A prophetic reflection from the territory and the lives of women
In CLAR Magazine – Special Edition 2026: Women’s Ministry in the Church, Sister Laura Vicuña Pereira—an indigenous religious woman from the Kariri people of Brazil and vice president of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA)—offers a courageous reflection deeply rooted in the reality of the Amazon: the restoration of the female diaconate as institutional recognition of a diaconate already lived by women in the Church.
Her article, entitled “New Paths: ‘Deaconesses’ for the Amazon,” is a text that springs from the territory, from concrete pastoral experience, and from the cry of communities that, for decades, have been sustained by women in the prolonged absence of ordained ministers.
The Amazon: Splendor, Wounds, and Feminine Strength
Sister Laura begins by describing the Amazon as a territory that “reveals itself to the world in all its splendor, drama, and mystery,” evoking the horizon of the Amazon Synod. It is a region present in nine countries, marked by immense biodiversity and one of the greatest socio-diversities on the planet, with more than 390 indigenous peoples.
Water appears as a central image:
“The Amazon River is like an artery of the continent and the world, flowing like veins through the flora and fauna of the territory, as a source of its peoples, cultures, and spiritual expressions.”
However, this wealth is threatened by a predatory economic model that systematically violates the territorial, cultural, and spiritual rights of the peoples. The Amazon, he affirms, is also a symbolic image of woman: fertile life, the sacred womb of the Creator, but at the same time a body wounded by exploitation and forced displacement.
Women who have sustained the Church
One of the central contributions of the article is the historical recognition of the role of women in Amazonian ecclesial life. In many communities, the faith has survived for decades without a stable priestly presence.
Quoting Querida Amazonia (QA 99), he recalls:
“For centuries, women have kept the Church alive in these places with admirable dedication and ardent faith.”
Women baptize, catechize, celebrate the Word, accompany the sick, prepare marriages, console the bereaved, and coordinate parishes and missionary areas. In many cases, they already perform functions that are clearly diaconal.
And it asks with evangelical frankness:
“How can we maintain impartiality when it is necessary to recognize the service that women already provide to the Church?”
From pastoral visit to pastoral presence
The reality of the Amazon presents structural challenges: extreme geographical distances, isolated communities, a shortage of ordained ministers, and a growing presence of fundamentalist churches that offer closeness and constant accompaniment.
In this context, the author affirms that it is urgent to move from a “pastoral visit” to a “pastoral presence.” It is not just a matter of reorganizing strategies, but of “incarnating the Gospel and also the structures of the Church,” in tune with the spirit of the Synod of the Amazon.
The restoration of the female diaconate is presented, then, not as an ideological demand, but as a concrete pastoral response to real needs.
Diaconia and socio-environmental justice
For Sister Laura, to speak of the female diaconate in the Amazon is to speak of socio-environmental justice. Women are on the front line of defense of the territory, water, and human rights.
“We women are on the front lines… in the service of defending life, land, and rights, as a fundamental condition for proclaiming the Gospel.”
The female diaconate would be understood as an integral service: pastoral, educational, health, cultural, and socio-environmental. It does not replace the need for ordained ministers, but rather institutionally recognizes a mission already exercised by virtue of baptismal anointing and the action of the Spirit.
Synodality and ecclesial conversion
The author places her reflection within the horizon of a synodal and ministerial Church. She takes up Pope Francis’ call for more missionary and less self-referential structures, and recalls that the Apostolic Constitution Predicate Evangelium affirms that structures must be at the service of pastoral care.
In this context, she poses a decisive question:
“If the word diaconate has its roots in diakonia, which is service, why not dare to take more decisive and courageous steps toward institutional recognition of the charism that the Spirit is already awakening in the Churches?”
This is an ecclesial conversion that allows us not to make an exclusive distinction between women and men in access to the diaconal ministry, but to recognize the diversity of charisms in communion.
Audacity in the Divine Ruah
The text concludes with an invitation to active hope:
“For new wines, we need new wineskins… let us be bold in the Divine Ruah and not be afraid to welcome the newness of the Spirit.”
From the Latin American Amazon, Sister Laura Vicuña offers a prophetic voice that springs from the concrete experience of the communities. Her proposal is neither theoretical nor distant; it is the expression of a Church that lives in the rivers, in the forest, in the geographical and existential peripheries.
CEAMA welcomes this reflection as part of the ongoing ecclesial discernment. Recognizing the diaconal ministry of women would be a sign of fidelity to the Spirit who continues to raise up charisms in the People of God and a coherent step toward a more synodal Church, more inculturated and more committed to socio-environmental justice.
In the Amazon, women not only sustain the Church: they animate it, embody it, and project it toward new paths of mission.