Imagine a Church that does not impose or coerce, but truly listens to the stories of those on the margins. That was the central theme of Mauricio López Oropeza’s recent talk in the Helder Câmara lecture series at Newman College in Melbourne, Australia, where this influential Ignatian lay leader, vice president of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA) and director/founder of the Amazonian University Program (PUAM), drew parallels between Australian and Amazonian cultures and explored how both regions are shaping Catholic synodality through listening and encounter. (PUAM), drew parallels between Australian and Amazonian cultures and explored how both regions are shaping Catholic synodality through listening and encounter.
An account of Mr. López Oropeza’s recent visit to the Aboriginal Peoples’ Museum in Melbourne set the tone for his message. He described the deep reverence and discomfort he felt: “This space houses the voices of some of the world’s oldest living cultures, whose wisdom and connection to the land have endured for thousands of years.”
But it also revealed the painful truth of colonialism. “I heard and saw testimonies of rupture and loss,” he said. “However, what moved me most was the strength in the hopeful stories shared through deep listening. Elders and young people speaking, not only of survival, but of cultural pride, of memory and future.”
This experience connects with and reflects her work in the Amazon, where she has dedicated 15 years to a mission of accompanying indigenous communities. This experience has taught her that the role of the Church is to recognize wounds without rushing to pretend to heal them, and to honor each culture as a gift. This, she argued, is the heart of the synodal path.
“It is about walking respectfully at the pace of the canoe—as we call it in the Amazon, with its great rivers—living with tensions with an open heart. Australia has offered me a beautiful and still unfinished testimony, where deep wounds coexist with the courage to build new relationships.”
Mr. López Oropeza said that walking with the Amazonian peoples carries with it the responsibility of carrying the memory of a sacred and living territory—wounded, but full of life.
“The Amazon is much more than forests and rivers. It is a territory that breathes through its rich biodiversity, its cultural depth, and the voices of hundreds of indigenous nations,” he said. It is home to one-third of the world’s biodiversity, 20% of the planet’s unfrozen fresh water, and acts as a vital lung for the Earth, as Pope Francis highlighted in Laudato Si’.
Its importance to the planet cannot be underestimated, but this living system is in crisis. “Seventeen percent of the primary forest has already been lost. If we reach 25% deforestation, we will surely cross a point of no return,” warned Mr. López Oropeza. “The Amazon—and believe me, it will—will become a savanna, altering the global climate and extinguishing cultures and ecosystems.”
However, there is spiritual hope, and he said there has been a kind of revolution within the Church, which now recognizes the Amazon “as a sacred place, a locus, where God continues to reveal himself and speak through creation and peoples.”
He referred to the historic Pan-Amazonian Synod of 2019, convened by Pope Francis. It marked a turning point for the region and for the entire Church, he said, as it listened “to the peripheries to discern new paths.” More than 87,000 people participated in an event that, according to Mauricio, anticipated the synod on synodality, which defined the last years of Francis’ pontificate. A universal synod that also reflected the work being done in Australia through the Plenary Council.
“From the margins, the Church is renewing itself,” he said. “I remember very well when Pope Francis asked us to ensure that the periphery was the one to speak and enlighten the center. He was already pointing in that direction. There is something in the Amazonian communities that is not folkloric knowledge, but a true experience of wisdom and also a pastoral approach, which comes from fragility and not from large institutions.”
He described the Church in the Amazon as committed to transformation and truly rooted in people’s lives. Women are at the forefront of sustaining communities. “This structure opens up new possibilities for leadership, governance, and interculturality,” he said.
This also leaves the region open to other influences. Mauricio pointed to the rise of evangelical Christian missionaries as a real challenge for the Catholic Church, especially since these groups often attract local populations and can undermine indigenous identities, languages, and practices. “In Brazil, probably 60% of those who identify as Christians in the Amazon region are evangelicals,” Mauricio said.
The Catholic Church, he argued, must respond by ensuring sacramental presence and recognizing local ministries. “Catholics should have the right to access the sacraments by canon law. But in some places, priests may come once a year, in others, once every three or five years,” he said. “Evangelicals have a different approach, a very fast formation process, and that is something we should also learn from.”
One of the outcomes of the Pan-Amazon Synod was the creation of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA), an unprecedented structure with lay people and indigenous women in leadership roles. Mr. López Oropeza, as lay vice president of this body, highlighted its importance: “The composition of this conference is unique. We have a bishop as president and four vice presidents—two of them indigenous women, one of them a religious. This model challenges traditional hierarchies and opens up new possibilities for governance and intercultural dialogue,” he said.
It is not just a matter of adding embellishments to the liturgy.
The conference is developing the Amazonian Rite, whose rituals are in the final stages of development for an “experimental phase.” It has been a long process, initiated during the Pan-Amazonian Synod and based on the Second Vatican Council’s advocacy of liturgical pluralism. This Amazonian Rite, according to the synod, would express “the liturgical, theological, disciplinary, and spiritual heritage of the Amazon” and support the work of evangelization.
Mr. López Oropeza said the structure would not be an “Amazonian characterization within the Roman Latin Rite” because that is not the spirit of the Amazon. “It’s not just about putting embellishments on the liturgy,” he said. “The key element is the ministerial character of the Church, the whole ministerial approach, where the people of God fit in.”
He said there are teams of theologians, anthropologists, lawyers, and lay pastoral agents developing the rite. They are “listening to the people in the territory, trying to gain a comprehensive understanding of the reality experienced in the Amazon.” Mauricio acknowledged that the process makes some within the church hierarchy nervous, but he pointed out that the idea came from listening to the 87,000 people at the Pan-Amazonian Synod, emphasizing the importance of hearing their voices and experiences.
Mr. López Oropeza concluded his lecture by quoting the work of James McCauley, an Australian poet who captivated him during his visit, and whose poetry he saw as a metaphor for resilience and divine presence:
When storms arise, and turmoil shakes,
and shatters this mortal form,
there is a bright star, a beautiful star,
that shines above the storm.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Helder Camara Lecture Series, which was started in 1985 by Marist Brother Mark O’Connor and named in honor of Brazilian Archbishop Helder Câmara. Archbishop Câmara was an outspoken critic of Brazil’s military dictatorship, which lasted from the mid-1960s until 1985, and a champion of marginalized people.
Following Mauricio López Oropeza’s lecture on July 30, a new book on his legacy was launched. Reasons for Hope: Helder Camara, Global Catholicism, and the Australian Church, written by historian Dr. Julie Thorpe, traces the history and impact of this influential series of lectures held at Newman College—a Jesuit-run residential college at the University of Melbourne—and the broader movement of listening and dialogue it has inspired.
The book explores the challenges and hopes that have shaped the Church through the influential theologians and prominent Catholic voices who have delivered these lectures over the decades, including Cardinals Charles Bo SDB and Luis Tagle, Sister Nathalie Becquart XMCJ, and CNN Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb.
Brother Mark wrote the foreword to the book, saying:
“In a world filled with violence and hatred, the evangelical witness of Dom Hélder Câmara of Recife, Brazil, stands as a beacon of light and hope.”