At the Meeting of Bishops of the Amazon, which brings together pastors from 78 ecclesiastical jurisdictions in the region, Monsignor Eugenio Coter, bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of Pando and representative of the bishops to the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA), shared his assessment of the day, marked by listening, prayer, and community discernment.
Monsignor Coter especially emphasized the message sent by the Vatican Secretariat of State, signed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, on behalf of Pope Leo XIV. “We are also grateful for the arrival today of the message from the Secretariat of State signed by Cardinal Parolin, which conveys Pope Leo XIV’s greetings to the participants in this event,” he said.
The Pope’s greeting recalls the challenge facing the Church in the Amazon
The papal greeting, the bishop explained, highlights the essential mission of the Church in the Amazon region: “A greeting in which he recalls the challenge facing the Church in the Amazon, which is to evangelize by renewing the spirit of vitality that the Gospel brings with it in this encounter with the people living in the Amazon region. And he invites us, as bishops, to continue to put our strength into this process of evangelization.”
Monsignor Coter emphasized that authentic evangelization must begin with a real encounter with people and their concrete challenges: “Evangelization, when it is authentic, encounters people where they live with their challenges and helps them at the same time to humanize situations of suffering and death or injustice and helps them at the same time to find the strength to continue on the path.”
Pope Leo XIV’s message concludes with a special blessing. “Pope Leo adds at the end of his message his apostolic blessing and best wishes for the journey of our Church in the Amazon. And for this we thank Pope Leo and Cardinal Parolin for transmitting his blessing to us,” he said.
First day: a day of communion and listening
Regarding the dynamics of the day, the bishop explained that it was a day of communion and mutual listening: “It was a day dedicated to listening, to looking at reality through the hearts and eyes of the bishops who live in the Amazon.”
“We are here, the bishops of 78 jurisdictions, and through them we have looked at the challenges, we have shared our hopes, our joys, our anxieties, the things that we feel still challenge us to move forward. We have listened to each other, and this has been the task of the day,” he reiterated.
Bishop Coter also emphasized that this day was accompanied by prayer and discernment, aimed at gathering the common points that will mark the way forward: “We have listened, and at the end of the day, we have gathered the common points, the points of challenge that will be the subject of tomorrow’s dialogue in the spirit of discernment.”