tvc.dsj.org | June 25, 2019
IN THE CHURCH
15
Synod Document Raises Possibility of Married Priests, Roles for Women
By Junno Arocho Esteves
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY -- The Catholic
Church must find ways to reach in-
digenous Catholics deprived of the
sacraments in the most remote areas of
the Amazon rainforest, and that may
include ordaining married elders, said
the working document for the Synod of
Bishops on the Amazon.
“Affirming that celibacy is a gift
for the church, in order to ensure the
sacraments for the most remote areas
of the region, we are asked to study the
possibility of priestly ordination for el-
ders -- preferably indigenous, respected
and accepted by the community -- even
though they have an established and
stable family,” said the document.
Published by the Vatican June 17, the
document also said the church should
consider “an official ministry that can
be conferred upon women, taking into
account the central role they play in the
Amazonian church.”
The document, drafted after input
from bishops’ conferences and local
communities, acknowledged that in the
church “the feminine presence in com-
munities isn’t always valued.”
Those responding to a synod ques-
tionnaire asked that women’s “gifts
and talents” be recognized and that
the church “guarantee women leader-
ship as well as increasingly broad and
relevant space in the field of formation:
theology, catechesis, liturgy and schools
of faith and politics,” the 45-page docu-
ment said.
The synod gathering in October 2019
will reflect on the theme “Amazonia:
New paths for the church and for an
integral ecology.”
When he announced the synod in
2017, Pope Francis said it would seek to
identify new paths of evangelization,
especially for indigenous people who
are “often forgotten and left without the
prospect of a peaceful future, including
because of the crisis of the Amazon for-
est,” which plays a vital role in the en-
vironmental health of the entire planet.
The Amazon rainforest includes
territory spread across Brazil, Ecuador,
Venezuela, Suriname, Peru, Colombia,
Bolivia, Guyana and French Guiana and
is the largest rainforest in the world,
covering more than 2.1 million square
miles in South America.
While rich in biodiversity, natural
resources and cultures, the Amazon
rainforest has experienced significant
deforestation, negatively impacting the
indigenous populations in the area and
leading to a loss of biodiversity.
“This synod revolves around life: the
life of the Amazonian territory and its
people, the life of the church (and) the
life of the planet,” the document said.
Divided into three main parts, the
synod document first laid out the impor-
tance of the Amazonian region as well
A woman reads the Bible during a workshop
in St. Ignatius, Guyana, April 5, 2019. The
workshop was to help laypeople improve
their reading of the Sunday Scriptures in
their own languages, so they can better lead
liturgies in their own indigenous communi-
ties. The Vatican was to release the working
document for the Synod of Bishops for the
Amazon June 17. (CNS photo/Paul Jeffrey)
as the environmental threats facing it
and its indigenous populations.
“Currently, climate change and the
increase in human intervention -- de-
forestation, fires and changes in the
use of land -- are driving the Amazon
to a point of no return with high rates
of deforestation, forced population
displacement and pollution, putting its
ecosystems at risk and exerting pressure
on local cultures,” it said.
To respond to the needs and chal-
lenges facing the Amazon and its indig-
enous populations, it added, the church
must have a “new sense of mission” that
“opens new spaces” for finding ways to
minister with and to the region’s people.
“This is the moment to listen to the
voice of the Amazon and to respond as
a prophetic and Samaritan church,” the
working document said.
The document’s second part high-
lighted the dangers facing the region
and its people who are threatened by
those “guided by an economic model
linked to production, commercial-
ization and consumption, where the
maximizing of profit is prioritized over
human and environmental needs.”
Drug and arms trafficking, corrup-
tion, violence against women, forced
migration and the exploitation of in-
digenous people and their territories,
particularly those in “voluntary isola-
tion,” are among the other challenges
that the church must confront.
Among the suggestions proposed
in the working document’s third part
was the formation of indigenous la-
ity so they can take on a greater role,
especially in remote areas lacking the
presence of priests and religious men
and women.
However, those who are preparing
for ordained ministry in the region
must also receive adequate formation
in the church’s “philosophical-theologi-
cal culture,” although in a way adapted
to Amazonian cultures.
The document also proposed “the
reform of the structures of the semi-
naries to encourage the integration
of candidates to the priesthood in the
communities.”
Pope Advances Sainthood Causes for U.S. Priest, Spanish Martyrs
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis ad-
vanced the sainthood cause of Father
Augustus Tolton, who was the first
African American diocesan priest in
the United States and founder of the
first black Catholic parish in Chicago.
Signing decrees issued by the Con-
gregation for Saints’ Causes June 11,
Pope Francis also formally recognized
the martyrdom of three Catholic lay-
women who were nurses for the Red
Cross and were killed during the 1936-
1939 Spanish Civil War.
The decree for Father Tolton’s cause
recognizes that he lived a life of heroic
virtue.
Father Tolton had been born into
slavery in 1854 on a plantation near
Brush Creek, Missouri. After his fa-
ther left to try to join the Union Army
during the Civil War, his mother fled
with her three children by rowing
them across the Mississippi River and
settling in Quincy in the free state of
Illinois.
There, he was encouraged to dis-
cern his vocation to the priesthood
by the Franciscan priests who taught
him at St. Francis College, now Quincy
University. However, he was denied
access to seminaries in the United
States after repeated requests, so he
pursued his education in Rome at
what is now the Pontifical Urbanian
University.
He was ordained for the Propa-
ganda Fidei Congregation in 1886,
expecting to become a missionary in
Africa. Instead, he was sent to be a
missionary in his own country and
returned to Quincy, where he served
for three years before going to the
Archdiocese of Chicago in 1889.
Despite rampant racism and dis-
crimination, he became one of the
city’s most popular pastors, attract-
ing members of both white and black
Catholic communities. He spearhead-
ed the building of St. Monica Church
for black Catholics and worked tire-
lessly for his congregation in Chicago,
even to the point of exhaustion. On
July 9, 1897, he died of heatstroke on a
Chicago street at the age of 43.
He was known for persevering
against all odds in pursuit of his call-
ing and quietly devoted himself to
his people, despite great difficulties
and setbacks.
Pope Francis also formally recog-
nized the martyrdom of Maria Pilar
Gullon Yturriaga, Octavia Iglesias
Blanco and Olga Perez-Monteserin
Nunez, members of Catholic Action
who volunteered to serve wounded
soldiers on the Asturian front in north-
ern Spain.
The women refused to leave the
wounded unattended even though
the area was about to come under
the control of populist fighters. All
the patients, the doctor and chaplain
were killed, and the three nurses
were assaulted, raped and shot on
October 28, 1936. Gullon, Iglesias and
Perez-Monteserin were 25, 41 and 23
years old, respectively.
The pope also signed decrees attest-
ing to the heroic virtues lived by six
servants of God -- three men and three
women. Among them were:
• Mother Rosario Arroyo, a dis-
tant relative of the former Fili-
pino President Gloria Arroyo,
lived from 1884 to 1957 and
founded the Dominican Sisters
of the Most Holy Rosary of the
Philippines.
• Felice Tantardini, known as
“God’s blacksmith,” was an
Italian lay missionary for the
Pontifical Institute for Foreign
Missions. Born in 1898, he spent
70 years serving in Myanmar,
where he died in 1991 at the age
of 93. He worked as a catechist
and helped build churches,
schools, parish houses, hospi-
tals, seminaries, orphanages,
convents and bridges.