Instead, church officials in the Vatican have kept busy barring the doors to Communion for remarried divorcees, preaching against the use of condoms, arguing against liberation theology (whose central concern is the “periphery,” that fuzzy area beyond Europe and the United States where the vast majority of faithful are) and otherwise encouraging Catholics to leave the church in hordes.

Tens of thousands of priests, and nuns, too, have defected from the church in the last 40 years, mostly so they can marry. Few others are springing up to replace them, because they are repelled by the idea of chastity. The lack of priests (and nuns) is now so acute that in parts of traditionally Catholic Mexico the work of the church is left in the hands of deacons (laymen approved by the bishop to carry out certain pastoral duties). In Brazil, in the Xingu, there are 27 priests for 700,000 Catholics in an area the size of Montana. Partly because there is no one to marry, comfort, baptize, and advise them or confess to, tens of millions of Catholics are fleeing to the evangelical sects. Countries like Guatemala may now have an evangelical majority, and in many regions of Latin America the sects are close to pulling even with the traditional Catholic Church.

What if, I asked professor Guzmán Carriquiry, a portly gentleman who, as head of the Vatican’s office for Latin America, is an influential lay member of the Curia, there were a two-tier system, in which some priests chose to marry, while others could choose chastity? Carriquiry narrowed his eyes at me. “All priests who are active today did choose chastity,” he reminded me. (But I am not alone in saying, nor, I suspect, would Carriquiry disagree, that a significant number of the priests in Latin America—and as a reporter I have known many—have been involved in some sort of relationship, gay or straight, and have made no special effort to hide it.)

In Rome, it has to be said, many priests can be found who defend the principle of chastity. “There are rewards,” one such thoughtful priest insisted. Like Echeverry, Father Daniel Gallagher is in his early forties, but unlike his Colombian brother in God, who is poor and ill at ease in Rome, he is an established member of the Curia, and more orthodox in his views. “Chastity is a sacrifice, but it can lead to such a more enriching spiritual experience!” he said. “I always try to communicate that to younger priests and to seminarians. ” But, he acknowledged, “it’s hard.”

“The battle for chastity is endless,” said Echeverry in his unflinching way. “And it gives no quarter. I have stumbled, too. But I’ve often asked myself if all the energy I’ve spent on the effort—physical, psychic, and emotional energy—could have been better used for something else.”

Pragmatic in a crisis, the Vatican looks like it is gearing up to decide that it needs more priests more than it needs chastity. “It is not a question of divine law, in any case,” said Carriquiry. “It can be changed.” And Father Rodríguez pointed out that chastity was not universal for priests until the 16th century. “It can be changed,” he echoed. For his part, Pope Francis has merely said that he could not solve every problem from Rome, that priests in the Eastern Orthodox Church have always married, and that it was up to corajudo (gutsy) bishops to find a way of dealing with the issue. Much as in the United States, one would imagine, it has been left to the states to legalize marijuana piecemeal.

(On the other hand, chastity has always been obligatory for nuns, and this is not likely to change now. And yes, there are indeed women in the Catholic Church—although you wouldn’t know it from spending time with the people who hold power, all male, and who generally paused for a thoughtful and fruitless minute whenever I asked what nun or influential churchwoman I might talk to.)

While the church elaborated on the restrictions governing where and how two adults could have sex, it became gradually apparent that thousands of priests—tens of thousands over the centuries, no doubt—were forcing sex on children under their care. When he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger first brought the old scandal of pederasty into the light. As Benedict XVI, he defrocked 848 priests, and punished 2,572 less severely. But other than appointing yet another commission to study the problem, the Vatican—and Francis—have proposed no new measures. Concretely, there is no hint that they might recognize pederasty as a crime, not a sin, and that priests should be subject to civil court in addition to divine law. It is always worth remembering that Marcial Maciel, founder of the priestly order Legion of Christ, favorite of John Paul II, and a monstrous pederast, embezzler, plagiarist, and drug addict, was ultimately sentenced by the Vatican to a life of “prayer and penance” in a charming house with a garden.

On other fronts Francis has proved more combative. Thoroughgoing financial reform is already under way, and an effective oversight committee for the scandal-ridden Vatican bank is in place, but pederasty is so closely linked to the now fragile finances of the church—in the United States alone victims have reportedly received up to $3 billion, and many parishes have already declared bankruptcy—that one can see why Francis may be wanting to move with feet of lead on the issue.

“May God protect us from the fear of change,” said Francis on his way to his diplomatic visit to the Middle East in May. He was undoubtedly referring to the need for peace in the region, but also to the mess waiting for him back home. Some church rules seem so out of joint with the times that they have been disregarded for decades by parish priests who are not obsessed with the issues Francis calls “from the waist down.” Pope John XXIII, now Saint John XXIII, counseled a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy with regard to birth control, for example. Using the same approach, many divorced Catholics who remarry manage to participate in Catholicism’s central rite regardless. Couples who live together without the marriage sacrament, even in regions where there are no priests, are deemed to be living in sin, but few priests in the periphery have the heart to rain fire and brimstone on such sinners. An extraordinary assembly of world bishops on family life will be held next October—will they formally approve these slips from orthodoxy?

And then there is homosexuality, whose practice caused entire cities to be destroyed by Jehovah in the Bible, and the linked subject of gay marriage. Jorge Mario Bergoglio campaigned against gay marriage in Buenos Aires, but within weeks of his election he uttered his most repeated statement: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?” It would be astonishing if Francis, leader of world Catholicism, ever sanctioned abortion or gay marriage, but he could conceivably admit that gays have had a historically strong presence in the priesthood and have as much right as heterosexuals to accept chastity and take vows.

The greatest changes that have taken place under Francis are not quantifiable. At the Jesuits’ Gregorian University in central Rome, which is Italy’s most prestigious intellectual training center for priests, I asked a professor of sociology, Father Rocco D’Ambrosio, who is also a priest in the poverty-stricken southern region of Puglia, about the impact of Francis.

“I took confession the other day from a woman I’ve known for some time,” he began. “And she had been reading the pope’s exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (Joy of the Gospel). She wanted to talk about it, because a section of it, and something she’d heard him say, had made her start to wonder whether she was bringing enough joy to the people around her.”

D’Ambrosio, a natty man in a herringbone jacket and red glasses, leaned forward. “I have been a priest, and heard confession, for 27 years, and this is the first time anyone has come to me wanting to discuss anything a pope said.”

I read Evangelii Gaudium, too, and found in it the same strange talent for simplicity Francis brings to every public statement. He is able to articulate basic ideals—joy, mercy, forgiveness, honesty, passionate faith, the committed life—that made the gospels such revolutionary and overwhelming texts centuries ago. In a quiet voice (he has been missing part of a lung since his youth, which limits the volume) and with no theatrical flourishes, he asks people to be kind and forgiving toward themselves and others and avoid cynicism. Above all, he tells people that Jesus loves them, is always waiting for them, and has an infinite capacity to forgive.

“I ask myself why I am so shaken,” said Father Spadaro, his interviewer. “And someone said to me, ‘It is because he is preaching the gospel in a very simple way.’”

Giacomo Galeazzi, a reporter at Vatican Insider, a supplement of the Turin-based newspaper La Stampa, put it best. “He’s made my job more fun and more simple,” he said. “Francis makes news because everybody understands what he’s saying. It’s like watching Maradona play: There is that beautiful clarity in his game.”