Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic in the two years since the synod, there have been many interviews, documents and meetings "to reflect and discern about 'what we should do,'" Hummes says.

Although these actions are important, they are not enough, he says.

"Instead of asking ourselves only what we should do, how to do it, when will we do it, let us see and promote what we are doing and what we did yesterday."

Hummes served as relator general at the 2019 synod, which reflected on "Amazonia: New paths for the church and for an integral ecology."

In February last year the Vatican released Pope Francis's apostolic exhortation "Querida Amazonia" (Beloved Amazonia).

In this, he highlights the issues affecting poor and indigenous communities in the Amazon region. These issues include deforestation, drug trafficking, pollution and contamination caused by mining industries.

In a letter to L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, Hummes reiterates those issues and their consequences, particularly for indigenous communities.

Concerns include "alcoholism, violence against women, sex trafficking and "the loss of culture and original identity — language, spiritual practices and customs — and all the poor conditions to which the people of the Amazon are condemned."

Hummes also acknowledges the pope's call for an increase in permanent deacons to address the lack of priests in the region and how that particularly impacts remote communities.

In Querida Amazonia, Francis says while priests are needed, "this does not mean that permanent deacons — of whom there should be many more in the Amazon region — religious women and lay persons cannot regularly assume important responsibilities for the growth of communities, and perform those functions ever more effectively with the aid of a suitable accompaniment."

Urgent needs include opening schools for permanent deacon candidates, "catechists and community leaders, both women and men," as well as a "synodal renewal of our current clergy and religious men and women," Hummes says.

"These schools, in turn, will have to innovate and inculturate, both in methodology and curriculum."

Hummes says there is still a lot to be done to fully implement the synod recommendations.

He is calling on organisations in the Amazon region, including the Pan-Amazonian Church Network to "take on with us this synodal process."

"As I have expressed, it would help us very much if we could make known to the entire ecclesial network what is already being done," the cardinal said.

"All this would help us greatly to visualize, recognize, learn, socialise and give thanks in a synodal spirit," he says.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: The Global Catholic Climate Movement

Many are saying that in Querida Amazonia ("Beloved Amazon") Pope Francis has failed to extend his prophetic voice about environmental injustice to injustices to the church. They are also outraged over its language of complementarity.

Married priests
Francis has declined the request made by many bishops at last year's synod to open priestly ordination to married men and the possibility of women deacons to help address the severe lack of ministers in the nine nations of the Amazon region.

After the testimony of women at the synod, the pope's response is "willful blindness," one woman says. "I can't imagine what the women in the Amazon feel."

"We are profoundly shocked and disappointed," a spokesperson for a church reform group that advocates for an inclusive priesthood.

"We were hopeful that this process would begin a Vatican II approach to governance and that leadership would listen to the needs of the people.

"One of our deep regrets is that this, like our culture, has devolved into an either/or, black or white, conservative or progressive fight, which loses the focus that this is about the needs of the people of God."

Women
The Women's Ordination Conference (WOC) criticised Francis's for "willfully turning his back on the calls of women for recognition of the sacramental ministries they offer the people of the Amazon and the global church,".

"This shows, yet again, that a synod without the equal voice and votes of women will never produce fruit that satisfies the urgent needs of the people of God," a WOC statement said.

Querida's use of the language of complementarity and warnings about a "functional approach" is not raising optimism about further discussion of women deacons.

Instead it criticises a "reductionism [that] would lead us to believe that women would be granted a greater status and participation in the Church only if they were admitted to Holy Orders."

"Women make their contribution to the Church ... by making present the tender strength of Mary, the Mother," Francis wrote.

Querida's use of "spousal" language in the section about women is also raising hackles, with one theologian saying it contains a "fundamental inequality," where "Men are to women as Christ is to the church.

"That is not equality ... When we transpose this to the human realm with men/women in the places of Christ/church, it's misogyny."

Access to the Eucharist

Although representatives from the Amazon at the synod reported that Catholics sometimes go months without the Eucharist because of a lack of clergy, especially in rural regions, Querida does not suggest married priests or women could fill the gap.

Instead it urges church leaders to pray: "not only to promote prayer for priestly vocations, but also to be more generous in encouraging those who display a missionary vocation to opt for the Amazon region."

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: CNN