Interview with Patricia Gualinga (Ecuador), vice president of CEAMA
More than a decade after the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis’s footprint is still alive in the Amazon. His teaching, his gestures and his deep sensitivity towards the indigenous peoples and the Common House marked a before and after in the history of the Church in this region. This is testified to Patricia Gualinga, indigenous leader of the Kichwa people of Sarayaku, Ecuador, and vice president of the Ecclesiastical Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA), in a reflection on what Francis represented in his life and in the Amazonian ecclesial mission.
“Pope Francis was a light of hope for all of us who fight for environmental care, the defense of the rights and dignity of people. His presence and his way of approaching the Amazon broke boundaries that many of us believed to be immovable. Seeing the face of God in the Amazon was possible thanks to his testimony,” states.
Francis not only brought the cry of the Amazonian peoples to the global agenda through the encyclical Laudato Si’, but also promoted unprecedented processes such as Panamazonian Synod, which placed the periphery at the very heart of the Church. According to Gualinga, this represented a true novelty for ecclesial history:
“He is the first Pope to hold a synod with the Amazon as the protagonist, who looks at us with eyes of love, who understands our suffering, who recognizes our struggle for life. Many of us have always lived on the margins, and he put us at the center.”
Pope Francis’ openness was also expressed in concrete gestures of inclusion. For the first time, indigenous peoples were invited as observers at the Synod, and subsequently integrated into ecclesial decision-making spaces such as CEAMA itself.
“No one had done it before. That our voices, our thoughts, our realities are taken into account within the ecclesial structure is an act of historical and spiritual justice. His teaching was not just doctrine: it was life incarnated in the territories.”
When asked about how to continue the legacy of Pope Francis, Patricia Gualinga’s response is clear:
“CEAMA must advance on the path that he opened. This body, diverse and deeply synodal, is the seed of a Church with an Amazonian face. As the Pope said, no one can stop this anymore. We have to continue entering, understanding, linking and incarnating ourselves in this reality with the help of the Holy Spirit.”
From CEAMA, we renew our commitment to the entrusted mission: to build a Church that listens, learns and walks alongside the Amazonian peoples, inspired by the prophetic vision of Francis, who made hope a form of presence, ecology a form of faith, and the Amazon, a sacred place for all humanity.