RIO DE JANEIRO –
When the Archbishop of the Brazilian city of Manaus, Leonardo Steiner, kneels before Pope Francis on August 27, the Brazilian cleric will make history as the first cardinal to come from the Amazon region.
“The communities feel that the distance between Rome and the Amazon is now less,” Steiner told The Associated Press in a written interview. “Perhaps this is the reason for the joy of the Amazonian people with the measure of Pope Francis.”
Steiner attributed his selection to four priorities of the Pope: the desire to do more missionary work in the Amazon and to be attentive to the poor; care for the Amazon “as our common home” and be a church that “knows how to contribute to the autonomy of indigenous peoples.”
Stretching across nine countries, the Amazon region is larger than the European Union. It is home to 34 million people, of which more than three million are indigenous, belonging to some 400 ethnic groups, according to the Catholic Church.
There is also a religious lens through which to view the acute environmental struggles unfolding in the region: the Catholic Church’s socio-environmental agenda is a contentious issue with numerous Brazilian Pentecostal churches. They have a powerful caucus in the Brazilian parliament and have adopted the pro-agribusiness beef caucus in Congress. Both Pentecostals and supporters of the cattle industry belong to the political base of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
Cardinals are the highest ranking clergy below the Pope. Often called “red hats” because of the color of their caps, they serve as papal advisers. More importantly, together they select each pope, the leader of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics.
For church watchers, it will come as no surprise that Francis has finally appointed an Amazonian cardinal, given how important the region has been to his papacy and the attention it has shown it.
THE ENVIRONMENTAL AWAKENING OF POPE FRANCIS
Francis was first moved by the plight of the vast Amazon basin in 2007, during the Conference of the Episcopal Council of Bishops of Latin America, according to Brazilian priest and historian José Oscar Beozzo. Francis was at the time the Archbishop of Buenos Aires and helped write the official account of the conference. The final text advocates the preservation of both the Amazon and Antarctica.
Francis then dedicated an entire synod, or meeting, of the region’s bishops in 2019. In his environmental awakening, crystallized in his 2015 encyclical “Praise You,” he advocates the preservation of the region’s biodiversity and portrays the peoples indigenous people as guardians of the forests. In 2018 he also visited Madre de Dios, a region in the Peruvian Amazon devastated by illegal mining and logging.
The pope named Steiner archbishop of Manaus just after the Amazon synod ended, selecting a Franciscan who clearly shares the same spirit and ideology as the pope’s namesake, Saint Francis. The pope may have noticed Steiner because he held a prominent position in the Brazilian episcopal conference and served as general secretary between 2011 and 2019. He also has serious Roman credentials, having served as general secretary of the Pontifical Antonianum University of the Franciscans in Rome, one of the main pontifical universities.
CATHOLIC BISHOPS OF THE AMAZON MEET IN ROME
The Amazon synod was also noted for the theft of three indigenous statues depicting a nude pregnant woman, which were part of a procession at the Vatican at the start of the meeting. Conservative critics criticized the synod’s “pagan” prayers and idolatry, and early one morning, thieves entered a Vatican-area church where the statues were displayed and dumped them into the Tiber River.
Francis publicly apologized to the indigenous leaders present for the theft, and the statues were dredged from the river in time for the end of the meeting. One was prominently placed on display in the synod hall as the synod fathers voted on the final recommendations.
The main thief, an Austrian far-right activist Alexander Tschugguel, became something of a celebrity within the traditionalist opposition to Francis because of the stunt. In the years since, the stunt itself has come to crystallize the hatred conservatives and traditionalists have for this pope, where even crimes are justified to save the faithful from his “heresy.”
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND THE AMAZON JUNGLE
The Catholic Church’s relationship with the Amazon began in 1617 when Franciscan missionaries arrived in the coastal region of Belem. His opposition to the enslavement of indigenous peoples strained relations with the Portuguese authorities, who expelled Catholic missionaries from the region on three occasions, the last in 1759.
At first, Catholic denominations required missionaries to learn indigenous languages to work in the Amazon and spread Christianity. Jesuit priests even went so far as to create Nheengatu, a language based on the indigenous Tupi language adapted with Portuguese words and grammar. For a time it became the most common language in the Amazon and is still spoken in some regions.
For historian Beozzo, Pope Francis is promoting a kind of “patriarchy” in the Amazon, similar to the five patriarchates in places like Jerusalem and Constantinople during the High Middle Ages, an effort to raise the status of the Amazon within the Church. Catholic. structure.
The synod, the 2020 creation of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon Region and now the rise of Steiner are all part of Francis’ goal of putting the world’s largest rainforest center stage, Beozzo said.
“His election begins a very important moment to consider the Amazon as a region with its own church dynamics, which welcomes the leading role of the indigenous peoples of the region.”
Steiner, 71, is one of 21 new cardinals announced by Pope Francis in late May. They include Giorgio Marengo, who has been apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Robert McElroy, Bishop of San Diego, and Peter Okpaleke, Bishop of Ekwulobia, Nigeria.
Winfield reported from Rome.
Associated Press climate and environment coverage is supported by several private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content.