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Brussels – On 6-27 of October 2019, the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazonian Region will be held at the Vatican, following its announcement by Pope Francis in 2017. The meeting comes at a very timely moment as the situation of indigenous communities and environmental degradation in the Amazon region is getting more critical in terms of violence, extractivism and other preoccupying situations.
Recently, the Instrumentum Laboris for the Amazon: New Paths for the Church and for Integral Ecology, the working document to be discussed during the Synod, was published. Through a statement released today, Pax Christi International, together with its members and partners from Europe, the U.S., Canada and Latin America, expresses its support for the Synod and post-Synod process, welcomes the working document and shares with the Vatican, the universal and local church points for consideration for its reflections and discernment.
Pax Christi International will share the document with the Secretariat of the Vatican preparing the Synod, bishops who will attend the meeting, networks in which the peace movement is active, and Catholic media. Pax Christi International is also planning to attend parallel activities organised during the Synod by civil society with a Guatemalan delegation, including an indigenous representative.