For the Catholic Church to thrive, it needs to reach to the margins of society, journey with those people on the margins and be more inclusive in its decision-making so everyone feels they have a stake in its future.
This was one of the main messages delivered by Mauricio López Oropeza, one of the most influential lay leaders in the Latin American Church, to an audience in Parramatta last week, as part of the Bishop Vincent Presents series of public lectures put on by the Diocese of Parramatta.
Mauricio said this message had come out of the The Synod on the Pan-Amazon Region (Amazon Synod) in 2019, which was set up on the insistence of Pope Francis and which conducted an exhaustive listening process amongst almost 90,000 people across the vast Amazon region spanning nine countries.
He was in conversation with Qwayne Guevara, a lay leader in the Diocese of Parramatta, and the lead facilitator of the Diocesan Synod, at the Cloister Hall of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Parramatta, on Wednesday 23 July.
As well as being one of the leaders of the Amazon Synod, Mauricio is the lay Vice-President of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon, which is responsible for implementing the outcomes of the Synod. He was also a former member of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, member of the facilitation team for the Synod on Synodality and founding director of the Amazon University Program.
‘Participate in our struggles’
Many of the people who took part in the Amazon Synod process said they rarely saw priests and were reliant on lay deacons or those serving as such – most of whom are women – to deliver the sacraments, Mauricio said. This was a reality that those people wanted the Church to acknowledge. The synod also heard from many indigenous communities and others on the margins of the Church.
Mauricio in conversation with Qwayne Guevara. Image: Alphonsus Fok/ Diocese of Parramatta
“We had a chance to go out there and listen to communities that have not had any recent contact with the Church,” Mauricio said. “We cried when we heard those persons that have been serving the Church for decades saying, ‘this is the very first time in my life that I’ve been asked what is my dream for the future Church? I have never been heard and invited to express my feelings in this way’.”
An overriding message to come from these interactions was that people of the Amazon wanted the Church to “participate in our struggles, not just to talk about them, but to actively engage”.
He said this was made more urgent because Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’ (which criticised the destruction of the natural world and emphasised the interconnectedness of all living things to the health of the planet) completely changed the way these people saw themselves – “they feel now more part of it and they understand how important their role is”.
Mauricio told the audience of the importance of the Amazon region to the health of the Earth – 20 per cent of the world’s drinkable water comes from the region, while it holds a third of the world’s primary forests.
This meant that the outcomes from the Amazon Synod had implications for the rest of the world. “The future of the Amazon is connected to the future of the world,” he said.
The audience heard about the importance of the Amazon to the rest of the world. Image: Alphonsus Fok/ Diocese of Parramatta
“The problem is that we have a finite planet and a development model rooted in the idea of infinite resources. We have to think of a different way of doing things, or as Laudato Si’ mentioned, we are putting in danger the future for the next generations.
“We are seeing it right here and right now. But this is also an ethical problem. Inequality, as Pope Francis mentioned, might be the biggest ecological problem.
“When we have 900 million people on the planet going through hunger every day and we see how we waste one-third of everything that we produce, the food that we produce, it’s an ethical problem, and it calls for a conversion.”
‘People of God on the journey’
Mauricio said this synodal process, which begun with the Amazon Synod and has been continued in the Synod on Synodality and other regional synods such as the one in Parramatta, has allowed many more voices in the Church to be heard. But, it was also beneficial for the Church.
He said Pope Francis wanted the Church “to learn from those humble presences where we are small and limited in the midst of such a conflict, and our possibilities are so small that we need to learn to listen – to really listen.
Audience members got a chance to ask questions of Mauricio after his talk. Image: Alphonsus Fok/ Diocese of Parramatta
“We need to relearn how to collaborate with others, and by doing that, bringing back the essential element of the Gospel: that possibility, as Jesus Himself did, to encounter with others on the margins and be transformed by them.”
The best way to do this in an ongoing way was through ecclesial assemblies, he said, which would have representatives of the whole church community – bishops, clergy, consecrated men and women and laypeople.
“I feel honestly that these ecclesial assemblies will become the crucial moment in which we can experience what it is to be a People of God on the journey, and where we can discern and hopefully to allow space for those on the peripheries to feel at home. I think that’s one of the biggest challenges that we have.”
‘Where the Church is headed’
In thanking Mauricio for his talk, Bishop Vincent Long OFM Conv, the Bishop of Parramatta, said the ecclesial assembly that came after the Amazon Synod in 2021, where laypeople were given voting rights alongside clergy and consecrated men and women, was “groundbreaking” and laid the foundation for future assemblies.
Some of the decrees from the Amazon Synod were equally revolutionary, Bishop Vincent said, including that the Church must promote and confirm ministries to men and women disciples in an equitable manner.
In discussion with audience members after the talk. Image: Alphonsus Fok/ Diocese of Parramatta
“It gives a sense of the direction of where the Church is headed, very aspirational, but as far as I’m concerned, very groundbreaking.
“What the Latin American Church has given to the Universal Church, including Australia, is this sense of the church of the poor, the church that accompanies the people. And you [Mauricio] are the embodiment of the Latin American Church for us.”
A member of the audience, Dr Leonard Pinto, an environmental consultant, thought Mauricio’s talk was “excellent”.
“His presentation has a strong meaning for us, and I think that meaning is in how we articulate the spiritual message of Christ in a secular society, into a secular language that we understand. That’s a message that we all need.”
With Bishop Vincent Long OFM Conv, centre, and Vicar-General Fr Fernando Montano, left. Image: Alphonsus Fok/ Diocese of Parramatta
Another audience member, Amy Smith, said Mauricio’s talk had a lot of relevance for Australians and the Church in Australia, especially how we deal with the impacts of the ecological crisis and the continuing legacy of colonialism on Indigenous people.
“We are also a location with a lot of remoteness, like the Amazon, so it actually does make you wonder about those small communities and those remote locations who don’t get as much access to the sacraments. That is certainly something I hadn’t considered before hearing those topics tonight.”
Click here to view more photos from Mauricio’s talk at the Cloister Hall, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Parramatta.
To find out more about the post-synod work by the Amazon University Program (PUAM) in bringing education to the Amazon region, go to their website.
Mauricio López Oropeza also delivered the Dom Hélder Câmara Lecture at Newman College, Melbourne, on Wednesday 30 July.
