Vatican seeks ‘courageous’ ideas to combat priest shortage

Vatican City • The Vatican called Friday for courageous proposals to cope with a shortage of priests in the Amazon and said it wouldn’t rule out debate on whether married men could step in to fill the “precariously thin presence” of the Catholic Church in the vast region.In a preparatory document seeking input from South American bishops for the Vatican’s 2019 meeting on the Amazon, organizers also said the church must identify new “official ministries” f