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Pope Dismisses Proposal to Ordain Married Men as Priests in Amazon

Reuters

   VATICAN CITY - Pope Francis, in one of the most significant decisions
   of his papacy, on Wednesday dismissed a proposal to allow some married
   men to be ordained in the Amazon region to ease an acute scarcity of
   priests.

   The recommendation, put forward by Latin American bishops last year,
   had alarmed conservatives in the deeply polarized 1.3 billion-member
   Roman Catholic Church, who feared it could lead to a change in the
   centuries-old commitment to celibacy among priests.

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