Léonard hopes to impulse a wider movement of respectful interpellation of the pope in the hope of preventing any liberalization of the rule of celibacy for priests in the Latin Church.