Vatican releases Pan-Amazonia
Synod preparatory document
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| An indigenous mother and child. |
The Preparatory Document for the 2019 Pan-Amazonian Synod,
released on Friday in the Vatican, calls for “a Church with an Amazonian face”
that seeks “a model of alternative, integral, and solidarity-based development,
grounded on an ethical code that includes responsibility for an authentic,
natural, and human ecology.”
By Devin Watkins
Preparations are in full swing for the Special Assembly of
the Synod of Bishops in the Amazon Basin, set to take place in October 2019,
which will reflect on the theme: “New Paths for the Church and for an Integral
Ecology”.
The Vatican released the Preparatory Document for the event
on Friday at a press conference.
“Listening to indigenous peoples and to all the
communities living in the Amazonia… is of vital importance for the universal
Church.”
The Pan-Amazonian Synod, it says, transcends “the strictly
ecclesial-Amazonian sphere, because [it] focuses on the universal Church, as
well as on the future of the entire planet.”
Three-part message
Divided into three parts, the Document is an invitation for the Church to “see” the identity and cries of the Amazon Basin, to “discern” a path towards a pastoral and ecological conversion, and to “act” or walk along new paths for a Church with an Amazonian face.
It also provides a questionnaire for the region’s bishops to
share their pastoral and ecological concerns ahead of the Synod.
Culture of waste
The Document calls the Amazon rainforest “a lung of the planet and one of the sites of greatest biodiversity in the world.” The area, it says, has suffered “a deep crisis” caused by “prolonged human intervention” and driven by a “culture of waste”.
“The Amazon is a region with rich biodiversity; it is
multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, and multi-religious; it is a mirror of all
humanity which, in defense of life, requires structural and personal changes by
all human beings, by nations, and by the Church.”
By focusing on the Amazonia, the Synod hopes to build a
bridge to the world’s other biomes, like the Congo basin, the Mesoamerican
Biological Corridor, and the tropical forests of the Asia Pacific region.
Exploited peoples
The Document also reflects on the region’s socio-cultural diversity, especially the impact of “expansive economic interests” on indigenous populations.
It says indiscriminate logging, water contamination, and
drug trafficking have put native peoples’ survival at risk and caused massive
internal migration to urban areas. There they are often exploited and reduced
to poverty.
“The excessive growth of agricultural, extractive, and
logging activities in the Amazonia has not only damaged the ecological richness
of the region, its rainforest, and its waters, but has also impoverished its
social and cultural wealth. It has forced a ‘piecemeal’ and ‘non-inclusive’
urban development upon the Amazon Basin.”
Amazonian face of the Church
The Catholic Church, the Document says, “is called to deepen her identity in accordance with the realities of each territory and to grow in her spirituality by listening to the wisdom of her peoples.”
Reflecting together with the Amazon region’s many cultures,
it says, the Synod will seek out new ways of developing “the Amazonian face of
the Church”. The Church, it hopes, can then respond “to situations of injustice
in the region, such as the neocolonialism of the extractive industries,
infrastructure projects that damage its biodiversity, and the imposition of
cultural and economic models which are alien to the lives of its peoples.”
“Thus, through a focus on local realities and on the
diversity of the region’s experiential microstructures, the Church is
strengthened in its opposition to the globalization of indifference and to the
unifying logic promoted by the media and by an economic model that often
refuses to respect the Amazonian peoples or their territories.”
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