OXCHUC, Mexico - A top Vatican envoy told disappointed Indian Catholics that the pope would not reverse a decision to suspend the training of lay Indian deacons in southern Chiapas for five years.
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, head of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops, told the faithful on Sunday that there are too many of the lay workers and not enough priests in the region.
"In all of the other 85 dioceses in Mexico combined there are less deacons than in Chiapas," he said, alluding to the 344 deacons who work in this predominantly Indian region. He did not say how many deacons there are in the entire country.
What is missing, Battista Re said, is an effort to encourage the sons of deacons to study for the priesthood to lessen a shortage of Catholic clergy here.
Battista Re reiterated the church's position after a private meeting with about 40 local deacons, who gave him a letter asking Pope John Paul II to lift the suspension.
Continuing the work of his predecessor, Bishop Samuel Ruiz, San Cristobal Bishop Felipe Arizmendi had aggressively pursued the training of Indian deacons, a key part of the Indigenous Church founded by Ruiz and others that incorporates pre-Hispanic customs of the Mayan Indians.
Many Indian communities do not respect priests, who are celibate, but have higher esteem for married lay workers with families.
But on Feb. 1, the Vatican asked Arizmendi to suspend the program for five years, apparently concerned that the deacons were not supervised closely enough by priests and that married deacons were almost taking on the functions of priests.
Battista Re, one of the pope's top aides, led a procession of about 2,000 Indian Catholics through the streets, danced Mayan dances and then celebrated a Mass in Oxchuc, a small ethnic Tzeltal Indian village 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the Chiapas state capital, San Cristobal de las Casas.
In his homily, he told Indian Catholics, "The Church is with you. Always keep lit the lamps of your faith."
Repeating similar words from the pope during his visit to Mexico in July, Battista Re told the parishioners that the church is aware of the poverty and suffering in many Indian villages.
By staying true to their Indian roots and their Catholic faith, "in this way you can contribute to a more brotherly, just, united Mexico," he said.
On Saturday, the first day of his two-day visit to Mexico, Battista Re asked Arizmendi to find ways to stop the defection of Catholics in the region, many of whom have been lured away by Protestant sects.
"A very intense pastoral labor is needed so that Catholics keep their faith and don't change their religion," he said.
While none of Mexico's 132 Roman Catholic bishops is Indian and relatively few priests speak Indian languages, Protestant groups have spent decades reaching out to the Indian populations, even translating the Bible into obscure Indian languages.
On July 31 and Aug. 1, respectively, the pope declared Mexican Juan Diego the first Indian saint in the Americas and beatified two other Mexican Indians during a pilgrimage aimed at reinforcing the church's appeal to Indians to counter Protestant gains.