IN OCTOBER, POPE FRANCIS convened hundreds of people in Rome to discuss the Indigenous face of the church in the Amazon. The three-week, multitrack meetings, which included lay leaders, members of religious communities, priests, expert witnesses, bishops, cardinals, and leaders of Indigenous organizations, was the result of a two-year listening process during which more than 65,000 people in the Amazonia region were asked: What are the most pressing issues you face?
The agenda used for the synod of bishops at the Vatican, as well as the wide variety of interconnected parallel gatherings around the city—under the umbrella of “The Amazon: Common Home” (la Casa Comun)—outlined the collected wisdom: Listen to the voice of Amazonia. Pursue ecological conversion. Support the prophetic Indigenous church.
One parallel gathering met in the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, a 10-minute walk from St. Peter’s Basilica. Hundreds of Amazonian Indigenous leaders and guests met at Santa Maria to pray, listen, and conceive a new world—one that celebrates the eternal truth of the proclamation of Jesus Christ: We are all loved. We all belong. All creation is deeply connected.
Above all, the Amazonian people demand to be seen and heard, saying: We matter. Our belief systems, which hold all life as profoundly sacred, matter. We demand an end to the insidious destruction of our sacred home.
Indigenous leaders brought with them a rich and sacred language for worship. Anitalia Claxi Pijachi Kuyuedo, a Huitoto Ocaina Indigenous delegate from Colombia, prayed over the community at Santa Maria, saying: “I am the earth. I am the forest. I am a tigre. But my skin is poisoned. You can see the poison in my skin. I am showing you my dying in my skin.” Kuyuedo demanded that the echo of her threatened people, the gasping of her fragile home, be heard.
Of course, there is a tension here too. Santa Maria’s massive architecture of white marble and shining gold was constructed to display the highest level of ecclesial power and might. But somehow that dominion dissolves in the gathered community below.
Pope Francis has called for “a change in the historical paradigm,” where governments and industry view Amazonia as a “storage room filled with natural resources, with little regard for the lives of Indigenous peoples or for the destruction of nature.”
This cry extends not only to the Catholic Church, but to the world. We are all invited to participate directly and concretely in confronting the mechanisms of destruction.
The synod provided an opportunity for the church to be converted, to seep into these ancient belief systems of the world, to remember that all creation is holy, that “the Earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it” (Psalm 24). Indigenous communities invite the whole church to challenge the mercantile view that sees everything on heaven and Earth as a product for packaging and for sale.
“The church is ready—almost ready—to cast aside diplomacy and to reclaim its prophetic voice,” said Eleazar López Hernández, a Zapotec Catholic priest from Mexico considered the “midwife” of Indigenous theology in Latin America and a special adviser to the synod.
At Santa Maria, our morning and evening prayers for the church included these words of encouragement: “Row into deeper waters. Don’t be afraid.”
Emilie Teresa Smith was an observer to the October synod's parallel activities in Rome.
Emilie Teresa Smith is a Canadian Anglican priest and theologian living in Vancouver, British Columbia. She is co-president of the Óscar Romero International Network in Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America.
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