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Catholic World News News Feature

Vatican caution on Mexican "indigenous priesthood" March 09, 2006

Through a letter sent to the Bishop of San Cristóbal de las Casas, Mexico, the Holy See has called for an end to the so-called “Indigenous Church,” influential especially in southern parts of Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.

The letter to Bishop Felipe Arizmendi Esquivel, is signed by Cardinal Francis Arinze, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship. He deplores the influence of the ideology of the "autoctonous church,” inherited by Bishop Arizmendi from his predecesor, Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia. Cardinal Arinze remarks that the new policy should supress the overreliance on the ordination of permanent deacons in the Mexican diocese.

Bishop Ruiz prevented many different movements and religious orders from being active in the diocese, and seriously discouraged religious vocations to celibate priesthood. Above all, he promoted the massive ordination of permanent deacons, in the expectation that soon the Church would accept married priests, which according to him was better adapted to the vision of an "indigenous" or “autochthonous church.”

The eloquent letter written by Cardinal Arinze, contained in the latest issue of the Notitiae, the bulletin of the dicastery is addressed to Bishop Arizmendi, but its conclusions are extended to other regions such as Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, where a similar “Indian theology” has been spread.