Pope: The Church in the Amazon bears witness to the Synod

Catherine Aurelius – Vatican City

Pope Francis has sent a message to participants in the Catholic Church at the Fourth Meeting of the Amazon, IV Encontro da Igreja Católica na Amazônia Legal, to be held in Santarém, Brazil from June 6-9. Among the participants are cardinals, bishops, priests, clergy and laity, among those representatives of indigenous peoples and traditional communities.

The Pope expresses his joy that the Church in the Brazilian Amazon region is operating according to the guidelines of the Synod of the Amazon, embodied in the Amazon region and giving the Church new faces with the features of the Amazon (cf. Querida Amazonia, 7) and how the local churches meet and express community in a collegial way, participation and mission. The Pope recalls that with this meeting, one wants to recall the Santarém document issued 50 years ago, in 1972, in the same place, in which it proposed an approach to evangelism that contributed to the formation of a stable ecclesial consciousness.

Preach the Gospel with courage

Be brave and bold, open yourselves with confidence to the work of God who created everything, who presented himself in Jesus Christ (cf. QA 41), the Pope concludes and calls for prayer to Our Lady of Nazareth, the patron saint of the Amazons. .