Six years after the Synod for the Amazon, the Amazonian Church continues its journey with conviction and hope. In this spirit, Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA) calls all bishops of the Amazonian jurisdictions to the Meeting of Bishops of the Amazon, which will take place in Bogotá, Colombia, August 17-20, 2025.
This event aims to strengthen communion, evaluate the path taken and discern together how to continue consolidating a Church with an Amazonian face, synodal, embodied in the territories and committed to the Common Home.
A time to check the walk and project the future
Monsignor Zenildo Lima, Vice President of CEAMA and President of the Meeting’s Organizing Committee, emphasizes that this Meeting is the fruit of collective discernment and responds to the need to continue deepening the synodal process initiated in 2019:
“More than five years after the Synod on the Amazon, and confirmed by the Synod on Synodality, we continue our vocation to be a Church with an Amazonian face, marked by synodality, commitment to our Common Home, acceptance of the experiences of our indigenous peoples, and the many challenges facing our territories.”
Bishop Lima recalls that, as a direct fruit of the Synod, CEAMA was created as an ecclesial body at the service of the local Churches. Now, the Meeting of Bishops of the Amazon will be an opportunity to evaluate this path, and, above all, to ask ourselves:
“What is the best way for this Ecclesial Conference to support our local Churches?”
Essential participation of Amazonian pastoralists
The Meeting seeks to bring together bishops serving in the Amazon regions of the nine countries of the biome. Their presence is essential to continue advancing in a embodied and territorialized synodality.
“Our participation as pastors of the local Churches in the Amazon is very important to consolidate this path,” says Monsignor Lima.
Therefore, CEAMA enthusiastically invites each bishop to be an active part of this experience of mutual listening, shared reflection, and pastoral commitment.
Continue synodality from the territory
The Meeting of Bishops of the Amazon is presented as a space for fraternal dialogue and collective discernment, which will allow us to strengthen ties, share pastoral challenges, and jointly project new forms of evangelizing and supportive presence in the Amazon.
“This meeting is key to ensuring that the synodal journey inaugurated at the Amazon Synod continues in the concrete synodality of our local Churches,” concludes Monsignor Zenildo.
With this step, CEAMA continues to reaffirm its mission to walk alongside the Amazonian peoples, encouraging a Church that does not impose, but listens; that does not dominate, but serves; that does not fear challenges, because it is sustained by the power of the Spirit and the wisdom of the people.