On the CELAM Communications Center’s Faces and Voices program, Cardinal Leonardo Steiner, Archbishop of Manaus and first cardinal of the Catholic Church in the Amazon, shared a profound reflection on the current challenges facing the Amazon biome and the Church’s commitment to the global environmental crisis, on the road to COP30, to be held in Brazil in 2025.
“The reality of the Amazon today demands discussion, reflection, and debate,” said Cardinal Steiner, referring with concern to the advance of mining, deforestation, and the displacement of communities. “The southern Amazon no longer has Amazon rainforest, and this is causing increasing difficulties,” he lamented.
A region that continues to give hope
Despite the critical outlook, the cardinal highlighted the spiritual, cultural, and human wealth of the Amazon region, emphasizing that “in the Amazon there is beauty, there is creativity, there are cultures, and especially a very deep religiosity that gives us hope to face the problems that concern integral ecology.”
In this regard, Cardinal Steiner reaffirmed that the Church in the Amazon seeks to accompany and strengthen initiatives that promote life, justice, and care for creation, in communion with the peoples who inhabit the territory.
The Church and COP30
Ahead of the upcoming global climate summit, the Archbishop of Manaus noted that the Catholic Church in Brazil is deeply committed to the preparatory process for COP30. He recalled that the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) has created a special commission of bishops and laypeople to accompany this journey and articulate proposals together with local communities, social organizations, and ecclesial networks.
“We want to care for our common home, we want to make proposals, we want to be present synodally,” he said. “Synodality means walking together with hope and care, not toward destruction and domination, but toward fraternity.”
Hearing the cry of the Earth and of the peoples
Cardinal Steiner warned about humanity’s failure to listen in the face of the socio-environmental crisis: “States are not listening to each other on integral ecology, nor are they listening to the cry of the Earth.” In response, he insisted that only a synodal attitude—of listening, dialogue, and shared responsibility—can open “another horizon and enable a new spirit of human coexistence and coexistence with the earth.”
Laudato si’ and ecological conversion
During the dialogue, the prelate recalled the relevance of the message of Laudato si’, Pope Francis’ encyclical on the care of our common home, and its impact on international processes such as the Paris Agreement. However, he lamented that its teaching “has not yet reached all communities,” while reiterating that the encyclical proposes “a different relationship with creation, based on cultivation, respect, and care.”
“Sometimes I feel like repeating what Pope Francis said in Africa: ‘Take your hands off Africa!’ And I have repeated it: Take your hands off the Amazon!” said the cardinal, denouncing the economic and political interests that damage the forest and threaten the lives of its peoples.
“The Earth has a right to be cared for”
In his final message, Cardinal Steiner recalled that Amazonian deforestation has global effects and that humanity must transform its relationship with creation:
“We need new relationships. It cannot be a capitalist or fratricidal relationship. It has to be a relationship of care and respect, because we all have the right to inhabit the earth, but the earth also has the right to be cared for.”
Finally, he called for a shift “from words to deeds,” promoting concrete actions in favor of integral ecology:
“We no longer have time. It is time to act so that history can change. Let us always walk with hope, starting from the Gospel, toward an integral ecology that unites all the peoples of the Earth.”