Querida Amazonia a Call to Living Prophetically
Calling for a greater appreciation of cultural diversity and the role of laity, especially women in the Church, Pope Francis released his…
Calling for a greater appreciation of cultural diversity and the role of laity, especially women in the Church, Pope Francis released his latest Apostolic Exhortation: “Querida Amazonia” [Dear Amazon]
Writing to all from the environmentalists to the Western cultural and political leaders and everyone in between, the pontiff calls Catholics to be a force of holiness that counter the powers of consumerism and over development.
Pope Francis, who also previously authored environmental friendly Laudato Si, explains that the bioma of the Amazon, the locus of the letter, not only needs to be respected, it has to be listened to with the same attitude as to the poor who live among it.
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He warned against an ecology and a ministry that sees only one culture as relevant. The pontiff teaches that the Catholic faith expressed within the different cultures is of the Holy Spirit. The uniform understanding of the faith that disparages different cultures and environments is not the will of God.
There is a risk 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, failing to realize that it is not essential “to impose a specific cultural form, no matter how beautiful or ancient it may be”. 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. (#69)
The pontiff voices a strong political attitude that the Church maintains against a homogenized, one-world, political entity and against the consumerism and other modern political attitudes present in our current Western civilization.
Like all cultural realities, the cultures of the interior Amazon region have their limits. Western urban cultures have them as well. Factors like consumerism, individualism, discrimination, inequality, and any number of others represent the weaker side of supposedly more developed cultures. (#36)
His words reiterated the call to see humanity as part of creation, albeit, the greatest of God’s achievements and to understand humanity within the context of this creation.
Expected to promote married priests and woman deacons, Pope Francis maintained the current doctrine on ordination but brought out the more Latino understanding of a laity actively involved in the mission of the Church. He cited, for example, a common reality among Latino cultures of the powerful role of baptized men and women in every day Church life where priests are rare.
Consequently, it is not simply a question of facilitating a greater presence of ordained ministers who can celebrate the Eucharist. That would be a very narrow aim, were we not also to strive to awaken new life in communities. We need to promote an encounter with God’s word and growth in holiness through various kinds of lay service that call for a process of education — biblical, doctrinal, spiritual and practical — and a variety of programmes of ongoing formation.(#93)
He also emphasized the traditional Latino role of women in the Church endemic in Central and South America including the Amazon region. It is one of powerful community leadership from the laity that complements the role of the priest. Contrary to a more western approach which sees the woman as the subservient to the priestly role, the pope recognizes the powerful visonary work of women along side the priest to bring the message of Jesus Christ to the community and world.
In the Amazon region, there are communities that have long preserved and handed on the faith even though no priest has come their way, even for decades. This could happen because of the presence of strong and generous women who, undoubtedly called and prompted by the Holy Spirit, baptized, catechized, prayed and acted as missionaries. For centuries, women have kept the Church alive in those places through their remarkable devotion and deep faith. Some of them, speaking at the Synod, moved us profoundly by their testimony.(#99)
Warning against a new form of clericalism that exists when we define ministry only in the ordained, he emphasized further that all the consecrated, ordained and laity have powerful gifts to offer the Church and that they should be encouraged. He especially addressed the women:
We must keep encouraging those simple and straightforward gifts that enabled women in the Amazon region to play so active a role in society, even though communities now face many new and unprecedented threats. The present situation requires us to encourage the emergence of other forms of service and charisms that are proper to women and responsive to the specific needs of the peoples of the Amazon region at this moment in history. In a synodal Church, those women who in fact have a central part to play in Amazonian communities should have access to positions, including ecclesial services, that do not entail Holy Orders and that can better signify the role that is theirs. Here it should be noted that these services entail stability, public recognition and a commission from the bishop. This would also allow women to have a real and effective impact on the organization, the most important decisions and the direction of communities, while continuing to do so in a way that reflects their womanhood.(#102)
If there was a theme that could be found from front to back, it was not about changing the Church or changing Church doctrine, it was rather centered on the Church’s Gospel message in light of her preferential option to the poor. The pope delineated it in warning against the powers of development that dehumanize in the name of progress.
The powerful are never satisfied with the profits they make, and the resources of economic power greatly increase as a result of scientific and technological advances. For this reason, all of us should insist on the urgent need to establish “a legal framework which can set clear boundaries and ensure the protection of ecosystems… otherwise, the new power structures based on the techno-economic paradigm may overwhelm not only our politics, but also freedom and justice” If God calls us to listen both to the cry of the poor and that of the earth, then for us, “the cry of the Amazon region to the Creator is similar to the cry of God’s people in Egypt (cf. Ex 3:7). It is a cry of slavery and abandonment pleading for freedom”. (#52)
Drawing on many resources, including the synod working document and his own writings in Laudato Si, the pope reflects the call to eliminate the model of a Church run by a small group of ordained men while others are along for the ride. Instead, he calls all to embrace their baptismal call as Catholics, to listen to the environment, to be mindful of the poor and to challenge the political and cultural powers of so called progress as they evangelize the world.
Although, I believe the encyclical should be studied in every parish, I am sure most will dismiss it as something that does not apply to them because they do not live in the Amazon and others may not even know the document exists. However, an exercise in study and discussion will be quite fruitful for Catholic communities especially in the Western nations. The pope criticizes them most for their so called progress in technology that distances all people away from God’s creation and the Spirit speaking to us.
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