In commemorating the five years since the creation of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA), Monsignor Zenildo Lima, vice president of CEAMA, recalled that more than celebrating a date, we are celebrating a profound, collective, and irreversible ecclesial journey.
“We’re not just celebrating CEAMA five years, we’re celebrating a journey.”, he said.
A journey that reached a climax with the Synod for the Amazon, initiated with an extensive process of territorial listening, continued by the 2019 Synodal Assembly, and crowned with two precious fruits: the Final Document of the Synod and Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation “Beloved Amazon.”
Since then, Monsignor Zenildo points out, this process became irreversible:
“Five years ago, CEAMA was born, the fruit of that Synod and the voices that, already in the Assembly, pointed out the need for an organization that would articulate the life of the Amazonian Churches.”
Initially conceived as an episcopal body, CEAMA was discerned, within the framework of the Post-Synodal Council, as an ecclesial conference, with greater capacity to promote a broad, inclusive, and coordinating presence of all stakeholders in the territory.
Five years after its founding, CEAMA is a concrete sign of the journey toward a Church with an Amazonian face, committed to ecological conversion, a new way of evangelizing, and the strengthening of networks that emerge from the heart of the synodal process.
“Today, five years after CEAMA and six years after the Synod, we gratefully acknowledge the many initiatives that have been conceived: fruits of a living, prophetic process deeply rooted in the life of the Amazonian people.”
From CEAMA, we renew our hope and commitment to continue walking together, in synodality, in defense of life, of peoples, and of our Common Home.