By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Members of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon asked that women be given leadership roles in the Catholic Church, although they stopped short of calling for women deacons.
In the Amazon, like in the rest of the world, the essential roles women play within the family, the community and the church should be valued and recognized officially, members of the synod said in their final document. The document, which synod members voted on Oct. 26, included a call for the creation of “the instituted ministry of ‘woman community leader,'” something they said would help meet “the changing demands of evangelization and community care.”
Speaking after the vote on the document, Pope Francis said the synod’s discussion on women “falls short” of explaining who women are in the church, particularly “in the transmission of faith, in the preservation of culture. I would just like to underline this: that we have not yet realized what women mean in the church,” but instead “we focus on the functional aspect, which is important,” but is not everything.
Synod members also asked Pope Francis to revise St. Paul VI’s 1972 document on ministries, “Ministeria Quaedam” (“Some Ministries”), so that women could be installed formally as lectors and acolytes and in any new ministries to be developed.
The final document also asked that “the voice of women be heard, that they be consulted and participate decision making” in the church. “It is necessary for the church to assume with greater strength their leadership within the church and for the church to recognize and promote it by strengthening their participation in the pastoral councils of parishes and dioceses, or even in instances of government,” the document said.
While noting that a “large number” of participants in the pre-synod consultations asked for women deacons and that several members of the synod itself made such a call, the final document did not include an explicit request for such a move.
In his post-vote talk to synod members, the pope gave the same explanation, but promised that he would have the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “reconvene the commission or perhaps open it with new members.”
Quoting a speech from Pope Paul in 1965, the final document said, “The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of woman is being achieved in its fullness.”
When many women are “victims of physical, moral and religious violence, including femicide, the church commits to defense of their rights and recognizes them a protagonists and guardians of creation,” synod members said. Without specifying further, the document said that “it is urgent for the church in the Amazon to promote and confer ministries for men and women in an equitable manner.”

By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Addressing concerns about a proposed Amazonian rite in the Catholic Church, an indigenous participant at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon called on Catholics to soften their hearts and understand the needs of Catholics in the region.
At a synod briefing Oct. 24, Delio Siticonatzi Camaiteri, a member of the Ashaninka people and a professor from Peru, said that fears about the proposal are unwarranted because indigenous people seek unity and not division.

“Do we (want to) have our own rites? Yes, we do! But those rites must be incorporated with what is central, which is Jesus Christ. There is nothing else to argue about on this issue! The center that is uniting us in this synod is Jesus Christ,” he said.
Throughout the synod, members discussed the possibility of incorporating local traditions and cultural elements in the liturgy. While there are nearly two dozen different rites in the Catholic Church, those critical of the proposal fear that it would introduce so-called pagan elements into the liturgy.
Speaking to journalists at the briefing, Siticonatzi said that he noticed those present seemed “a bit uncomfortable” and did not “understand what the Amazon truly needs” when it comes to establishing a new rite.
Nevertheless, he added, there are many who are “doubtful of this reality that we are looking for as indigenous people. Do not harden your hearts! Soften your hearts; that is what Jesus invites us to do,” he said. “We live together. We all believe in one God! “
Mexican Father Eleazar Lopez Hernandez, a member of the Zapotec community and an expert on indigenous theology, told journalists that the churches in Latin America also “need to be able to express our faith within our own framework.”

“This is what the Amazonian rite is based on,” Father Lopez said. “We can no longer continue living within frameworks that are foreign to our people. This is alienation.”
When it comes to the liturgy, he continued, Christians have a responsibility to know the difference between “what is substantial in the Christian perspective and what is secondary, what is cultural.”

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By Junno Arocho Esteves
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The Synod of Bishops for the Amazon will help the Catholic Church make its presence felt and voice heard in a region that is dangerously approaching “a point of no return,” said the special secretaries of the synod.
“It is a great and continuing challenge for the Catholic Church to make the original Amazonian peoples feel part of it and contribute to it with the light of Christ and the spiritual richness that shines in their cultures,” Cardinal-designate Michael Czerny and Bishop David Martinez De Aguirre Guinea wrote in an article published Sept. 12 in La Civilta Cattolica, the Jesuit journal.
Cardinal-designate Czerny, undersecretary of the Migrants and Refugee Section of the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and Bishop Martinez, apostolic vicar of Puerto Maldonado, Peru, said the synod will take place at a time when “both human and natural life are suffering serious and perhaps irreversible destruction.”
The synod, scheduled for Oct. 6-27, will focus on “Amazonia: New paths for the church and for an integral ecology.”
The Amazon rainforest includes territory belonging to nine countries in South America and has experienced significant deforestation, negatively impacting the indigenous populations in the area and leading to a loss of biodiversity.
As special secretaries, Cardinal-designate Czerny and Bishop Martinez will assist Brazil’s Cardinal Claudio Hummes, synod relator general, in providing a comprehensive outline of the synod’s theme at the beginning of the meeting and summarizing the speeches of synod members before work begins on concrete proposals for the pope.
In the article, titled “Why the Amazon merits a synod,” the prelates said that the synod for the Amazon is an effort to implement “’Laudato Si’ in this fundamental human and natural environment.”
Much like Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical “Rerum Novarum” recognized the exploitation of workers in the early days of the industrial revolution, Pope Francis’ observations on the “gross inequality and cruel marginalization” caused by financial and consumerist greed call “for a new attitude toward nature and the social environment.”
“This new synthesis is a wake-up call to the entire world, to all of humanity,” they wrote. “But it also suggests a new socio-pastoral orientation and dynamic for the church, which must understand the challenges faced by individuals and families and groups within these various dimensions.”
However, Cardinal-designate Czerny and Bishop Martinez wrote that the church “cannot give spiritual guidance and pastoral care if people are understood in isolation from – i.e. not integrated with – how they live and function within the actual natural, economic and social conditions that they face.”
They also noted that the crisis facing the region is not limited only to environmental problems such as pollution, privatization of natural goods and trafficking.
“Mercantilism, secularization, the throwaway culture and the idolatry of money” coupled with decreasing numbers of priests and religious “is endangering the presence of the Catholic Church among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon.”
Such challenges, they added, require a response that moves from a “ministry of visits to a ministry of presence.”
“This is why, during the October Synod, the entire world should walk with the people of the Amazon; not to expand or divert the agenda, but to help the synod to make a difference,” the prelates wrote. “The Amazon region is huge, and its challenges are immense. If destroyed, the impacts will be felt worldwide.”

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MANITOWOC, WI – The Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, Manitowoc, WI, re-elected Sister Natalie Binversie as Community Director on June 24, 2019. Bishop David Ricken, of the Diocese of Green Bay, presided over the election. Sister Natalie, from St. Gregory Parish in St. Nazianz, served one six-year term from 2013 to 2019. Previous to being Community Director, she was a teacher in the primary grades and Novice Directress.
Four Sisters were elected to serve on the General Administration Council. First Councilor is Sister Myra Jean Sweigart and the Treasurer General for the Congregation. Sister Myra Jean, from Cambridge, OH, served one six year term and was re-elected for another six years. Sister also has a background in elementary education as teacher and principal.
Second Councilor is Sister Theresa Feldkamp from Wrightstown, WI, who was re-elected for a second six-year term. Sister Theresa served as an elementary school teacher and principal before being elected to Community leadership.

Sister Leonette Kochan, originally from Francis Creek, WI, was elected Third Councilor. Sister Leonette was missioned in Tucson, AZ where she served as principal of Santa Cruz Catholic School and most recently was Coordinator of the Office of Human Life and Dignity in the Diocese of Tucson.
The Fourth Councilor elected is Sister Jane Kinate from Wrightstown, WI. Sister Jane has been in the field of education all of her life and a teacher at Roncalli High School in Manitowoc for the past 20 years.
Installation services for the General Administration of the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity were held on July 21, 2019 at Holy Family Convent in Manitowoc. The Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity were founded 150 years ago on November 9, 1869 in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The Sisters presently serve at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School and Parish in Greenwood, Mississippi. Missions where the Sisters serve outside of Mississippi are located in Arizona, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin.

WESTPHALIA, TEXAS – A statue of Mary is seen amid flames through a window in the Church of the Visitation in Westphalia, Texas, July 29, 2019. The nearly 125-year old wooden church with bell towers on each side, burned to the ground that morning. Since 1883 the parish has served the Catholic community of southwestern Falls County, many of whom are descendents of immigrants from the northwest German region of Westphalia. (CNS photo/courtesy Nathan Wilde)