The Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA) continues to take significant steps toward the development of an Amazonian Rite, as an expression of a Church with an Amazonian face, deeply rooted in the spirituality, culture, and sacred symbols of the region’s indigenous peoples.
On May 8, the General Framework of the Amazonian Rite was presented at the Bolivian Catholic University – San Pablo Faculty of Theology (Cochabamba). This is a basic document that reflects the progress made in the liturgical, theological, spiritual, and pastoral discernment process that CEAMA has been promoting with the participation of various ecclesial actors and Amazonian communities from all countries.
During the conference, Fr. Agenor Brighenti (Coordinator of the Amazonian Rite Nucleus of CEAMA) and Monsignor Eugenio Coter, bishop of the Apostolic Vicariate of Pando and (Amazonian Rite Nucleus of CEAMA), shared the current status of the process, highlighting the importance of a rite that, based on the uses and customs of ancestral peoples, incarnates the Gospel in the heart of the Amazon and responds to the cry for a more incarnated, participatory and contextualized liturgy.
CEAMA, as a new body of ecclesial communion in the region, has established a commission to continue this process in dialogue with indigenous communities, pastoral leaders, theologians, and liturgical experts, in a deeply synodal and missionary dynamic.
This path is not only a pastoral response, but also a sign of hope and respect for the Amazonian peoples, who seek to express their faith in Christ through their own languages, symbols, songs, gestures, and ways of celebrating life.
“The Church needs to allow itself to be evangelized by the ancestral wisdom of its peoples,” the speakers emphasized, reaffirming that the Amazonian Rite is an integral part of the ecclesial conversion that the Spirit demands of us.