• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Bishop Robert Barron
          • George Weigel
          • Question Corner
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Suzanna Molino Singleton
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Paul McMullen
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Father T. Austin Murphy Jr.
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • Advertising
  • CR Radio
  • Printing
  • Subscribe
Copies of Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation, "Querida Amazonia" (Beloved Amazonia), are pictured at a news conference for the release of the exhortation at the Vatican Feb. 12, 2020. The document contains the pope's conclusions from the 2019 Synod of Bishops for the Amazon. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Pope shares his ‘dreams’ for Amazon region, its Catholic community

Cindy Wooden February 12, 2020
By Cindy Wooden
Filed Under: Arts & Culture, Environment, Feature, News, Vatican, World News

Pope Francis accepts offertory gifts from indigenous people as he celebrates the concluding Mass of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon at the Vatican in this Oct. 27, 2019, file photo. The Vatican on Feb. 12 released the pope’s apostolic exhortation, “Querida Amazonia” (Beloved Amazonia), which offers his conclusions from the synod. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Francis said he dreams of an Amazon region where the rights of the poor and indigenous are respected, local cultures are preserved, nature is protected, and the Catholic Church is present and active with “Amazonian features.”

In his apostolic exhortation “Querida Amazonia” (Beloved Amazonia), Pope Francis made no mention of the idea of ordaining married men to the priesthood so that far-flung Catholic communities would have regular access to the Eucharist.

Instead, he said “every effort should be made to ensure that the Amazonian people do not lack this food of new life and the sacrament of forgiveness.”

“A specific and courageous response is required of the church” to meet the needs of Catholics, he said, without dictating what that response would be.

However, Pope Francis opened the document saying he wanted “to officially present the final document” of October’s Synod of Bishops for the Amazon. The final document asked for criteria to be drawn up “to ordain as priests suitable and respected men of the community with a legitimately constituted and stable family, who have had a fruitful permanent diaconate and receive an adequate formation for the priesthood, in order to sustain the life of the Christian community through the preaching of the word and the celebration of the sacraments in the most remote areas of the Amazon region.”

Speaking about the final document, Pope Francis wrote that the synod “profited from the participation of many people who know better than myself or the Roman Curia the problems and issues of the Amazon region.”

Having a church with “Amazonian features,” he said, also will require greater efforts to evangelize, official recognition of the role women have and continue to play in the region’s Catholic communities, a respect for popular forms of piety and greater efforts to inculturate the Catholic faith in Amazonian cultures.

In the document, Pope Francis did not mention the theft during the synod of wooden statues of a pregnant woman, usually referred to by the media as “pachamama” or described as a symbol of life and fertility by synod participants.

But he insisted, “Let us not be quick to describe as superstition or paganism certain religious practices that arise spontaneously from the life of peoples.”

The pope devoted several long passages to the theme of “inculturation,” the process by which the faith becomes “incarnate” in a local culture, taking on local characteristics that are in harmony with the faith and giving the local culture values and traits that come from the universal church.

Pope Francis holds a plant presented during the offertory during the concluding Mass of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon at the Vatican in this Oct. 27, 2019, file photo. The Vatican on Feb. 12 released the pope’s apostolic exhortation, “Querida Amazonia” (Beloved Amazonia), which offers his conclusions from the synod. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) 

“There is a risk,” he said, “that evangelizers who come to a particular area may think that they must not only communicate the Gospel but also the culture in which they grew up.”

Instead, he said, “what is needed is courageous openness to the novelty of the Spirit, who is always able to create something new with the inexhaustible riches of Jesus Christ.”

One of the characteristics of many Catholic communities in the Amazon, he wrote, is that, in the absence of priests, they are led and sustained by “strong and generous women, who, undoubtedly called and prompted by the Holy Spirit, baptized, catechized, prayed and acted as missionaries.”

While the idea of ordaining women deacons was mentioned at the synod, it was not included in the bishops’ final document.

In his exhortation, Pope Francis said the idea that women’s status and participation in the church could come only with ordination “would lead us to clericalize women, diminish the great value of what they have already accomplished and subtly make their indispensable contribution less effective.”

Instead, he called for including women in roles “that do not entail holy orders,” but that are stably established, publicly recognized and include “a commission from the bishop” and a voice in decision making.

Peppered with poetry praising the region’s beauty or lamenting its destruction, much of the document looks at the exploitation of the Amazon region’s indigenous communities and poor inhabitants and the destruction of its natural resources.

“The Amazon region has been presented as an enormous empty space to be filled, a source of raw materials to be developed (and) a wild expanse to be domesticated,” the pope wrote. “None of this recognizes the rights of the original peoples; it simply ignores them as if they did not exist or acts as if the lands on which they live do not belong to them.”

The destruction of the forest, the polluting of the Amazon River and its tributaries and the disruption and contamination of the land by mining industries, he said, further impoverish the region’s poor, increase the chances that they will become victims of trafficking and destroy their communities and cultures, which are based on a close and care-filled relationship with nature.

“The inescapable truth is that, as things stand, this way of treating the Amazon territory spells the end for so much life, for so much beauty, even though people would like to keep thinking that nothing is happening,” Pope Francis wrote.

Yet, he said, “from the original peoples, we can learn to contemplate the Amazon region and not simply analyze it, and thus appreciate this precious mystery that transcends us. We can love it, not simply use it, with the result that love can awaken a deep and sincere interest. Even more, we can feel intimately a part of it and not only defend it.”

– – –

Copyright ©2020 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

 

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Cindy Wooden

Cindy Wooden

Catholic News Service is a leading agency for religious news. Its mission is to report fully, fairly and freely on the involvement of the church in the world today.

View all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

Latest Local News

Deacon Davis, who served Overlea parish for decades, dies at 84

Archdiocese of Baltimore plans ‘Safe Haven Sunday’ to fight pornography

Pasadena parish cites pandemic in decision to close preschool

Father Snouffer, information technology trailblazer for archdiocese, dies at 83

‘Blessing bags’ a focal point for merged St. Casimir Parish during pandemic

Latest World News

Health care chaplains in Baltimore and beyond embrace self-care in COVID-19 work

Religious order withdraws request to transfer founder’s remains to U.S.

Heroes of love: New pathway open for future saints

Bishops: If passed, Equality Act will ‘discriminate against people of faith

Cardinal prays on CNN program marking 500,000 COVID-19 deaths in U.S.

Catholic Review Radio

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Archbishop Lori reflects on the Year of St. Joseph
  • Health care chaplains in Baltimore and beyond embrace self-care in COVID-19 work
  • Religious order withdraws request to transfer founder’s remains to U.S.
  • Deacon Davis, who served Overlea parish for decades, dies at 84
  • Reason for celibacy/ Blessing for non-sacramental marriage?
  • Archdiocese of Baltimore plans ‘Safe Haven Sunday’ to fight pornography
  • Heroes of love: New pathway open for future saints
  • Some English Catholics object to transfer of nun’s remains to Philadelphia
  • Bishops: If passed, Equality Act will ‘discriminate against people of faith
  • Pandemic Stories (or why there’s a Nerf gun in the tub)

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2021 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED