Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for end of the discipline of priestly celibacy and the ordination of women as priests and bishops.
At a September 16 meeting with members of an evangelical organization, the president said that “as long as the Catholic Church doesn’t end celibacy and allow women to be priests, to be bishops—allow women to speak, you know?—we’re going to see the Catholic Church face difficulties.”
“We are seeing politicians trying to tell the Church what it should do,” Bishop Devair Araújo da Fonseca of Piracicaba responded in a homily. “They even try to speak about priestly celibacy, when they ought to be looking after the country. And they are doing a very poor job of it.”