The question of addressing a priest shortage in the Amazon by ordaining older, mature and married men (viri probati) from local communities was one of the issues raised at the 2019 Synod of Bishops on the Amazon.

The Synod's primary purpose was to discuss pastoral strategies for evangelization, catechesis, and pastoral care in the region, which spans several South American countries, and is beset by social, economic, and environmental challenges.

Notes from the pope that were included in an article published last week reveal his thinking about married priests.

"There was a discussion ... a rich discussion ... a well-founded discussion, but no discernment, which is something different than just arriving at a good and justified consensus or at a relative majority," Francis said.

Francis said prayerful discernment became impossible because debate became a parliamentary-style battle between different sides.

Synods of bishops should be opportunities for prayerful reflection, not parliamentary lobbying, he said.

A synod is a "spiritual exercise," a period for discernment of how the Holy Spirit is speaking, and for self-examination regarding the motive beyond positions.

"Walking together means dedicating time to honest listening, capable of making us reveal and unmask (or at least to be sincere) the apparent purity of our positions and to help us discern the wheat that - up to the Parousia - always grows among the weeds."

"Whoever has not realized this evangelical vision of reality exposes themselves to useless bitterness. Sincere and prayerful listening shows us the 'hidden agendas' called to conversion."

After the synod, Francis published his response, in the form of an apostolic exhortation titled Querida Amazonia.

In this, he avoided any reference to married priests. However, he called for missionary clergy to be sent to the Amazon, and for bishops to promote prayers for priestly vocations.

He endorsed the bishops' final document where 128 voted in favour of ordaining married deacons in remote regions, and 41 voted against. It meant that while married priests are off the table in the short term, it remains a live possibility.

"I like to think that, in a certain sense, the synod is not over. This time of welcoming the whole process that we have lived challenges us to continue walking together and to put this experience into practice."

These and other comments suggest the door is not closed on future reforms.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• The Tablet
• Image: TerryIvy.com

The document, which follows October's Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, is highly anticipated for how the pope will respond to the recommendation to allow the ordination of married men to the priesthood for ministry in the region.

The synod's final document had also called for women to be considered for diaconal ordination and contained strong appeals on environmental issues and the rights of indigenous peoples, which Francis' letter is also expected to address. Read more

"I, Andrew Raymond Wadsworth, do not wish to belong to the new idolatrous Pachamama Church currently being brought into being," he said on a Facebook post on October 26.

Wadsworth's reference is to the wooden statues showing an indigenous pregnant woman, termed "Pachamama," a goddess revered in the Andes.

The wooden statue was presented to Pope Francis as "Our Lady of the Amazon" and was later stolen and thrown into the Tiber river.

Wadsworth's Facebook post also came with a picture of Jesus on a throne inscribed with "Christus Vincit. Christus Regnat. Christus Imperat" ("Christ conquers. Christ reigns. Christ commands.")

"Is anyone else fed up with these sickening scenes of pagan worship, seemingly organized daily by Canadian Anglican priest in Santa Maria in Traspontina?" said an October 20 post on Wadsworth's account.

The post was accompanied by a photo of indigenous people in the Rome church.

"I am appalled that the Carmelites permit this sacrilege in their church," the post said.

"This is not Christianity but dangerous devil worship. Kyrie Eleison!"

Wadsworth's Facebook account has subsequently been made private.

Wadsworth works for the 11 English speaking bishops' conferences where English is used in the liturgy.

His social medial comments and criticisms of the use of indigenous symbols used at the Amazon synod call into question his impartiality as the lead official in charge of carrying out the English-speaking bishops' wishes on the liturgy, comments Christopher Lamb in The Tablet.

When when asked by The Tablet whether he will continue in his position, Wadsworth did not comment .

"On occasion, I have re-posted on Facebook articles of others, including bishops and cardinals, who offer commentary about some of the issues surrounding the recent Synod," Wadsworth said.

"I believe that to do so is part of the process whereby we can all enter into a dialogue concerning the discussion of serious challenges that the Church faces at this time. You will be aware that a spectrum of opinions is expressed, within the Church, in this respect."

ICEL was created in 1963 to prepare English translations of Latin liturgical books and texts.

Each of the 11 conferences that are full members of ICEL has an elected bishop on the commission.

Bishop Patrick Dunn is New Zealand Bishops' representative on ICEL. He confirmed in a statement for CathNews that Wadsworth's role in ICEL is to coordinate the work surrounding the translation of English speaking liturgical matters.

Dunn said it is not his role to lead.

"Monsignor Wadsworth has every right to have his private views on liturgical practice, but I would not agree with the comments that have been attributed to him," said Dunn.

"He has been outstanding in the work he does for ICEL and my own hope is that he will continue in this role for many years to come."

Source

• NCR
• The Tablet
• Supplied
• Image: St Mary Magdalen Choir Brighton

Gracias is one the eight-member Council of Cardinals Pope Francis established in 2013 to help with governing the Catholic Church and reforming its central administration.

Women may perform most of the roles currently undertaken by men, he maintains.

Noting that while it's true a woman may not hear confession, say Mass or administer the sacrament of Confirmation, "she can do practically everything else," Gracias says.

"Women can even be in charge of a parish according to Church law."

Speaking at a press conference about last month's Synod on the Amazon, Gracias said women's role in the Church was a frequently raised theme in discussions about how the Church can better respond to the Amazon region's pastoral needs.

Other representatives from the Amazon spoke of the need for concrete and tangible action.

They stopped short of addressing the question of women's ordination to the diaconate. It is anticipated this will be addressed in some form in the Synod's final document.

Bishop Ricardo Ernesto Centellas Guzmán of Bolivia is calling for a change in "mindset" when it comes to women in the Church.

"We all have to change our mentality to make sure participation of women becomes authentic and that it is equitable and fair," he says.

At the moment, the role of women who are involved in decision-making power is "very low," and in some places it is "almost invisible," he says.

"Things must change by starting with the smaller things."

Guzmán says work at parish level and in local communities is the place to start.

This includes pastoral councils that only give women consultation status, without any real decision making abilities.

Describing what he called a "walking Church," Guzmán says such a church includes "walking together and deciding together".

Otherwise "we will be limping together, not walking," he says.

Sister Roselei Bertoldo from Brazil says the Church structure often focuses on men when it comes to questions of authority.

"We want to become the protagonist in this process," she says.

"We will not keep silent. We want space, and we will start building a space."

Source

• Matters India
• Image: America Magazine
  

More recently, on 11 October, Müller told the Tagespost that "not even the Pope can abolish priestly celibacy".

In the final days of the Amazon Synod, quotations from a 1992 German text by Müller were circulated among the Synod participants in Rome.

Writing in 1992, when he was professor of dogmatics at Munich University and had not yet become a bishop, Müller looked back to a trip he made to the Andes in Peru in 1988. "On the Feast of the Assumption (in 1988), we experienced expressions of a deeply felt Indian religiosity which in our eyes could be understood as an expression of genuine faith and trust in God," he wrote.

In his "Reflections on a Seminar", held in 1988 on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the 1968 Medellin General Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean Bishops, (CELAM) which were published in the Catholic Academy for Youth Issues - Akademie für Jugendfragen - Müller then advocated ordaining viri probati, that is, proven married men.

"Celibate priests are necessary for the priesthood. It must, however, be possible to ordain religiously proven and theologically educated family fathers, not only in remote areas but also in huge city parishes, so that basic pastoral and liturgical practices can continue to be celebrated," Müller emphasised.

He explained: "A new concept of this kind would not contradict the Church's tradition, as loyalty to tradition does not mean that the Church is only committed to past history but, on the contrary, far more to future history."

He then warned: "If the Church insists on holding on to obligatory celibacy under all circumstances, it must state the reasons as to why both the spiritual meaning and the assets of celibacy are of such importance to the Church that it is even prepared to hazard a decisive deformation of its constitution on account of the lack of priests."

These views on celibacy stand in strong contrast to views he expressed during the Amazon Synod.

Asked what he thought of ordaining viri probati by Paolo Rodari in an interview in La Repubblica on 10 October, Müller replied: "Ordaining viri probati is wrong. The celibacy rule is not just any rule that can be changed at will. It has deep roots in the Sacrament of Holy Orders. The priest represents Christ and has a living spirituality that cannot be changed. ... No Pope and no majority of bishops can change dogma or Divine Law according to their taste".

And on 11 October, Müller told Bavarian Radio that the discussions on the possible introduction of viri probati at the synod looked like "European Catholics' wishes in an Amazonian wrapping".

"Celibacy as the normal priestly lifestyle in the Latin-rite Church cannot be called into question," he underlined. Continue reading

Fr. Suess is in Rome as an official of the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, and is regarded there as an expert on the region.

The priest was asked about a ceremony held in St. Peter's Basilica Oct. 7, which seemed to use both traditional Christian symbols and unexplained symbols of indigenous Amazonian culture.

"It is definitely the case that there is a noticeable sentiment against the synod on the part of certain media here.... Someone wrote that it was a pagan rite," Fr. Suess responded.

"So what?" the priest asked. "Even if that had been a pagan rite, what took place was still a worship service. A rite always has something to do with worship.

"Paganism cannot be dismissed as nothing".

"What is pagan? In our big cities we are no less pagan than in the jungle. That's something to think about," he said

Vatican Media eventually removed those comments from its interview with the priest, with no note or indication of the redaction.

Anyone who wants to understand how the Vatican's synod of bishops on the Amazon has become such a flashpoint for controversy, or why five carved statues were removed from a Roman church and tossed into the Tiber River, should think carefully about Fr. Suess' comments, and their publication by the official media organ of the Holy See.

On Oct. 21, five statues were taken, apparently quite early in the morning, from the Carmelite Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, four blocks from St. Peter's Basilica. They were thrown off a nearby bridge into the Tiber River.

On Friday the pope announced that they had been recovered, apologized to anyone offended by their submersion in the Tiber's waters, and said they might make an appearance at Sunday's closing Mass for the synod.

The statues had become recognizable to Catholics around the world. They were featured prominently in an Oct. 4 tree-planting ceremony that kicked off the Amazon synod. They have been a part of daily "moments of spirituality" at the Carmelite church. They have been inside St. Peter's Basilica, at an Amazonian Stations of the Cross, and at many other events surrounding the Amazon synod and they have been alternatively described as symbols of the Blessed Virgin, the Andean pagan idol Pachamama, and ambiguous symbols of "life."

At the synod, they are symbols of controversy.

Figures used prominently in unexplained and unfamiliar rituals or spiritual expressions, even with persons prostrating themselves in front of the statues, led journalists to ask what connections the figures have to indigenous religious rituals.

In short, to ask whether they have a pagan provenance, and, if so, what it means for them to be used in a Catholic context, and in the sacred space of a church.

The Church's long-considered and nuanced views on inculturation are complex, and the Gospel is always expressed in the context of some culture. Continue reading

Along the way, there was also a fair bit of chatter about ordaining women deacons as a way of recognizing the critical role of women in the Church, as well as creating a special "Amazon rite" of the Mass to recognize the dignity of indigenous cultures. All three ideas generated enthusiasm but also blowback, and they became emblematic of the summit's importance.

If the measure of the outcome of an event is how it handles such issues, then one has to say of the Amazon synod that its main conclusions appear to leave an awful lot on Pope Francis's plate.

In the final document of the synod released Saturday night Rome time, the 184 voting members, mostly bishops from the nine countries that contain a share of the Amazon rainforest, appeared to offer cautious approval to all three ideas - married priests, women deacons and an Amazon rite - but with an emphasis on "caution."

Some of that was actually anti-climactic, since Francis himself drew the synod to a close-by insisting that it would be a mistake to focus on internal Church debates, saying the emphasis instead should be on the fate of the Amazon itself.

On married priests, the synod gave a thumbs-up, but with dissent. "We propose to establish criteria and provisions … to ordain priests suitable and esteemed men of the community, who have a fruitful permanent diaconate and receive an adequate formation for the priesthood, having a legally constituted and stable family, to sustain the life of the Christian community," the final document said.

That codicil, however, passed with 128 votes in favour and 41 against, the most significant pocket of "no" votes in the text.

In addition, there was an important clause in the final line of the section: "In this regard, some were in favour of a more universal approach to the subject," the document said.

Probably, that clause reflected an argument by some participants inside and outside the synod that a decision on a discipline of the entire Latin Church, meaning Catholicism apart from the 23 Eastern rite churches in communion with Rome, could not be made by a synod focused on just one region of the world.

Thus, a bishop opposed to the idea of an expansion of married priests could also have voted for the paragraph, thinking his position would prevail in a more universal gathering.

In general, dissenting votes on sections of the final document generally numbered in the single digits, and the next highest cluster of "no's" was on section 30 - which, as it happens, was the section on women deacons. Continue reading

The 90-year-old German priest-professor recently told the Vienna-based Kathpress that the current Synod assembly's struggle to reorient pastoral practice in the Amazon Region "is nothing else than the implementation of the reform Francis set out in the programmatic text Evangelii Gaudium" (Joy of the Gospel).

That apostolic exhortation, issued in November 2013, was the first major document of Francis' pontificate and is considered a roadmap for global Church renewal and reform.

From the Amazon to the world: considering the local Church

Hünermann, who co-edited the five-volume Denzinger-Hünermann compendium of faith (Enchiridion Symbolorum) and a five-volume theological commentary Vatican II, said Evangelii gaudium pressed for a new concept of pastoral practice in light of local Churches' concrete experiences.

"I therefore fully share the high hopes (people have) of the synod. It is an in-depth, painstakingly prepared global Church event - simply a huge undertaking - and I am deeply grateful to the pope for launching it," he told Kathpress.

The elderly theologian, who taught at the prestigious universities of Münster (1971-82) and Tübingen (1982-97), rejected charges by the pope's critics that the current Synod assembly is somehow part of a liberal theological agenda.

He said it is rather an attempt to shape the future of pastoral practice altogether. He noted that ecological, social and pastoral issues are interwoven in the sprawling Amazon. And this, he said, means they reach much further than those of a local Church and are of "world-church significance."

"The Amazon region is a global hotspot for all those challenges we face as a world Church that humanity as a whole is facing," he stressed.

Germany's synodal procedure: an 'acid test' for Church relevancy

Professor Hünermann also weighed in on the "synodal procedure" for Church reform that Germany's bishops have launched with the Central Committee of German (lay) Catholics. He said it would be the acid test "for the Church as a whole, which is struggling for relevance in society."

He said critics of the procedure have failed to recognize how deeply the Church has been shattered by the clergy sex abuse crisis.

"They cannot see that all the reform projects under discussion - such as ordaining married men of proven virtue (viri probati), giving women more responsibility in the Church, rethinking the Church's sexual morality and installing checks and balances - can only be understood against the background of the abuse scandal, which was truly traumatic," he insisted.

Hünermann expressed confidence that the project would succeed despite inner-church opposition.

"The reform procedure must not end like the German Church's last 5-year 'dialogue process' (2010-2015), since that would mean that the German Church has had it," he warned.

Reading the messages coming from Rome

The theologian also said it's important to distinguish between the two different letters concerning the "synodal procedure" that the German bishops' conference received from the Vatican.

He said the text Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, sent to conference president Cardinal Reinhard Marx must be seen as a "classical example of certain members of the Roman Curia's traditional thinking, which strictly keeps to canon law in an alarmist manner."

On the other hand, Professor Hünermann said the pope's "Letter to the People of God in Germany" has been wrongly interpreted.

"Pope Francis merely wanted to point out that Church reforms must not mean adapting to the zeitgeist (spirit of the times) and that a synodal procedure must always have a spiritual anchor. He also particularly cautioned against acting too rashly but he did not warn against general reform," the professor stressed.

Hünermann did his initial theological studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome before returning to Germany for advanced studies. He taught in South America - including Argentina - for several years following Vatican Council II.

He first met the Father Jorge Mario Bergoglio in 1969 and remained in contact with the future pope. The two men met most recently in May 2015 in Rome for private talks on Church matters.

The German theologian's teaching is believed to have been influential in Pope Francis exhortation on marriage and the family, Amoris laetitia.

• Christa Pongratz-Lippitt is a correspondent writing for The Guardian, La Croix, National Catholic Reporter, The Tablet.
• First published in LaCroix International. Republished with permission.

It is a deep, confident knee-to-the-floor genuflection; the kind I remember trying to emulate as a teenager at the Oxford Oratory, that always ended in my flailing, off-balance, for a pew-end to right myself with.

It comes with practice and devotion, and it tells me that whoever stole the statue - one of Amazon Synod's many critics, I assume, although I expect we will never find out - understands the importance of symbols and gestures.

Whoever stole Our Lady of the Amazon stopped before they did so to humble themselves before the Real Presence: symbolically, by genuflecting.

Given what they went on to do next, I wonder if He might have told them not to bother.

Catholicism is a faith that is rich in symbols, as the wonderful Dawn Eden Goldstein pointed out, in the aftermath of the theft, in a Twitter thread dedicated to some of the ways the Church represented the persons of the Trinity throughout the ages: pelicans, a dove, a shepherd, bees (my favourite).

Not to mention the representation of the Evangelists as a winged man, a lion, an ox and an eagle.

Mary herself is represented in Christian art as, or alongside, flowers or fruit, symbols of her fertility: spiritual, as well as biological.

This is important, because Catholic commentators have complained loudly that the statue - of a kneeling, pregnant woman - recalls pagan fertility cults.

Crisis Magazine was alarmed by an unnamed Vatican source saying it represents "Mother Earth, fertility, woman, life". US priest and blogger Fr John Zuhlsdorf called it a "Pachamama demon idol" [Pachamama is a Peruvian goddess].

What do the indigenous Catholic who brought the icon with them to a Vatican synod say it represents?

The woman who asked Pope Francis to bless it told him it was Our Lady of the Amazon.

Commentators, then, who continue to insist that the statue it isn't what the Amazon Catholics say, an icon of Our Lady, must think either that they are lying - perhaps part of a larger plot to infiltrate the Church with pagan demons?

Or maybe they think they are ignorant, failing to realise that the real Mary, a first century Jewish teenager, was, in fact, a porcelain-white brunette who wore a lot of blue.

The Vatican hasn't helped. Continue reading

• Image: CNS/Paul Haring

Vatican editorial director Andrea Tornielli says the wooden figures of nude pregnant women were on display along with other Amazon artifacts at a church near the Vatican.

Although some people characterized the statues as the Blessed Virgin Mary, others say they are images of Pachamama, who is an indigenous religious figure.

The Vatican says the figures represent an indigenous traditional symbol of life.

The controversial figures have been present at several events connected to the Vatican's Amazon synod, including its opening ceremony.

Their inclusion at the ceremony outraged ultra-conservatives.

They say they stole the statues and threw them away "for only one reason:

"Our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ, his blessed Mother, and everybody who follows Christ, are being attacked by members of our own Church. We do not accept this! We do no longer stay silent! We start to act NOW!" [sic]

"Because we love humanity, we can not accept that people of a certain region should not get baptised and therefore are being denied entrance into heaven".

"It is our duty to follow the words of God like our holy Mother did. There is no second way of salvation. Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat!"

Among those who have commented publicly about the thefts was Fr. Giacomo Costa, a communications official for the Amazon synod.

He explained the carved figure of the pregnant woman represents life in the Amazon in the same way a "glass of water" or "parrots" represent life in the region.

The statues had been kept in several side chapels at the Church of St. Mary in Traspontina where prayer services connected to the synod have been held daily since the gathering began in early October.

One was included in a tree-planting ceremony in the Vatican at the beginning of this month.

It has also been present during various synod events, under the "Casa Comun" (Common Home) initiative.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Reuters
• Grandin Media
• Image: Grandin Media

Cardinal Peter Turkson, who is the Prefect of the Vatican's Dicastery for the Promotion of Integral Human Development, says the study would aim to ensure "the Church can take a consistent position, not only in view of the Amazon, but in view of the universal Church".

Several bishops during the Amazon synod proposed ordaining viri probati - a term used to refer to mature, married men - for ministry in remote areas of the Amazon.

Turkson says challenges in the Amazonian region are similar to challenges faced in other parts of the world, including the Congo.

In both regions "accessibility is very difficult and reduced, communication is tough, and if you want to get to places either by road or by river those challenges are there".

He says in the Congo trained catechists are leaders in their local communities, who preach the Word of God, baptize, bury the dead and serve as extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist.

"But in that case, the guys in the synod here are listening to that and they say that is fine, but they can still can't celebrate the Eucharist".

"They are looking for someone who can, you know, anoint the sick, listen to confessions, celebrate the Eucharist with people, and that, of course, requires ordained ministry, for which, the examples in Africa then come short."

Congolese Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu also sees a close comparison between the Congo River Basin and the Amazon, including several ecological, political, and pastoral problems.

He says the church in the Congo prioritized "inculturation of the Gospel" in response to a perception following the country's independence that the Church was seen as an outside force in the immediate post-colonial era.

The most evident result of inculturation in the Congo is a "ritual of the Eucharist which is our own," Besungu says.

"In our country, the Eucharist is a real feast."

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Wikipedia

Their words could have profound impact not only on the Amazon but the entire church, as the ideas they present about protecting the environment, the rights of indigenous peoples as well as adaptation of church practices to local cultures are theoretically applicable anywhere.

The final report for the synod, which has been meeting since Oct. 6, will be put together by a drafting committee made up of bishops elected by the synod and appointed by the pope.

After discussion and revisions, the report will be voted on paragraph by paragraph. Passage of any one paragraph requires a two-thirds vote. Only the 185 official delegates to the synod (almost all of them bishops) can vote.

The drafting committee will work with input from 12 synod groups that met to discuss issues. The groups were organized by language (two Italian, four Portuguese, five Spanish, and one for English and French speakers).

Each group of about 20 contained bishops, lay observers and experts who participated equally in the discussions.

The individual reports from these language groups, which totaled 35 pages, are the most accurate representation of where the synod is as it enters its final week.

The reports show that the bishops are unanimous in their concern about the ecological destruction being inflicted on the Amazon by extractive industries (oil, mining, and lumber), cattle ranchers, monoculture and hydroelectric dams.

The Amazon's natural biodiversity has been destroyed to benefit development that is unsustainable but provides huge short-term profits to special interests.

Huge hydroelectric dams take away indigenous lands, rivers and sources of food, as do cattle ranches and monoculture. Mines do same plus pollute the land and water with cancer causing chemicals.

These issues are of concern far beyond the Amazon and especially in the global north, which benefits from the products and profits coming from the Amazon.

The language groups called for an ecological conversion to a simpler lifestyle that is sustainable and respects Mother Earth as the indigenous people of the Amazon do.

"An ecological conversion to a sober life is indispensable," explained Portuguese language Group B. This "implies changes in mentality, lifestyle, modes of production, practices of accumulation, consumption and waste."

This conversion is not simply personal. "Ecological conversion leads the church to assume its prophetic role," said Spanish Group A, "denouncing the violation of the human rights of indigenous communities and the destruction of the Amazon territory."

But this ecological conversion and commitment must be grounded in spirituality, since the church is not just an nongovernmental organization.

This conversion would lead to "a new style of life that is simple, sober, caring, attentive, without waste, that avoids the disposal of things and people, that is generous and inspired by Francis of Assisi, by Brother Sun, Sister Moon, [and] Sister Water," explained Portuguese Group C.

The English/French Group suggested the four principles articulated by the Eastern Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew I to ground this spirituality:

• A sacramental view of creation as a reflection of God,
• A Eucharistic spirit that thanks God for what he offers us,
• An ascetic ethics that embraces a simple lifestyle, and
• Living in solidarity and fraternity with all.

Other groups looked to indigenous values as a foundation for ecological spirituality, "such as community, family, spirituality, communion of goods, respect for the common house," explained Spanish Group A.

It is not only the environment but also people who are victims in the Amazon. European invaders enslaved and exploited the region's native inhabitants. Later, the auto industry exploited them in rubber plantations. Today it is cattle, mining and monoculture industries that invade their territories.

Even now, "Several mega-projects are underway," reports Spanish Group D, "violence is exerted on the peoples, the states implement policies conceding [indigenous] territories" to these interests.

The violence against the land and the people of the Amazon was a repeated theme in the group reports.

"Violence in the Amazon is practiced against peoples, cultures and nature," said Portuguese Group D. Several groups decried violence against women and children, especially through human trafficking.

Violence also forces the indigenous people either further into the jungle, or to migrate to cities.

"As a consequence of these migrations," explained Spanish Group D, "we have family disintegration, the loss of cultural identity, social marginalization, the rejection by the people of the cities, where they arrive as strangers. They are exploited, fall into violent and criminal structures, into prostitution, and so on."

Summing up their conclusions, the Portuguese Group B said, "We say no to deforestation, no to big aggressive projects that destroy the forest, no to monocultures and pesticides. We say yes to sustainable development, yes to ecological conversion, yes to integral ecology."

The reports also proposed reforms to the church.

A less clerical and more synodal church is needed, according to almost all the group reports.

"The synodal journey for Amazonia has shown us that the process has opened the perspective of a different ecclesiology, more baptismal and collegial, different from the clerical church," reports Portuguese Group A.

"The church with an Amazonian face emphasizes the co-responsibility and participation of the whole People of God in the life and mission of the church."

Many of the groups spoke of the need of priestly formation that produces men who listen and encourage the participation of laity, especially women.

The need for the church to be inculturated in an Amazonian context was repeatedly emphasized.

Italian Group B stated, "It is necessary for the church to recognize this particular historical moment, and in her tireless work of evangelization to work so that the process of inculturation of the faith may be expressed."

After noting that there are currently 23 different rites in the Catholic Church, the group went on to call for an indigenous rite for the Amazon as did other groups.

"We are challenged to promote and live an inculturated liturgy," insisted Spanish Group D, "as a living experience of faith with its own signs and symbols, guaranteeing the right of every baptized person to celebrate fully, consciously and actively."

Groups that did not specifically mention an Amazonian rite wrote of adapting the liturgy to local cultures, of using symbols, language and actions that express the positive values of indigenous people.

"Ethnocide must be fought because it kills culture and spirit," explained Portuguese Group D. "For this reason, the missionary should strip himself of any colonialist mentality and respect the customs, rites, beliefs, habits of the people of that culture."

"The manifestations with which the people express their faith, through images, symbols, traditions, rites and other sacramentals, should be appreciated, accompanied and promoted," the group said.

The only group to explicitly speak against an indigenous rite was Italian Group A, which wanted to preserve "the substantial unity of the Roman rite."

The bishops acknowledged in their reports that the Eucharist is not available to most of their people because of the lack of priests.

The English/French group did not consider this a problem, pointing to solutions used in other regions where priests are in short supply.

"In other places, such as Africa, the number of priests has never been sufficient to offer Masses every Sunday."

The African church uses many catechists, officially designated teachers of the Gospel, and the group reminded that synod that "The Word is food as well as the Eucharist."

Why these catechists, who are capable of being ministers of the Word, could not be ordained ministers of the Eucharist was not explained.

About half of the 12 groups explicitly supported the ordination of married men. Italian Group A appeared split on the question, while Portuguese Group D called for further thought on the topic.

Some of the groups that favored ordaining married men also supported the diaconate for women.

Almost all spoke of the importance of women in the church and urged that they be respected and empowered. Some suggested reviving the ministries of acolyte and lector and allowing women to participate.

The last week of the synod will be crunch time for the bishops.

There appears to be a lot of consensus among the bishops, but it remains to be seen exactly what they will do on the ordination of married men, women deacons and on an indigenous rite.

Whether these can garner a two-thirds vote is the question.

• Thomas Reese SJ is is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.
• Image: America Magazine

Although the canonists have slightly different ideas about the concrete method the pope could use to allow for married priests on a regional basis, they agree that the way forward is relatively easy, as celibacy is only a practice of the church and not a revealed dogma.

Among the two main possibilities: Francis could issue new norms allowing bishops in the region to deviate from the church canon requiring clerics to remain celibate, or could invite the bishops to make appeal to the Vatican for special permission on a case-by-case basis.

"Celibacy is a discipline of the church," Nicholas Cafardi, a civil and canon lawyer who has advised bishops and dioceses on canonical issues for decades, told NCR.

"Disciplines exist by creation of the law, so if the law were to be changed, the discipline would change."

"Pope Francis could, since he is the sole legislator for the universal church … allow married priests in the Western church, either across the board, or in limited areas and in limited situations," said Cafardi.

Mercy Sr. Sharon Euart, a former executive coordinator of the Canon Law Society of America, put it simply.

"Celibacy is not demanded of the priesthood by its nature," said Euart, now executive director of the Resource Center for Religious Institutes. "The practice of a married clergy existed in the early church."

The church law in question is Canon 277, which states that Catholic clerics are "obliged to observe perfect and perpetual continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven and therefore are bound to celibacy."

Cafardi and Euart both suggested that Francis could issue norms allowing bishops in the Amazon countries to deviate from that canon in choosing which candidates to ordain to the priesthood.

Oblate Fr. Francis Morrisey, a former president of the Canadian Canon Law Society who has advised numerous Vatican offices and local bishops' conferences, thought it more likely that the pontiff would invite bishops to make special appeal to the Vatican when they find a married man they would like to ordain.

"I'm going to presume they wouldn't touch the canons as such, but use an individual indult," said Morrisey, using a canonical term for obtaining special permission to do something normally not permitted by canon law.

Fr. James Coriden, a canon lawyer who previously taught at the now closed Washington Theological Union, agreed with Morrisey. "I assume it would be treated (and controlled) like that," he said.

"One case at a time. When a bishop in the Amazon petitions Rome for an exception, then it would be granted." Continue reading

• Image: Patheos

Rather than ordaining married men, he said, their proposal is that he bring some of the surfeit of priests who clog the streets of the Eternal City back with him to the rainforest.

"All these priests and religious that we see on TV… It cannot be that they're all studying in Rome," said Bishop Johnny Eduardo Reyes, (pictured) apostolic vicar of Puerto Ayacucho, Venezuela, explaining that the idea of bringing Roman priests back to the Amazon was floated in the hall by another Venezuelan bishop.

"The distribution of priests and religious is not good," he said.

Globally speaking, two-thirds of the 1.3 billion Catholics in the world today live in the southern hemisphere, but two-thirds of the world's 415,000 Catholic priests currently reside in the northern hemisphere.

More basically, Reyes insisted that inventing new ministries, including a form of the priesthood for married men, isn't the synod's main challenge. More important, he argued, is the question of proclamation.

"I don't see a sacramental need, but a need for the first proclamation," he said. "I don't see a sense of belonging to the Church from many of the indigenous, as they speak of the Church as an institution foreign to them. There's a need of belonging."

Reyes also said that something that had attracted much support in the synod's assembly was a comment from an unnamed Venezuelan bishop who said his people had asked him to bring some priests and religious home from Rome.

The need for the first proclamation, he said, goes beyond the Amazon and the indigenous, and is also very much needed in Europe and other continents: "People don't go to Mass. The problem of the [lack] of faith is universal. We need to do something about this, everywhere." Continue reading

The first Europeans to arrive in the Amazon were "invaders," she said.

"They never asked permission of mother nature or of the people who lived there. They imposed the cross and the Bible. That caused a great deal of resentment," and in some cases forced indigenous peoples from their territories.

But when the pope, during his 2018 visit to Peru, asked Amazonian people to tell the church how it should walk with them, "that was a question that asked permission," she told Catholic News Service.

Pijachi, an Ocaina Huitoto woman who is not Catholic, said that when she heard that, she spoke to the elders of her people, who approved of her participation in presynod gatherings as long as the church respected indigenous cultures.

"The elders said that first the Catholic Church and all churches must recognize us as having a right to our own culture and customs, our own spirituality," she added.

"They must not impose themselves and change" those beliefs.

For many indigenous peoples, evangelization meant relocation from their territories to church-run communities known as reductions, as well as the loss of their languages and traditions, she said.

"The pain is alive and still there."

The culture and spirituality of Amazonian indigenous people remain strong "as long as we have our territory, our rivers, our sacred places, food and our seeds, the elements of our rituals," Pijachi said.

She said she sees the synod as an opportunity to talk with "a great friend, a great elder, (Pope) Francis, who can carry our voice" to places where it otherwise would not be heard.

Environmental destruction by extractive industries such as logging, mining and oil companies has been a recurring theme in the synod.

"The people who come to extract (natural resources) don't live there," Pijachi said. "They live in Europe; they live in mansions in the big cities. All they're interested in is money."

The damage to the environment "is a spiritual death and a cultural death" for indigenous people, she said, adding that some whose actions or policies result in destruction are Catholic.

"The same person who received first Communion, who was married in the church, is the one who is cutting down the forest, who does not understand respect for creation," she said. "The same one who was baptized, who went to confession, who received Communion, who goes to Mass on Sunday is the governor of a state and pays no attention" to how public policies affect people.

"I asked (the bishops), ‘Is that important to you?'" she said. Pijachi addressed the synod assembly Oct. 9. Continue reading

"As many other religious women, we believe we have come to the point that our superior generals can have a vote, same as a superior general of the brothers," said Sister Birgit Weiler during a news conference Friday (Oct. 11).

Weiler is a theologian with the Medical Missions Sisters, has been active in promoting the rights of indigenous communities in the Amazon and was tapped by Pope Francis to be an expert for the synod.

"There is no real reason why not," she added, stating that since "religious women are equal" to male religious orders, "it would be good" for both to be able to voice their opinion through their vote.

While the issue of gender equality has been a cause for constant criticism in the Catholic Church, the debate has escalated to a new level under Pope Francis.

During the 2018 synod of bishops on young people, faith and vocational discernment, for the first time Francis allowed mother superiors of religious orders to attend.

At that same bishops' summit, the male superior general of a religious order — though not a priest — was allowed to vote, raising the question of whether ordination was a necessary prerequisite for voting at the synod.

That question has resurfaced at the 2019 synod and has reinforced appeals that women who lead religious orders be allowed to vote.

"I am really grateful to Pope Francis and aware of the steps he is taking to make it possible," Weiler said, noting that 35 women, lay and religious, are attending the proceedings at the synod.

"This is already a significant step forward and I want to honor it."

She noted that "there is a very open atmosphere" at the synod, which during the second week will have participants divided into smaller working groups, called circoli minori, to allow deeper discussion and reflection on the topics addressed during the opening remarks and presented in the working document.

According to Weiler there is no "clerical attitude," and women are encouraged to speak about how they feel within the church. This same sentiment, she said, is shared by other women attending the synod in other groups who believe there "is a more open atmosphere, so more critical questions may be, respectfully, put on the table."

She also noted that many bishops and cardinals at the event "really understand us women" and "want things to change."

Pope Francis has fostered a synodal approach, which promotes an inclusive and all-encompassing dialogue within the church. For Weiler, "that means you also have to have more women in positions of leadership," which doesn't necessarily imply the ordination of women to the priesthood or the diaconate.

Women play an outsized role in the Amazon region; many religious sisters work closely with the cut-off indigenous populations that inhabit it.

There are many spaces, at an organizational or pastoral level, that could benefit from female leadership, she said, and to help determine the best policies going forward.

But as the number of priests dwindles in the Amazon, women might be called on even more.

The drop in vocations and the shortage of priests working in the Amazon forest, which extends over thousands of miles and nine countries, has contributed to a "religious transit" where many indigenous peoples choose evangelical churches over Catholic ones, according to Bishop Joaquín Pertíñez Fernández of Rio Branco, Brazil.

"There are many reasons why people go from one religion to another," he told journalists at the news conference. "Among the reasons is welcoming and care, the response to the needs of the faithful.

"Due to the lack of priests, we don't have the preconditions to be present everywhere. There are religious gaps that we as Catholics cannot fill, and others come to occupy them," he added.

Sources

• Claire Giangrave is Vatican Correspondent for Religion News Service.
  
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.
• Image YouTube

But in many remote areas, there are not even enough nuns to go around, and it is laywomen who play a key role in the evangelization of indigenous people.

Many Amazonian bishops present at a three-week assembly at the Vatican want the Roman Catholic Church to create official roles for them.

It is not a question of ordaining female priests. The very suggestion that the male-centric, centuries-old church could do that has thrown traditionalists into a tizzy, and it's not a change Pope Francis is currently willing to contemplate.

There is interest, however, in giving laywomen official "ministries", whether that be performing marriages or preaching.

"Two-thirds of the indigenous communities without priests are guided by women," says Bishop Erwin Krautler, an Austrian missionary who has lived in Brazil for three decades.

While personally he sees "no reason why women cannot be ordained priests", he thinks the debate should be focused now on female deacons — a potentially invaluable resource in far-flung corners of the world.

Male deacons, who can be single or married, are able to baptize, witness marriages, perform funerals and preach homilies.

They cannot say Mass, give the Eucharist, or absolve people after confession, which only priests can do.

Pope Francis in 2016 set up a study group to examine the role of such deacons at the beginning of Christianity, but in May he said the panel was extremely divided on the issue and still had a lot of ground to cover.

In the meantime, a week ahead of the bishops' assembly on the Amazon, Francis suggested that laymen and women could be given a formal Bible reading "ministry".

"The presence of women in the Amazonian forest is extremely important," says Sister Alba Teresa Cediel Castillo.

She is one of 35 female so-called "auditors" invited to the assembly so the bishops can hear their testimony firsthand.

"There are very few priests. The geographical distances are immense, many priests are constantly on the move," she said.

According to the Vatican's Osservatore Romano newspaper, there are areas with just one priest per 25,000 square kilometers, and others where just 45 priests have to serve 1,100 villages. Continue reading

• Image: Zenit

Francis described how upset he became when he heard a snide comment about the feathered headdress worn by an indigenous man at mass on Sunday. Read more

German Bishop Fritz Lobinger, a 90-year-old retired missionary bishop in South Africa, has suddenly become the talk of Rome.

Lobinger's idea of ordained elders in order to provide local communities regular access to the sacraments has been the root of discussions about "married priests" that have dominated headlines about the Synod on the Amazon, the three-week summit of bishops which began this week at the Vatican.

This is a pressing issue in the region - some areas have only one priest per 15,000 Catholics, with priests forced to travel by canoe to reach isolated communities.

Some people might not see a priest for a year, leaving lay catechists to conduct Sunday scripture services, as well as to preside over baptisms and marriages.

At the same time, there has been strong resistance to the idea of abandoning the rule of celibacy for priests in the Latin Rite.

Lobinger's revolutionary idea is an attempt to square the circle on the issue.

The bishop - who also faced a lack of priests in his remote diocese - has for decades advocated ordaining married men, or "elders" to the priesthood, but with a twist: They would not be clerics in the ordinary sense.

The "elders," although technically ordained, would not even be called priests and would work under a series of limitations: They would only be allowed to serve in their local community, would not receive a seminary education, would not wear clerical dress.

In other words, these "elders" would be married men with jobs, taking weekend courses for a couple of years before being ordained.

These "elders" would be guided by the seminary-educated, celibate priests.

Lobinger's idea is a bit of a departure from the traditional idea of viri probati - Latin for "tested men" - where some select older men might be allowed to be ordained to the priesthood without going through the same extensive formation as other priests.

This proposition predates the current married priest debate, and was originally proposed for older, celibate men in mission territories who were too old to have gone through a formation process that regularly began when a man was in their early teens.

Nowadays, it is used exclusively to refer to married candidates.

The viri probati might labor under certain restrictions - perhaps not allowed to serve as a pastor or even be allowed to preach a homily - but they would still be priests.

In many ways, the viri probati are conceptually similar to the "simplex priest" of religious houses before Vatican II, who could celebrate Mass but not hear confessions or preach sermons.

Lobinger instead says there should be two different forms of priesthood, as distinct as possible.

And herein lies the real revolution being proposed. Continue reading

• Image: AP News

But now there is something new, something that is tilting the balance in favor of the peripheral, the local, and the particular.

You could see it happening in the gentle battle over liturgical space in the run-up to the synod's opening.

On October 4 in the Vatican Gardens and on the following night at a church not far from St Peter's, dozens of indigenous leaders and church workers led offerings and prayers, using objects and forms of worship from the region: a canoe, a mandorla, the image of a pregnant woman, as well as placards of Amazon martrys such as Sr. Dorothy Stang.

It was joyful, generous, and unmistakably Amazonian: the faithful People of God speaking and praying and dancing in their own way.

Yet at the big papal Mass in St Peter's the next morning, Amazonia was all but banished.

If the pope in his zinger homily hadn't invoked the Holy Spirit to "renew the paths of the Church in Amazonia, so that the fire of mission will continue to burn," you would have had no idea the synod was even taking place.

Indigenous leaders sat at the front and brought up the gifts but were silent: there were no intercessions for the region, no readings in an Amerindian language, and almost everything was Italian and solemn.

The center was back in charge.

But not for long.

The next morning the Amazonian people were in St. Peter's Basilica with Pope Francis, along with the canoe and the martyrs and Our Lady of the Amazon.

In a remarkable move, unprecedented at previous synods, the pope processed from the Basilica with the indigenous peoples, in their midst—el pastor con su pueblo—as they joyfully chanted, "The sons and daughters of the Forest, we praise you, Lord."

As they left St. Peter's and crossed the square to the synod hall, I thought of Jeremy Irons in Roland Joffé's film The Mission, the Jesuit who walks with his people into a hail of colonialist bullets.

There had been no shortage of rhetorical bullets in the run-up to the synod:

• superannuated cardinals telling Amazonian Catholics they were heretics for proposing to ordain married men;
• a panel of traditionalists (Cardinal Burke in the front row) claiming the synod would not "civilize the savages" but would instead "make the civilized savages"; and
• an EWTN-owned news outlet reporting that the ceremony in the Vatican Gardens—in which native peoples honored God's creation—was an essentially pagan, pantheistic affair.

In his speech opening the synod, the pope spoke of his pain at overhearing someone at the previous day's Mass mock the feather headdress of the leader who brought the gifts to the altar.

"Tell me," the pope asked the 300-odd participants, "what difference is there between wearing feathers on your head and the three-cornered hat used by some officials in our curial departments?"

In that opening address Francis was clear about where he and the synod would stand.

They would look at the Amazon region with the eyes of disciples and missionaries, respectful of the ancestral wisdom and culture of its peoples, and rejecting any approach that was colonialist, ideological, or exploitative.

They would not try to "discipline" the locals.

For whenever the church has had this mindset, Francis warned, it has failed utterly to evangelize.

The Jesuit pope reminded the synod's participants of the ill-fated sixteenth-century missions of the Jesuits Roberto Di Nobili, SJ, and Matteo Ricci, SJ, whose bold attempts at inculturation, in India and China respectively, were quashed by the pettiness and colonialist mindsets of church leaders at the time.

Without being planted in the local culture, the Gospel cannot take root: "homogenizing centralism," said Francis, is the enemy of "the authenticity of the culture of the peoples."

This synod would go the other way.

"We come to contemplate, to understand, to serve the peoples."

What matters, then, is the people of Amazonia, and especially the 3 million or so indigenous gathered in 390 peoples who, for the first time, are the central concern of a synod.

It is their welfare, their pastoral needs, that are at the heart of this gathering, as well as the natural world to which they are deeply, symbiotically connected.

Both are threatened with destruction as never before.

This life-or-death urgency demands, in turn, that the church examine the nature of its presence, how it can be embedded and inculturated, how it can it stand with, and promote the life of, its peoples in an area where one "regional vicariate" might be the size of half of Italy yet have just a handful of priests.

The issue is one of agency.

The synod is a test of the church's ability to implement the vision of Laudato si' in a region that almost daily dramatizes that encyclical's call to conversion.

Cardinal Michael Czerny, SJ—a key drafter of Laudato si' who will also be drawing up the final document on which the synod will vote on October 26—told Commonweal that because "the Amazon region exemplifies the inextricable connection between the social and natural environments, the fate of people there and of their natural surroundings" there could be "no more concrete manner than this [synod] to lift Laudato si' off the page and put it into action."

This is the first ever "territorial" synod. Continue reading