VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — In a key move, Pope Leo has written to the bishops’ conference of the Amazon as they meet for the first time in such numbers since the 2019 Amazon Synod.

A telegram sent from Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin to the head of the Amazon bishops’ conference conveys the thoughts and instructions of Pope Leo XIV to the relatively young group of bishops. Both the content and the very fact of the message’s existence are notable, especially when placed against the backdrop of the sensitive issue that the Amazon Synod has become.

Presenting the thoughts of the Pope, Parolin wrote that Leo “thanks you for your efforts to promote the greater good of the Church in favor of the faithful on the beloved Amazonian territory and, taking into account what was learned in the Synod regarding the listening to and participation of all vocations in the Church, he exhorts you to seek, on the basis of the unity and collegiality proper to an ‘episcopal body’ ways to help diocesan bishops and Apostolic Vicars concretely and effectively carry out their mission.”

Leo’s message was delivered to the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon, known as CEAMA, which was canonically erected by Pope Francis in October 2021 and currently led by Cardinal Pedro Barreto, SJ.

Three-point papal message

The American Pope identified three key aspects for CEAMA to focus on: the clear and precise preaching of Jesus Christ, care for native peoples who are the subject of evangelization, and also care for the “common home.” Parolin wrote, presenting Leo’s thoughts:

It is that Jesus Christ, in whom all things are recapitulated, be announced with clarity and immense charity among the inhabitants of the Amazon, so that we may strive to give them fresh and pure the bread of the good news, and the heavenly food of the Eucharist, the only means to truly be the people of God and the body of Christ.

In this mission, we are moved by the certainty confirmed by the history of the church that wherever the name of Christ is preached injustice, receipts proportionally for as the apostle Saint Paul assess all exploitation of men by man disappears if we are able to receive one another as brothers and sisters.

Within this perennial doctrine, no less evident is the right and duty to care for the “home” that God the father has interested to us as diligent stewards, so that no one irresponsibly destroys the natural goods that speak of the goodness and beauty of the creator, nor much less subjects oneself to them as a slave or worshiper of nature, since things have been given to us in order to attain our end of praising God and thus obtaining the salvation of our souls.

By this brief telegram to the CEAMA gathering, Leo thus gave his own directive to the group born out of one of the most controversial events in the Church’s recent history.

CEAMA itself was a direct fruit of the 21019 Amazon Synod, and is formulated in the style and with the priorities of that same synod.

READ: Pope Francis establishes ecclesial body to implement controversial Amazon Synod

Among the many proposals raised by the Amazon Synod and Querida Amazonia – the document which emerged from the 2019 synod – were the opening of the clerical state to women and the admitting of married men ordained to the priesthood, in an attempt to make the Church more appealing to Catholics in the region. CEAMA also identifies the promotion of the “Amazon Rite” as a key priority, which is a rite featuring elements of local pagan culture woven into the liturgy. The rite began a three-year trial period late last year.

Why this meeting?

This CEAMA gathering is billed by itself as “the first major episcopal meeting since the 2019 Synod for the Amazon.”

It is posited as “a space to reflect, share, and discern together how to be Church in this blessed and wounded land, in the spirit of synodality and in the light of the Jubilee Year.”

“I believe it is an opportune moment for the Amazonian bishops to gather and, together, discern and affirm the most appropriate ways of being Church,” Bishop Francis Dean Alleyne of Guyana said.

“I am very excited to discover how the Amazonian bishops can cooperate to implement Querida Amazonia and the Synod on Synodality,” said Bishop Alain René Ransay of French Guiana.

CEAMA itself was designed to be the machine which would continue the controversial work of the Amazon Synod locally, whilst relevant prelates would raise the cause of female deacons, married clergy and the Amazon Rite during their regular visits to Rome.

Indeed, the first of these issues was front and center during the 2023 session of the Synod on Synodality.

By using the Synod on Synodality method and style of endless listening, CEAMA’s scope might well have made considerable progress in achieving these aforementioned three goals.

The Amazon Synod pushed such issues to the discussion table, and the Synod on Synodality allowed of sufficient confusion for few to actually know – or care – about Church doctrine.

Indeed, so widespread is the doctrinal confusion and lack of punitive action that one Brazilian bishop revealed last fall that he already practices a quasi-ordination of women. Cardinal Ulrich Steiner said that he “lays hands” on women who he has commissioned to baptize since they are going to “celebrate a sacrament.”

READ: Amazon cardinal ‘lays hands’ to confer ‘ministry’ on women going to ‘celebrate a sacrament’

Brakes from Rome?

But Leo’s message appears to divert CEAMA away from such ideologies. First and foremost he posits their action as being grounded in the clear preaching of Jesus Christ, something which does not allow for the ingress of pagan inculturation as is the case in the Amazon Rite. Bishop Raimundo Vanthuy Neto of São Gabriel da Cachoeira in Brazil suggested last August that the Amazon rite or inculturated liturgy would indeed use elements of indigenous pagan worship, including their manner of burning incense.

But preaching which is to be conducted with “clarity and immense charity among the inhabitants of the Amazon” – as ordered by Leo – does not allow for the promotion of a rite based on pagan native “worldview, traditions, symbols and original rites that include transcendent, community and ecological dimensions.”

Nor did Leo make any mention of opening the door to female deacons or married clergy, the viri probati, which is another striking absence in his message to CEAMA.

Notably also the Amazon Synod has become linked with a number of the climate oriented actions of the Vatican under Pope Francis, many of which have garnered controversy due to their alignment with pro-abortion climate accords.

Referencing care for the “common home” and thus using the phrase which became so widespread under Francis, Leo presented a nuanced approach for CEAMA to adopt. Care for nature was to be based upon love of God, he wrote, but so also was the degree of such care in order to prevent it becoming an idol in itself:

so that no one irresponsibly destroys the natural goods that speak of the goodness and beauty of the creator, nor much less subjects oneself to them as a slave or worshiper of nature.

By way of a final mark of intellectual finesse, Leo’s message on this point cited St. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises – a work which CEAMA’s Jesuit president will be very familiar with. The signal was clear: don’t try to pull one over the Augustinian Pope.

The future of the Catholic Church in the Amazon region is certainly unclear, given the local push for controversial issues such as married clergy and female deacons. But with this message, Leo appears to have sent a signal to CEAMA warning that the glory days they may have dreamt of under Francis are no more.