RMG – "Querida Amazonía": the Pope's dreams for the Amazon
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14 February 2020

(ANS - Rome) - Pope Francis has offered the Amazonian Church, the universal Church and all men of good will the post-synodal document: Querida Amazonía. Below, Fr Martín Lasarte, who participated in the Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazon region, indicates only a few of the many significant points.

In this document, His Holiness shares with us his four dreams for the Amazon: a social dream, which fights for the rights of the poorest and original peoples; a cultural dream, where the beauty of the Amazonian cultures shines; an ecological dream that jealously safeguards natural beauty; and an ecclesial dream, where Christian communities are capable of giving themselves and inculturating themselves.

 

The air you breathe in the document is more contemplative than technical and moralistic. In fact, the poetry crosses the apostolic exhortation, and several poets and writers are cited, both ecclesial and lay, among many: J.C. Galeano, Vargas Llosa, Casaldáliga, Sui Yun, Vinicius de Moraes ... and our long-serving Salesian missionary brother in the Venezuelan Amazon: Fr Ramón Iribertegui, and his work "El hombre y el caucho" (note 12).

As Salesians, we are sensitive to the theme of youth. The document takes this into account when analyzing the inadequacy of many educational programs addressed to them. They need an adapted education that develops their skills and empowers them. Education, indeed, is a fundamental aspect of integral ecology. It invites young people, especially Indigenous ones, to "take charge of the roots, because from the roots comes the strength that makes you grow, blossom, bear fruit" (n.33). He talks about young migrants in the Amazonian cities, who await the welcome and charity of the Christian communities, who protect them from the various degradation networks. Young people, like the whole of Amazon, need the kerygma, the passionate proclamation of Jesus Christ (n. 64).

Closely linked to the theme of youth is the delicate theme of vocations. As we know, some have been encouraged by the media to expect the priestly ordination of married men. The Catholic sensitivity of the document consists in considering the priesthood not only as a function, a delegation, but as a vocation, an identification with "Christ, the head" which makes him minister of the Eucharist and Reconciliation. Faced with the lack of priests, the Pope challenges the Bishops to the missionary sense of sending priests to the Amazon, to pray for vocations, to form merciful pastors, sensitive and capable of dialoguing with Amazonian cultures (see 85-90). Priests, together with deacons, men and women religious, lay people, animated by the Spirit, should share the same missionary passion in a markedly secular Church (cf. 91-95).

Many other themes deserve further study, which it is not possible to fulfill here, such as human rights, indigenous peoples, the care of the common home, the depredation of resources, migration, trafficking, cities, inculturation, popular piety, ministerialism, the Eucharist and Reconciliation, the protagonism of women and ecumenism.

 

 

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