The Amazon Synod, Querida Amazonia and Women The Amazon Synod, Querida Amazonia 2018 Peru visit, and fine-tuned with consultations and at two meetings of the Pre-Synodal Council, the working document suggested that ‘new paths for and Women pastoral care’ would re-launch the Church of the Amazon (para. 14).1 The working document outlined the region and its resources, noting that 30%–50% of the world’s flora and fauna, 20% of the world’s fresh water, Phyllis Zagano and one-third of its primary forests, exist within some 7.5 million square kilometres of the nine countries connected by the waters of the Amazon Basin. ‘A Church of Amazonian features requires the stable presence of The Instrumentum Laboris called for dual conversions, pastoral and mature and lay leaders endowed with authority’ ecological, aimed at recognising that all life is interconnected, and proposed ( Francis, Querida Amazonia, 2020) an evangelisation that respected the cultures of the Amazonian peoples with what it terms an integral ecology. Introduction To address these concerns, the document suggested that the wisdoms of Commentary before, during, and immediately following the Synod of the region’s inhabitants be listened to as a way to understand and address Bishops for the Pan-Amazon region, 6–27 October 2019, generally focused the human and ecological injustices visited upon them. The Instrumentum on two requests: the restoration (at least in that region) of married priests Laboris sought ‘new paths for a church with an Amazonian face’, and stated: and women . Each seems necessary to the project of evangelisation ‘it is necessary to identify the type of official ministry that can be conferred there, home to 2.8 million people, whose 400 tribes speak some 240 on women, taking into account the central role which women play today in languages belonging to 49 linguistic families. Their eight countries and the Amazonian Church’. one territory – Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Surinam, The theme was exact: indigenous and local-born persons would best Venezuela and the territory of French Guiana – serve as the world’s lungs. present in the region. Only an inculturated pastoral ministry, one The Synod was supposed to be about these peoples and the lands of the that assumed local cultures and values, would be able to address the plight of Amazon region, their evangelisation and protection, not about married the Amazon biostructure and the challenges modernity has levied on it and priests and women deacons. its peoples (para. 14).2 But commentary did not focus on the exploitation of the environment or the peoples of the Amazon, nor did it connect the need for an acceptance of The Synod: the Special Synodal Assembly on the Pan-Amazon Gospel principles to save the region. In September 2019, named some 185 voting members to the This paper examines the development of synodal thought in light of the Special Synodal Assembly on the Pan-Amazon and nearly 100 non-voting Church’s perceived attitude toward women as missioners, ministers, and experts and observers. They met in the Vatican’s Paul VI Hall between 6–27 participants in the larger enterprise of Church, and notes signs of hope for October 2019. 3 No woman was a voting member of the Synod, a fact that women in Catholicism, both in the Amazon region and worldwide. garnered significant media attention. Soon, the Synod became subject to attack by media antithetical to Pope Instrumentum Laboris: ‘Amazonia: Francis’s concerns for the environment, as expounded in his Letter New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology’ Laudato Sí’ (2015), to his interest in the place of women in the Church and The Synod’s Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, released on 17 in the world, and especially to his perceived interest in examining the twin June 2019, included a strong call for ‘Ministry with an Amazonian Face’. proposals for married priests and women deacons. That Synod participants Developed following a listening process begun during Pope Francis’s January might request restoration of earlier Church practices horrified these media,

316 Studies • volume 109 • number 435 Studies • volume 109 • number 435 317 Phyllis Zagano The Amazon Synod, Querida Amazonia and Women who early on sought to hijack world commentary with a false story about fact that everything is connected, and stresses the need for in Pachamama statues in the Vatican Garden and in Santa Maria in Traspontina, the Church and in the world. the parish church on the Via della Conciliazione used by REPAM, the Synod’s Francis’s approach is striking. He early on admits that the peoples of the organising organ.4 Amazon know more about what they need and about their situations than either he or his Curia: ‘I would like to officially present the Final Document, The Final Document: ‘The Amazon: which sets forth the conclusions of the Synod, which profited from the New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology’ participation of many people who know better than myself or the Roman The Synod’s Final Document adopted the title of the Instrumentum Laboris Curia the problems and issues of the Amazon region, since they live there, and called for integral, pastoral, cultural, ecological, and synodal conversation they experience its suffering and they love it passionately. I have preferred in the region. Continuing a theme of a reinvented ministry, it recommended not to cite the Final Document in this Exhortation, because I would encourage that the Church: 1) ordain as priests certain permanent deacons; 2) install everyone to read it in full’ (para. 3).8 trained women as lectors and acolytes; 3) consider women for the permanent As if to underscore the point, Querida Amazonia is given at the Cathedral diaconate. of St John Lateran, the cathedral church of the diocese of Rome. That is, Following three weeks of interventions and consultations within the the Archbishop of Rome writes commenting on the Synod that considered twelve individual language groups,5 the vote on the Final Document took the needs of peoples half a world away, led and predominantly populated place the afternoon of Saturday, 26 October, during the Synod’s fifteenth by bishops and others who were from there, lived or had lived there, and General Congregation. It appears that 182 Synod members then present ministered there. cast between 161 and 173 votes electronically. No count of abstentions was Querida Amazonia is Francis’s dream for the region. While not native released, so it is unclear how many voting members actually voted on any to Amazonia, Francis does have significant experience in South America. one paragraph. The tallies included 128 pro/41 against ordaining married As Archbishop of Buenos Aires (1998–2013), he belonged to the Pontifical deacons as priests (para. 111); 160 pro/11 against installing women as Commission for Latin America, at the time charged with assisting the Church lectors and acolytes (para. 102); 137 for/30 against women deacons (para. in Latin America.9 In May 2002, Francis chaired the drafting committee 103).6 for the final document of the Fifth Latin American Episcopal Conference Anecdotally, nine of the Synod’s twelve language groups supported (CELAM) in Aparecida, Brazil, which stressed the need for an inclusive the restoration of women to the diaconate, despite some Synod members Christ-centred Church touching the edges of humanity.10 incorrectly arguing that Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994), forbidding women More surprising, in Querida Amazonia the pope seemingly ignores the priests, also applied to women deacons.7 Language group reports were two most media-worthy recommendations of the Synod: married priests and released, but individual interventions within the Synod hall were not; the women deacons. However, by recommending that the Final Document and his official explanation was that this was a ‘Special Assembly’, and notan response be read in tandem, he emphasises that the requests become matters ordinary synod of bishops. best known and understood by the Synod members, more knowledgeable about the Synod than he. Querida Amazonia, ‘Beloved Amazon’ Even so, are the requests implied? In Querida Amazonia’s fourth chapter, Pope Francis’s 14,000-word response to the Synod’s Final Document, Francis presents ‘An Ecclesial Dream’, writing that the people ‘have a right Querida Amazonia, Beloved Amazon: Post-Synodal Exhortation to the to hear the Gospel’ without which ‘every ecclesial structure would become and all Persons of Good Will, appeared in February 2020. just another NGO’ (para. 64). His dream is rooted in various pathways to In the four-part document, he defends the rights of the poor, asks for inculturation – social and spiritual, liturgical, and ministerial – each of which recognition of the distinctive cultures of the Amazon, reminds us of the recognises the strengths of the People of God.

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It cannot be overlooked that Francis writes about the priesthood with the Global Parish Statistics implicit recognition that all persons are made in the image and likeness of God and can represent Christ. He writes, ‘The priest is the sign of that head [Christ]’ (para 86). He does not write that the priest is the symbol of Christ. A sign points to something; a symbol represents it. Then, given the widely quoted fact that some 60% of parishes and other ecclesial groups in the Amazon region are headed by women (predominantly women religious), Francis sidesteps the question of married priests and women deacons and directly addresses the lay leadership already present there. While he does call for more missioners (implicitly, more missionary priests) he recommends what can be done immediately: install Canon 517.2 Parish Life Coordinators in the pastor-less parishes and groups. ‘A Church of Amazonian features requires the stable presence of mature and lay leaders endowed with authority and familiar with the languages, cultures, spiritual experience and communal way of life in the different places, but also open No matter how stunning this one paragraph may be, a difficult attitude to the multiplicity of gifts that the Holy Spirit bestows on every one. For toward women soon appears in the section entitled ‘The strength and gift of wherever there is a particular need, he has already poured out the charisms women’ (paras. 99–103). In fact, on close reading the entire document echoes that can meet it. This requires the Church to be open to the Spirit’s boldness, with a view of Church as feminine, the spouse of the priest, with a repeated to trust in, and concretely to permit, the growth of a specific ecclesial culture reference to the Church as ‘she’ (in the English), while the Holy Spirit is that is distinctively lay. The challenges in the Amazon region demand of nominated ‘he’.12 the Church a special effort to be present at every level, and this can only Unfortunately, the paragraph below can explode any notion that women be possible through the vigorous, broad and active involvement of the laity are seen as equals in the project of Church and able to be signs of Christ to (para. 94).11 God’s people: ‘The Lord chose to reveal his power and his love through two Francis’s extraordinary suggestion, to leave parishes and other groups human faces: the face of his divine Son made man and the face of a creature, exactly as they are and place them in the care of individuals who understand a woman, Mary. Women make their contribution to the Church in a way that the language, the peoples and their culture, is precisely the opposite of how is properly theirs, by making present the tender strength of Mary, the Mother’ bishops around the world respond to the dearth of priest-pastors. The most (para. 101). recent statistics available count some 2,200 of some 47,000 pastor-less By connecting women only to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the pope perhaps parishes (see Global Parish Statistics chart below) entrusted to a Canon inadvertently invokes the now-discarded iconic argument presented in Inter 517.2 Parish Life Coordinator. Francis’s indirect criticism of the routine Insigniores (1976) on the question of women priests, and inserts into an closing and joining of parishes under the leadership of one priest-pastor is otherwise beautiful and hope-filled document a memory of the misogyny an extraordinary statement in support of the roles of lay persons and deacons rampant throughout Church history. No matter the velvet glove – of course in the Church. women can and do present the qualities of Mary – it is beyond offensive to imply that a woman cannot signify the Risen Lord. While the paragraph may be intended to head off rumoured internal Synod discussion about women as priests, its echoes of misogyny damage the reception of what follows. Then it gets worse, as Francis writes: ‘The present situation requires us

320 Studies • volume 109 • number 435 Studies • volume 109 • number 435 321 Phyllis Zagano The Amazon Synod, Querida Amazonia and Women to encourage the emergence of other forms of service and charisms that are acolytes. The installation to these two lay ministries is the remnant of the proper to women and responsive to the specific needs of the peoples of the abandoned cursus honorum, which allowed only individuals bound for Amazon region at this moment in history’ (para. 102). priesthood to be ordained as deacons, not inconsequentially eliminating Thereafter, while the entire document seems to be against the elsewise women from that office. With Ministeria Quaedam (1972), Pope Paul VI widely touted point of women in the Church, Querida Amazonia can be read suppressed the minor orders of porter, lector, exorcist, and acolyte, replacing either positively or negatively. ‘In a synodal Church, those women who in them with the lay ministries of lector and acolyte. fact have a central part to play in Amazonian communities should have access Francis appears to accept the Synod’s request for women lectors and to positions, including ecclesial services, that do not entail Holy Orders and acolytes, stand-alone lay ministries yet required for ordination to the that can better signify the role that is theirs. Here it should be noted that diaconate: ‘women who in fact have a central part to play in Amazonian these services entail stability, public recognition and a commission from the communities should have access to positions, including ecclesial services, bishop’ (para. 103). that do not entail Holy Orders and that can better signify the role that is The pope adds immediately: ‘This would also allow women to have a real theirs’ (para. 103). He goes beyond these in his call for ‘the growth of a and effective impact on the organisation, the most important decisions and specific ecclesial culture that is distinctively lay’ (para. 94). the direction of communities, while continuing to do so in a way that reflects That is, there appears to be more of a need for lay women and men to their womanhood’ (para. 103). That is, the developed argument seems to be professionally recognised and appointed by their bishops to head the state that women cannot be ordained, period, either as priests or deacons, communities they already lead, as Canon 517.2 Parish Life Coordinators. The because so doing would destroy the possibility of their imaging Mary. If so, implication is that, in addition to professional and ecclesiastical recognition, the argument ignores the dogma that all are made in the image and likeness these individuals would receive salaries. Such is particularly important for of God, and can image Christ, the Risen Lord. religious communities of men and of women whose non-ordained members Since Holy Orders includes the diaconate, and because (at least since 2002) serve in these capacities. the diaconate has been argued to be an order that is in persona Christi servi Why Canon 517.2 Parish Life Coordinators? It appears the emphasis on (as opposed to the earlier understanding of in nomine ecclesiae), it would lay leadership can go hand-in-hand with the question of ordaining married seem that the Synod’s call for women deacons has been denied. Additionally, deacons as priests and women as deacons. Should the Church restore these from the repeated indications of the spousal relationship of the priest and the practices, the lay Canon 517.2 Parish Life Coordinator may or may not have Church, it would seem the priestly ordination of married men, deacons or a vocation to the diaconate. As an ordained , he (and hopefully she) not, is similarly denied. would retain the position of Parish Life Coordinator. Should the Parish Life Coordinator already be a deacon, he might well receive a call to priesthood. Conclusions: hope for the future? But the opposite is also possible. The lay Parish Life Coordinator might Is there any hope for married priests or for women to obtain Church offices? identify candidates for the priesthood or diaconate from among the people Is there any hope that the many women (mostly women religious) who he or she serves who might be ordained to one of these orders and remain already manage parishes and other groupings will do so officially, will be as a part of the parish staff, which would remain headed by the Parish Life formally given charge of the ecclesial structures they serve and, in some Coordinator. cases, have created? The scenario is neither impossible nor unusual. While in Ireland only The question of married priests is apparently returned to the Amazon, one pastor-less parish has a Canon 517.2 Parish Life Coordinator, and the perhaps to the newly formed Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon Region Amazon region is equally bereft of the position, the Synod requested deeper (ECA).13 The answer to women deacons may lie in Querida Amazonia’s respect for and understanding of the ministerial needs of the people, within paragraph 94. The Synod requested that women be installed as lectors and their cultural contexts. How better to meet these needs today than to formally

322 Studies • volume 109 • number 435 Studies • volume 109 • number 435 323 Phyllis Zagano The Amazon Synod, Querida Amazonia and Women appoint the lay men and women (both secular and religious) or even married Francis’s (2016), Laudato Si’ (2015) and (2013) deacons as Parish Life Coordinators? The Synod’s goal was to proclaim the all refer to or borrow from the document. 11 ‘It is possible that, due to a lack of priests, a bishop can entrust “participation in the Gospel, not to restrict it. exercise of the pastoral care of a parish… to a deacon, to another person who is not a priest, or to a community of persons”’ (Code of Canon Law, 517 §2) (fn. 136). 12 Pope Francis, Querida Amazonia, Paragraphs 19, 66, 67, 70, 72, and 94. Phyllis Zagano is Senior Research Associate-in-Residence at Hofstra 13 Ten bishops, one from each of the nine Amazon countries (two from Brazil), and University, Hempstead, New York, USA, and belonged to the 2016– headed by Claudio Cardinal Hummes. 2018 Pontifical Commission for the Study of the Diaconate of Women. She holds dual US-Irish citizenship.

Notes 1 The listening process was conducted by Red Eclesial Pan-Amazónica (Pan- Amazonian Ecclesial Network), known as REPAM, headed by Cláudio Cardinal Hummes. See, ‘Preparaatory Document for the Synod on the Pan-Amazon Region’, http://www.sinodoamazonico.va/content/sinodoamazonico/en/documents/ preparatory-document-for-the-synod-for-the-amazon.html. 2 ‘Preparatory Document’, http://www.sinodoamazonico.va/content/sinodoamazonico/ en/documents/preparatory-document-for-the-synod-for-the-amazon.html. 3 ‘List of Participants of the Synod for the Amazon’, http://www.sinodoamazonico. va/content/sinodoamazonico/it/documenti/elenco-dei-partecipanti-del-sinodo-per-l- amazzonia.html. 4 On 29 June 2020, the presidents of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) and the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM) announced the creation of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon Region (ECA), comprised of one prelate from each Amazon territory (two from Brazil, accounting for its size), under the presidency of Cardinal Cláudio Hummes, current REPAM chair. 5 Five Spanish, one English/French, two Italian, four Portuguese. 6 ‘Votes of the Final Document of the Synod of Bishops to the Holy Father Francis’, http://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/ pubblico/2019/10/26/0821/01709.html. 7 The argument that the diaconate is part of priesthood is denied by the post- conciliar Magisterium; the separation of orders, already presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1983), was codified by Benedict XVI withOmnium in Mentem (2009). Bishop Evaristo Pascoal Spengler OFM, Prelate of Marajó, Brazil, mentioned Omnium in Mentem in a press briefing, to which Benedict XVI’s archbishop-secretary replied. See, National Catholic Register, ‘Archbishop Gaenswein: Claim Benedict XVI Opened Path for Women Deacons “Totally Absurd”’, https://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/archbishop-gaenswein- claim-that-benedict-xvi-opened-path-for-women-deacons. 8 Pope Francis, Querida Amazonia, http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20200202_querida- amazonia.html. 9 From 1958 until the realignment of the Curia. 10 The Aparecida Document stressed the preferential option for the poor, presented a deep concern for the environment, recognized the need to respect popular cultural devotions, especially Marian devotions. Its English translation refers to the Church as ‘she’, a point of irritation carried over to other Vatican documents. See, Pope Benedict XVI, ‘Aparecida Document’, https://www.celam.org/aparecida/Ingles.pdf.

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