Vatican open to official role for women and married men in Amazon

A document prepared for a meeting at the Vatican on the issue, due to be held in October 2019, suggests examining what "type of official ministry can be conferred on women." The meeting is also expected to discuss a previously-mooted suggestion that older married men could serve as priests in the region.

Pope Francis called the meeting to address a severe shortage of priests in the Amazon basin, which covers more than three million square miles.

The preparatory document, published on Friday, says the resources of the church have been spread too thinly in the region. "One of the main points to be heard is the cry of thousands of communities deprived of the Sunday Eucharist for long periods of time," the document says.

It says the church should not afraid to make "daring proposals."

The document does not specifically mention the proposal to allow married men to be ordained. But asked about the suggestion at Vatican news conference on Friday, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri said: "The Church is not static ... there is possibility of movement," Reuters reported.

Francis is known as a reformer who has sought to modernize the Roman Catholic Church.

He has previously suggested that he would be open to the ordination of married priests in certain circumstances.

But on the issue of the ordination of women, Francis has appeared to put himself squarely on the side of his predecessors.

When asked by a reporter in 2016, Francis cited the declaration of St. John Paul II, adding that "the final word is clear" and "it was said by St. John Paul II and this remains."