This morning, in the New Synod Hall at the Vatican, the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops which is focusing on the Pan-Amazonian region began. First to address the assembly was His Holiness.
Sisters and brothers, good morning!
Welcome to all of you and thank you for your work in preparation for this encounter: everyone has worked very hard, from the moment in Puerto Maldonado until now. Thank you very much.
The Synod ... I will speak in Spanish, it's better.
We can say that the Synod for the Amazon has four dimensions: the pastoral dimension, the cultural dimension, the social dimension and the ecological dimension. The first, the pastoral dimension, is the essential one, which encompasses everything. We approach with a Christian heart and see the reality of the Amazon with the eyes of a disciple in order to understand and interpret it through the eyes of a disciple, because there are no neutral hermeneutics, aseptic hermeneutics, they are always conditioned by a previous option, our previous option is that of disciples. And also with the eyes of missionaries, because the love that the Holy Spirit placed in us drives us to the proclamation of Jesus Christ; A proclamation - we all know - that should not to be confused with proselytism, but we approach in order to consider the Amazonian reality, with this pastoral heart, with the eyes of disciples and missionaries because the proclamation of the Lord compels us. And we also approach the Amazonian peoples on tiptoes, respecting their history, their cultures, their style of good living, in the etymological sense of the word, not in the social sense that we so often give them, because each of the towns is an entity all its own, all peoples have their own wisdom, self-awareness, peoples have feelings, a way of seeing reality, a history, a hermeneutic and they tend to be protagonists of their own history with these things, with these qualities. And we approach as aliens to ideological colonizations that destroy or reduce the idiosyncrasies of the peoples. Today, this ideological colonization is so common. And we approach without entrepreneurial eagerness to create preconditioned programs, to discipline the Amazonian peoples, to discipline their history, their culture; not that, that desire to domesticate native peoples. When the Church forgets about this, how it has to approach a people, it is not inculturated; I even underestimate certain peoples. And how many failures we regret today. Think of De Nobile in India, Ricci in China and many others. Homogenizing centralism did not reveal the authenticity of the culture of the peoples.
Ideologies are a dangerous weapon, we always tend to grab onto an ideology in order to interpret a people. Ideologies are reductive, and lead us to exaggeration in our claim to understand intellectually, but without accepting, without admiring, without assuming, and then reality is received in categories, the most common are the categories of isms. So when we have to get closer to the reality of some native people, we talk about indigenisms, and when we want to give them a clue to their better life, we don't ask them, we talk about developmentalism. These isms reformulate life from the laboratory of enlightenment. They are slogans that are taking root and programming the approach to the original peoples. In our country, a particular motto - civilization and barbarism - served to divide, to annihilate and reached its pinnacle towards the end of the 80s when we tried to annihilate most of the indigenous peoples, because they were barbarism, and civilization came on the other side. This is the contempt of the people and - I go to the experience of my land - that, civilization and barbarism, which served to annihilate peoples, is still present in my homeland, with the use offensive words, and then we speak of second degree citizens, those who come from barbarism; and today they are the little balls, the Paraguayans, the umbrellas, the little black heads; there is always that move away from the reality of a town qualifying it and creating distances. That is the experience of my country. And then contempt. Yesterday I was very sad to hear in here a mocking comment about that godly lord who carried the offerings with feathers on his head, tell me: What is the difference between wearing feathers on the head and the tricorn used by some officers of our dicasteries? Then we run the risk of proposing simply pragmatic measures, when, on the contrary, we are asked to contemplate peoples, a capacity for admiration, to make them think paradigmatically. If anyone comes with pragmatic intentions or a sinful self, turn and open your heart to a paradigmatic perspective that is born out of the reality of the peoples.
We have not come here to invent programs of social development or custody of cultures, of the museum type, or pastoral actions with the same non-contemplative style with which the actions of the opposing forces are being carried out: deforestation, standardization, exploitation. They also run programs that do not respect poetry - I allow myself the word - the reality of the peoples is sovereign. We also have to take care of worldliness in the way of demanding points of view, changes in the organization. Worldliness always infiltrates us and keeps us from the poetry of the people. We come to contemplate, to understand, to serve the peoples; and we do it along a synodal path, we do it in synod, not in round tables, not in conferences or in subsequent discussions; We do it in synod, because a synod is not a parliament, it is not a parlour, it is not to show who has more power over the media and who has more power over the networks to impose any idea or any plan. This would form a congregationalist Church, if we intend to search through the polls to determine who has a majority. Or a sensationalist Church so far away, so distant from our Holy Mother the Catholic Church, or as Saint Ignatius liked to say: our Holy Mother the hierarchical Church. The experience of synod is to walk together under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the main actor of the synod. Please, let's not throw the Holy Spirit out of the room. Consultations were made, discussed in the Episcopal Conferences, in the Pre-synodal Council, the Instrumentum laboris was elaborated which, as you know, is a martyr text, destined to be destroyed, because it is the starting point for what the Spirit will do in us and, now, we walk under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Now we must let the Holy Spirit express itself in this Assembly, express itself among us, express itself with us, through us and express itself despite us, despite our resistance; it is normal that there are resistances, because the life of a Christian is like that.
And then, what will be our work here in order to ensure that this presence of the Holy Spirit is fruitful? First of all, pray. Sisters and brothers: I ask you to pray a lot. Reflect, dialogue, listen with humility, knowing that I do not know everything. And speak with courage, with parrhesia, even if you have to be ashamed, say what you feel, discern and, keep all this inside here, guarding the fraternity that must exist here inside. And to favour this attitude of reflection, pray, discern, listen with humility and speak with courage. After four interventions we will have a space of four minutes of silence. Someone said: That is dangerous, Father, because they are going to sleep. This was the experience of young people (during the synod that we held last year), we did the same and the result was rather the opposite, they did tend to fall asleep during the interventions, at least some of them, and they would wake up in silence. Finally, to be in the synod is to be encouraged to enter a process. It is not merely occupying space in the room. We are entering a process. And ecclesial processes have a need. They need to be guarded, cared for, like babies, accompanied at the beginning by others. Care for this process with delicacy. Babies need the warmth of community, we need warmth from Mother Church. This is how an ecclesial process grows. Therefore, the attitude of respect - of taking care of the fraternal atmosphere, the air of intimacy - is important. And it's about not venting everything, as it comes, outside. But it is not about those who must inform others of a secret more typical of the lodges than of the ecclesial community, but of delicacy and prudence in the communication that we will do outside. And this need to communicate out to so many people who want to know, to our brothers and sisters, journalists, who have the vocation to serve and to make things known, and to help this, press services, briefings, etc. are provided.
However, a process like that of a synod can be ruined a bit if I leave what I think, I share my thoughts, and then there is that characteristic that was seen in some synods: the synod from inside and the synod from outside. The synod inside that follows a path of Mother Church, of care for the processes ... and the synod of the outside that, through information given with lightness, given with imprudence, moves informants ex officio to make mistakes. Thank you for what you are doing, thank you for praying for each other, and for your encouragement. And please, let's not lose our sense of humor.
Testo originale nella lingua italiana
Texto en español
Greetings of His Holiness, Pope Francis
at the beginning of the Special Assembly
of the Synod of Bishops on the Pan-Amazonian region
Sisters and brothers, good morning!
Welcome to all of you and thank you for your work in preparation for this encounter: everyone has worked very hard, from the moment in Puerto Maldonado until now. Thank you very much.
The Synod ... I will speak in Spanish, it's better.
We can say that the Synod for the Amazon has four dimensions: the pastoral dimension, the cultural dimension, the social dimension and the ecological dimension. The first, the pastoral dimension, is the essential one, which encompasses everything. We approach with a Christian heart and see the reality of the Amazon with the eyes of a disciple in order to understand and interpret it through the eyes of a disciple, because there are no neutral hermeneutics, aseptic hermeneutics, they are always conditioned by a previous option, our previous option is that of disciples. And also with the eyes of missionaries, because the love that the Holy Spirit placed in us drives us to the proclamation of Jesus Christ; A proclamation - we all know - that should not to be confused with proselytism, but we approach in order to consider the Amazonian reality, with this pastoral heart, with the eyes of disciples and missionaries because the proclamation of the Lord compels us. And we also approach the Amazonian peoples on tiptoes, respecting their history, their cultures, their style of good living, in the etymological sense of the word, not in the social sense that we so often give them, because each of the towns is an entity all its own, all peoples have their own wisdom, self-awareness, peoples have feelings, a way of seeing reality, a history, a hermeneutic and they tend to be protagonists of their own history with these things, with these qualities. And we approach as aliens to ideological colonizations that destroy or reduce the idiosyncrasies of the peoples. Today, this ideological colonization is so common. And we approach without entrepreneurial eagerness to create preconditioned programs, to discipline the Amazonian peoples, to discipline their history, their culture; not that, that desire to domesticate native peoples. When the Church forgets about this, how it has to approach a people, it is not inculturated; I even underestimate certain peoples. And how many failures we regret today. Think of De Nobile in India, Ricci in China and many others. Homogenizing centralism did not reveal the authenticity of the culture of the peoples.
Ideologies are a dangerous weapon, we always tend to grab onto an ideology in order to interpret a people. Ideologies are reductive, and lead us to exaggeration in our claim to understand intellectually, but without accepting, without admiring, without assuming, and then reality is received in categories, the most common are the categories of isms. So when we have to get closer to the reality of some native people, we talk about indigenisms, and when we want to give them a clue to their better life, we don't ask them, we talk about developmentalism. These isms reformulate life from the laboratory of enlightenment. They are slogans that are taking root and programming the approach to the original peoples. In our country, a particular motto - civilization and barbarism - served to divide, to annihilate and reached its pinnacle towards the end of the 80s when we tried to annihilate most of the indigenous peoples, because they were barbarism, and civilization came on the other side. This is the contempt of the people and - I go to the experience of my land - that, civilization and barbarism, which served to annihilate peoples, is still present in my homeland, with the use offensive words, and then we speak of second degree citizens, those who come from barbarism; and today they are the little balls, the Paraguayans, the umbrellas, the little black heads; there is always that move away from the reality of a town qualifying it and creating distances. That is the experience of my country. And then contempt. Yesterday I was very sad to hear in here a mocking comment about that godly lord who carried the offerings with feathers on his head, tell me: What is the difference between wearing feathers on the head and the tricorn used by some officers of our dicasteries? Then we run the risk of proposing simply pragmatic measures, when, on the contrary, we are asked to contemplate peoples, a capacity for admiration, to make them think paradigmatically. If anyone comes with pragmatic intentions or a sinful self, turn and open your heart to a paradigmatic perspective that is born out of the reality of the peoples.
We have not come here to invent programs of social development or custody of cultures, of the museum type, or pastoral actions with the same non-contemplative style with which the actions of the opposing forces are being carried out: deforestation, standardization, exploitation. They also run programs that do not respect poetry - I allow myself the word - the reality of the peoples is sovereign. We also have to take care of worldliness in the way of demanding points of view, changes in the organization. Worldliness always infiltrates us and keeps us from the poetry of the people. We come to contemplate, to understand, to serve the peoples; and we do it along a synodal path, we do it in synod, not in round tables, not in conferences or in subsequent discussions; We do it in synod, because a synod is not a parliament, it is not a parlour, it is not to show who has more power over the media and who has more power over the networks to impose any idea or any plan. This would form a congregationalist Church, if we intend to search through the polls to determine who has a majority. Or a sensationalist Church so far away, so distant from our Holy Mother the Catholic Church, or as Saint Ignatius liked to say: our Holy Mother the hierarchical Church. The experience of synod is to walk together under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the main actor of the synod. Please, let's not throw the Holy Spirit out of the room. Consultations were made, discussed in the Episcopal Conferences, in the Pre-synodal Council, the Instrumentum laboris was elaborated which, as you know, is a martyr text, destined to be destroyed, because it is the starting point for what the Spirit will do in us and, now, we walk under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Now we must let the Holy Spirit express itself in this Assembly, express itself among us, express itself with us, through us and express itself despite us, despite our resistance; it is normal that there are resistances, because the life of a Christian is like that.
And then, what will be our work here in order to ensure that this presence of the Holy Spirit is fruitful? First of all, pray. Sisters and brothers: I ask you to pray a lot. Reflect, dialogue, listen with humility, knowing that I do not know everything. And speak with courage, with parrhesia, even if you have to be ashamed, say what you feel, discern and, keep all this inside here, guarding the fraternity that must exist here inside. And to favour this attitude of reflection, pray, discern, listen with humility and speak with courage. After four interventions we will have a space of four minutes of silence. Someone said: That is dangerous, Father, because they are going to sleep. This was the experience of young people (during the synod that we held last year), we did the same and the result was rather the opposite, they did tend to fall asleep during the interventions, at least some of them, and they would wake up in silence. Finally, to be in the synod is to be encouraged to enter a process. It is not merely occupying space in the room. We are entering a process. And ecclesial processes have a need. They need to be guarded, cared for, like babies, accompanied at the beginning by others. Care for this process with delicacy. Babies need the warmth of community, we need warmth from Mother Church. This is how an ecclesial process grows. Therefore, the attitude of respect - of taking care of the fraternal atmosphere, the air of intimacy - is important. And it's about not venting everything, as it comes, outside. But it is not about those who must inform others of a secret more typical of the lodges than of the ecclesial community, but of delicacy and prudence in the communication that we will do outside. And this need to communicate out to so many people who want to know, to our brothers and sisters, journalists, who have the vocation to serve and to make things known, and to help this, press services, briefings, etc. are provided.
However, a process like that of a synod can be ruined a bit if I leave what I think, I share my thoughts, and then there is that characteristic that was seen in some synods: the synod from inside and the synod from outside. The synod inside that follows a path of Mother Church, of care for the processes ... and the synod of the outside that, through information given with lightness, given with imprudence, moves informants ex officio to make mistakes. Thank you for what you are doing, thank you for praying for each other, and for your encouragement. And please, let's not lose our sense of humor.
Testo originale nella lingua italiana
Texto en español
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