Although Pope Francis’s highly anticipated document on the Amazon bypasses the hot-button issues of women deacons and married priests, a number of the Pope’s close advisors have said the door is not definitively closed on either front. In his post-synodal apostolic exhortation, Querida Amazonia (Beloved Amazon), Pope Francis appears to leave the question of married priests open-ended, giving neither a clear yes or no.

Instead, he suggests a better distribution of priests in the Amazon and encourages missionary priests in the region to go to more rural areas, while also stressing the need for a priestly formation which better understands and appreciates local cultural traditions. Francis also skipped over the issue of women deacons, warning only against the temptation to “clericalize” women rather than empowering them through leading community roles which better “reflects their womanhood.” In comments to the press, Canadian Michael Czerny said the best way of looking at the Pope’s approach to married priests in the document, given that the October 2019 Synod on the Amazon proposed the ordination of Viri Probati, or tested married men, is that it is “part of a journey.”

“We are at a very important point in the synodal process. There are long roads ahead, as well as roads already traveled,” he said, and on the question of married priests, Francis “has not resolved them in any way beyond he has said in the exhortation.”