Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, have co-authored a book on the crisis in the Church and on priestly ministry.

From the Depths of Our Hearts will be published in English by Ignatius Press. It can now be pre-ordered, and it is due to ship Feb. 20.

The work “is not just about priestly celibacy, important as that is in itself,” Fr. Joseph Fessio, founder and editor of Ignatius Press, said. “It is about, as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI describes it in his first paragraph: ‘the lasting crisis that the priesthood has been going through for many years.’ But it is about more than that; it is about the nature of the Church and of Christian discipleship….”

The publisher added that the book is in part a response “to calls for refashioning the priesthood, including proposals from the Amazonian Synod.”

Some voices at the October 2019 synod made a case for the priestly ordination of married men in the Amazon region, ostensibly as a response to a lack of vocations….

Cardinal Sarah, along with Cardinal Peter Turkson and others, had urged from the synod floor that the Church’s discipline of priestly celibacy in the Amazon region be maintained.

Priestly celibacy has also been questioned by the “binding synodal process” undertaken by the Church in Germany….

The above comes from a Jan. 12 story on the Catholic News Agency website.