Efforts to serve, defend and build up the Catholic community in the Amazon region must be centred on the proclamation of the Gospel, Pope Leo XIV says. Source: OSV News.
When the Church promotes “the right and duty” to care for the natural environment, it is not encouraging people to be “a slave or worshiper of nature” since creation is a gift meant to lead one to praise God alone, said a message sent to the Amazonian bishops on the Pope’s behalf by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State.
The Pope asked the region’s bishops “to keep in mind three dimensions that are interconnected in the pastoral work of that region: the mission of the Church to proclaim the Gospel to all; the just treatment of the peoples who dwell there; and the care of the common home,” said the message, addressed to Peruvian Cardinal Pedro Barreto Jimeno, president of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon.
The message was published by the Vatican yesterday as about 90 bishops from the 105 dioceses and other church jurisdictions in the Amazon region were meeting in Bogotá, Colombia, ahead of a planned general assembly of the ecclesial conference – which includes religious and laypeople – in March 2026.
The experience of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon in 2019 demonstrated how essential it was for the Church to listen to and involve clergy, religious and laity, the message said, but Cardinal Parolin said the Pope hoped the Bogotá meeting would “help diocesan bishops and apostolic vicars concretely and effectively carry out their mission.”
Jesus must be proclaimed “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,” the message said.
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Pope to Amazon bishops: Proclaim Gospel, fight injustice, defend nature (By Cindy Wooden, OSV News)
