September 21, 2024
Click here to listen to the YouTube recording of the North American Continental presentation.
We have been gifted with information from three prominent Latin American reformers involved in Church and societal reform: Fr. Peter Hughes, Birgit Weiller, MM, and Olga Consuelo Vélez. It is important to note that 40% of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America.
General attitude of Latin America
toward Synodality
Fr. Peter (Pedro) Hughesis an Irish Columban Missionary who has lived in the Lima, Peru area for around 60 years. He is co-coordinator of indigenous and human rights for REPAM (Pan Amazon Ecclesial Network), a Catholic network that promotes the rights and dignity of people living in the Amazon. He has played and continues to pay a key role in implementing the decisions of the 2019 Amazon Synod. Pedro is also a passionate supporter of the environment. Fr. Pedro gave a sobering assessment of both the Church and societal state of Latin America, which in both cases is extremely dire.
State of the Society
· The state of democracy is weak and fragile. This state is especially the case among the
poor, marginalized and other minorities who all together make up the majority.
(Venezuela—9 million of a population of 35 million have had to leave Venezuela. The
autocracies of Nicaragua and Cuba)
· US immigration “problem” is related to this weakening of democracy and rule of law.
· The living situation throughout much of Lain America is dire.
· The result of the US election will have enormous consequences not just in this country
but for the world.
· The “cure”:
o Must move on to the “rule of law”,
o Recognition of human dignity and human rights, and this at a deeper level;
o There are rights in the Bible—rights of the poor, rights of God (there is a
symbiosis here).
o The environment has rights which must be recognized and respected.
o The more we ignore rights, the more we lose control over ourselves and our lives.
State of the Church
· We should renew our common identity as Christians received in the sacrament of
baptism. The church is the people of God, the communion of all the baptized; the
vocation of those in ordained ministry is to serve to the people of God to overcome and
replace the image of a clerical church.
· Our calling is to follow Jesus.
· We need o develop greater respect for other religions.
· Women should be treated justly and be treated as equals with males. To ensure true
communion, they should have access and participation in the decision-making process.
Environment
· Parts of the Amazon are experiencing desertification.
· The [neo-liberal] paradigm of development at its core is destructive. [It is an economy,
stated by Pope Francis, that “kills”, both people and creation.]
· We need to build an integration of rights and justice for the poor and creation.
Church in the Amazon
Sister Dr. Birgit Weiler is a Medical Mission Sister from Germany who is a tireless advocate for women’s equality and the rights and dignity of the people from the Amazon. Recently she was appointed a consultant of the Synod General Secretariate, which she maintains is a significant step towards a greater inclusion of women. She was also a consultant for the Amazon Synod. She stresses the Church needs to be more open to the Holy Spirit.
The Amazon Synod
Women spoke up. It was the highest number of women present and participating. And they had an impact. The final document talks of all the changes that need to occur. With the structure of Amazon governance, bishops do not have as much power as usual. The president is a bishop or cardinal, but the vice-president is a lay person. (the current president is archbishop of Manaus, a very open person.)
The Amazon is in crisis
To protect and preserve it requires all people of the Amazon to come together.
· The Brazilian government is not providing sufficient protection. It is following a neo-
colonialist policy, allowing private parties to pillage it.
· There is a correlation between violence towards the land and violence towards women.
· For the first time many places do not have water or water fit for drinking due to
mining logging, ranching and fossil fuel production.
Church in the Amazon
· The Church is committed to protect and heal the earth and its people.
· The Church is called to be an outgoing Church.
· Women are the primary supporters of the Church in the Amazon
· We must remove the inequalities and injustices and enter into an intense Conversation
in the Spirit.
· Conversion to the Spirit must go with transformation of structures. Hopefully, the
October Synod will change structures so that women are equally included at all levels.
· Women have spoken up from all over the world demanding equal rights.
o Women must be allowed to preach.
o A reformed governance structure could be that following the structure adopted by
many women’s congregations.
o The second session of the Synod needs to determine what needs to be changed to
improve the status of women.
o Allow the Church to be diverse. Unity is not uniformity.
Outlook on Women in Latin America
Dr. Olga Consuelo Vélez has a doctorate in theology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. For 35 years she was at the Catholic Pontifical University (Javeriana) in Bogotá, Colombia. Currently she is a professor at the Fundación Universitaria San Alfonso, and has served as a visiting professor in a number of universities. She is co-foundress of the Colombian Association of Theologians and is a member of the Theological Committee of the Columbian Conference of Bishops. She has authored numerous books and articles.
Consuela’s focus has been on recognizing women as equals in the Church. She has written extensively on women’s liberation, as well as pointing out that just as the environment is treated in Latin America, so are women. She maintains women in Latin America suffer injustices doubly/triply, so extensive is the discrimination of women in Latin American society. Only in the areas where there are base Christian communities (SCCs), women are much more equal.
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On behalf of the CCRI steering committee,
Rene Reid, CCRI director