Amazonian Church discusses new rite, finance, and participation of women

SÃO PAULO – Five years after the Amazon Synod, members of the region’s church gathered in Manaus, Brazil, in order to discuss ways to implement the changes suggested in 2019 during the meeting in Rome.

The need to increase the women’s participation in ecclesial life and alternatives for the Church’s financial challenges in the Amazon were among the most pressing themes debated by the participants between Aug. 19-22.

The meeting was led by Brazil’ Bishops’ Conference’s Special Episcopal Commission for the Amazon (CEA) and was attended by members of the Pan-Amazon Ecclesial Network (REPAM) and of the Amazonian Ecclesial Conference (CEAMA).

The message released by the participants of the encounter on Aug. 22 demonstrates the local churches’ biggest concerns and how they expect the Church to deal with them.

“We structured the discussion and the themes of the letter according to the reality of several Amazonian communities,” Bishop Raimundo Vanthuy Neto of São Gabriel da Cachoeira told Crux.

The document establishes six commitments assumed during the event regarding the Church’s challenges to keep evangelizing the Amazonian communities.

The first one concerns the formation of Catholics in the region. The participants agreed to establish a committee to accompany the education of priests, to keep promoting dialogue between Catholic universities and seminaries, and to allow the exchange between schools and experiences of education of lay people.

The following commitment encompasses ministries. The Amazonian Church will elaborate a document reflecting on the needed ministries in the region and will institute ministries of ecclesial leaders.

The document also mentions the debates regarding the common house. The Amazonian Church will establish a Pastoral Ministry of the Common House and the Ministry of the Care for the Common House.

“There was much debate about the participation of the Church in the United Nations Convention on Climate Change [known as COP 30], which will happen in Belém next year. There’s an urgent need to stop deforestation in the region in the face of a continuous climatic crisis,” Vanthuy Neto said.

After a long and severe drought in the Amazon in 2023, the level of the rivers are falling again this year, and the air quality is unprecedentedly low in different Amazonian areas.

“The climate crises that have been occurring in the Amazon over the past years are a sign that human actions are destroying the biome. The last administration [headed by President Jair Bolsonaro] was responsible for loosening control over the Amazon,” Sister Laura Manso, a member of the Amazonian Ecclesial Conference, told Crux.

According to Manso, CEAMA will also have its second plenary assembly, something that will happen between Aug. 23-26. At least 72 participants are waited to come from seven bishops’ conferences and nine countries.

“It’s up to CEAMA to work on such changes and suggest ways of implementing them and make them real,” she said.

One of CEAMA’s current challenges is to identify and develop what would be the Amazonian rite, something that was also discussed during the Synod and by Pope Francis in his Querida Amazonia, the apostolic exhortation released after the meeting in 2019.

Vanthuy Neto said it’s not up to the local Church to “invent” a rite, but to reflect on the already existing adaptations that are a regular part of the celebrations in different Amazonian communities.

“In several regions, Indigenous groups use a kind of clay bowl instead of a thurible, and burn their usual resins inside of it. Those are examples of cultural and identity elements of such peoples. So, we won’t create anything, we’ll just build a new rite according to already existing practices,” the bishop said.

The Amazonian rite will determine that celebrations and sacraments may be performed in the native groups’ languages, he explained.

“There are several cultural traits that are shared by many Amazonian Indigenous groups, despite the multiplicity of cultures in the region,” Vanthuy Neto said.

A group of anthropologists, priests, and missionaries has been working on the new rite, the bishop explained, but added the committee still has much work to do.

“Only after the establishment of a new rite can we send a letter to the Vatican and ask their permission to experiment it. It will be a long process,” Vanthuy Neto said, and he can’t estimate how long it will take to finish.

The Amazonian Catholics who attended the event also talked about the women’s roles in ecclesial communities all over the Amazonian territory. That subject generated a heated discussion during the Synod five years ago, and now many Catholics have been demanding that women can become deacons.

“The ordination of women deacons – and of married people as priests – still causes heated debates in the region, but it was a need expressed by the Amazonian communities. There’s a chronic lack of people in the region and the pastoral work must go on,” Bishop Flavio Giovenale of Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre state, told Crux.

Study committees have been working on the subject and the result of their analysis will be disclosed next year.

Giovenale said the encounter promoted the debate of very concrete problems, including the continuous financial challenges of the Amazon Churches.

“When I assumed the diocese it was in huge debt. All I’ve been doing is to pay for the incoming interests. But the costs keep growing,” he said.

Fuel and some foods have a considerably higher price in regions like Cruzeiro do Sul, due to the lack of infrastructure that elevates transportation costs.

“Distances between communities and churches are vast. We spend a lot of money on gasoline,” Giovenale said.

In the event, the local Church agreed to work on the creation of a fund for donations for the Amazon Church. The participants also decided to build a team of experts in preparing projects to be submitted to international institutions that can fund their activities.

“Many dioceses in the region are not prepared to deal with such dynamics. A group will study how that team can be formed,” the bishop added.

The encounter’s final document mentions the need to be courageous and accompany the Amazonian people in its struggle for their rights.

“The Holy Spirit sustains our identity as a Church that is side by side with the people, and struggles with the people for their rights,” the letter read.