Word: proprio
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Janitors. There are still many problems for the diaconate to overcome. The program is already far more adventurous than the document that outlined it in its modern form. Pope Paul's 1967 motu proprio (directive given "by his own hand") envisioned the diaconate as a substitute ministry where priests were in short supply. It is the motu proprio that demands, somewhat unrealistically, that unmarried deacons take lifetime vows of celibacy; as a result, few single men have applied. Most of the married deacons resent the Pope's ruling that a widowed deacon cannot remarry, even though that ruling...
More significant, Paul also issued a motu-proprio-a decree by his own hand-that barred women from formal investiture in even such minor roles in the ministry as lector (reader) and acolyte (assistant at Mass and other services). They have performed these functions extensively, if unofficially, since Vatican II and presumably will continue to do so. In a separate decree the Pope reaffirmed mandatory celibacy for deacons who are not married at the time of ordination or who become widowers...
...text had been written and edited, and official translations from the Latin approved. In fact, Pope Paul's long-awaited motu proprio* on birth control was already rolling off the presses in a secret section of the Vatican's printing office. Last week, just before the statement was to be made public, it was suddenly scrapped...
According to Vatican sources, the motu proprio would have overruled and ignored the findings of the pontifical birth-control commission, which recommended by a 4-to-1 majority that the church relax its traditional opposition to contraception (TIME, April 28, 1967). In its final form, the Pope's pronouncement would have outlawed any mechanical or chemical form of birth control, including the Pill. In effect, it would have held the church to the judgment on procreation handed down by Pope Pius XI in 1930-that "any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that...
Limiting Speeches. The papal Motu Proprio predictably decreed that all public sessions will take place in St. Peter's, where bleachers are now being built in the nave, and that the official language of the council would be Latin (translators will be on hand to help prelates through verbal thickets). Other procedural decisions: Council members will be forbidden to leave Rome without written permission from the presidential council. Clerics who wish to speak on the floor will present written requests to the presiding cardinal, then wait their turn. "Church fathers," the booklet noted, "are requested to limit their speeches...