From Edward Pentin in the National Catholic Register:

Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider have issued an eight-page declaration warning against six “serious theological errors and heresies” they say are contained in the Amazonian Synod working document, and calling for prayer and fasting to prevent them being approved.

Cardinal Burke, patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta, and Bishop Schneider, auxiliary of Astana, Kazakhstan, have also published the appeal so Pope Francis may “confirm his brethren in the faith by an unambiguous rejection of the errors” in the working document.

They propose that clergy and laity “pray daily at least one decade of the Holy Rosary and to fast once a week” for such intentions over a 40 day period, from Sept. 17 to Oct. 26.

The working document, called an instrumentum laboris, is meant to guide discussions during the upcoming Oct. 6-27 synod of bishops whose theme is: Amazonia, New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology.

But the text has received some trenchant criticism since it was published in June from “various prelates and lay commentators, as well as lay institutions.” Most notably they include Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, and Cardinal Gerhard Müller. prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

One particularly contentious area concerns the subject of priestly celibacy. In their declaration, Cardinal Burke and Bishop Schneider ask that the Pope not approve the “abolition” of priestly celibacy in the Latin Church through the ordination of married men of proven virtue, the so-called “viri probati”.

The working document proposes discussion of such a measure to help bring the Eucharist to faithful in remote Amazon areas that are without a priest. Critics are concerned about such an innovation, in particular that it could undermine mandatory priestly celibacy universally by being latterly applied to all areas suffering from a shortage of priestly vocations.