My guess is that underlying this discussion is an unspoken fear that celibacy would disappear. It didn’t disappear during the almost half of the life of the Roman rite; it is still alive and well in the Eastern Church, and will continue to be alive and well. Celibacy is a separate and distinct vocation from orders, and for those of us who are old enough to remember, there was a great deal of anticipation among some of the clergy alive and well before Vatican 2, that the Council would allow for married priests; a goodly number of ordained men left the priesthood after it was clear that was not part and parcel of the documents, and asked to be laicized (or didn’t) and married.
The short of that is that men who wanted t be priests had to accept celibacy as part and parcel of being ordained, and the facts post Vatican 2 show that some, if not all of those leaving did not have the vocation to celibacy.
Vatican 2 ended in 1965, and I well remember several “discussions” that year and the next, while I was in college seminary.
The world would not/will not fall apart if permission is given to ordain married men in Brazil; and the same holds true for the rest of the Church. Any married man who seeks ordination is going to have a spouse who will have (name removed by moderator)ut on the matter, just as it is within the ordination f permanent deacons. And if Momma ain’t happy… it won’t occur. Nor is there any reason to presume there would be a massive flood to vocations directors. It is entirely possible that it could be set so that anyone seeking ordination would have to be well into, if not beyond “child bearing age” as well. In other words, no flood of 22 year olds.
And as to the much discussed German Bishops and any request on their part: they may have a dearth of vocations; they also have a dearth of congregants in the pews.
