The Bishop of Salford, John Arnold, has said that Pope Francis’ exhortation on the Amazon Synod left open questions around the ordination of married men and women’s leadership, and challenged the global community to take responsibility for the impact of climate change in the region.
Speaking at a press conference in London last week on the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, Querida Amazonia (Beloved Amazonia), Bishop Arnold said that the synod documents themselves showed that issues around priestly celibacy and the female diaconate were not priorities for bishops in the region.
The chair of trustees for the Church’s international aid agency, Cafod, who is also the lead bishop on the environment, emphasised instead the exhortation’s urgent messages on the environment and social justice.
“I don't think that the Pope is shying away [from ecclesial questions] but he's endorsing those major parts of the synod that he felt were most pressing,” Bishop Arnold said. “I think there are any number of questions left open for further discussion, according to the changing needs of the Church in a region.”
Asked if he thought that the absence of new guidelines about priestly celibacy and women deacons meant the Pope had “closed the door” on the debate, Bishop Arnold said: “I think we've always got to see the Church as open to discussion and open to development because the Gospel, which is our foundation, is applied in different ways in different times for different reasons. We've seen through two millennia how the Gospel changes in its emphasis according to the people who are aspiring to faith.”
He welcomed the Pope’s call for justice – both social and ecological – and said that the global community must take responsibility for the plunder and exploitation of the Amazon’s resources and its peoples.
“The indigenous peoples of the Amazon are amongst the poorest in the world, they've been exploited and there's indeed questions of persecution, they've been denied – in some cases – human rights, and they are subject to all sorts of difficulties because governments have imposed laws which have trampled on their rights,” he said.
The bishop, who has backed a number of ecological initiatives in his own diocese, said the global community has a “common responsibility” for the consequences of climate change in the Amazon region.
“The environmental questions are enormous because what they've been doing in the Amazon is not sustainable,” he said. “The use of fossil fuels and the mining cannot be sustained and is doing dreadful damage. We've got to be aware of our role in that, that so many of the products of the Amazon are consumed by us, and are not even for the benefit of the people of that region.”
He welcomed the Church of England’s decision at General Synod to bring forward the date by which it aspires to become carbon neutral to 2030.
Asked if he hoped the Catholic Church might follow its example, he said: “I would love to see us with realistic targets. What I can say is that is 2,800 Catholic churches have already pledged to use green energy. The dioceses of Lancaster and Middlesborough have made firm statements, and several other dioceses, including my own, are working towards it. I think targets are a very good thing and they also speak quite loudly to people. I think that the Church of England has been very good and very ambitious and I am delighted to hear the news.”
Clare Dixon, Head of Latin America at Cafod, said: “This is another example of a Pope who is prepared to show the leadership we need in a world so lacking in it. As he did ahead of the Paris climate talks in 2015, the Holy Father is calling on the world to act urgently in the run-up to the vital meetings taking place on biodiversity and COP26 this year.
“The Pope is pointing to the Amazon as a microcosm of the crisis we are facing – with the fires, pollution and displacement we’ve seen in the region showing the deadly interaction of poverty and the destruction of nature. But Francis is also imploring us to listen to the wisdom of the people of the Amazon, insisting that we learn from the way they live with the environment rather than in competition with it. We must ensure that these communities are at the conference tables alongside world leaders this year.”
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