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The final document of the Synod on the Amazon was presented Saturday night at the Vatican. After three weeks of work, the bishops and experts present made many recommendations to Pope Francis, beginning with the possibility of ordaining married men.
With our correspondent at the Vatican, Éric Sénanque
It is a small revolution in the Church and a recommendation that was anticipated. To compensate for the lack of priests in the most remote areas of the Amazon, the synod participants propose that priestly ordination be open to married men. It concerns only permanent deacons and not lay people.
Another idea put forward, a "diaconate for women". Many local Catholic communities have female faces at their head. A Vatican study commission to study these women's ministries must also be reactivated, promised Pope Francis.
This synodal document also recalls the importance of respecting Amazonian cultures and emphasizes that this unique forest in the world is a " biological heart " more and more threatened. The Church, he says, stands alongside the threatened peoples. This synod also put forward the notion of " ecological sin ", namely the destruction of resources; a sin, can we read, " against future generations ".
While the synod sometimes had heated debate, the 120 paragraphs were all voted by a two-thirds majority. These proposals will now be studied by Pope Francis, who promised that he would deliver his apostolic exhortation, his text from the work of this synod, " by the end of the year ".