- The door that we hadn't crossed
- The 2019 Synod and its unharvested fruits
- What "reform of Christian initiation pathways" really means
- Leo XIV and Brazil: A Hermeneutics of Creative Continuity
- A pope who knows the reality of the Amazon from the inside
- Synodality as a method, not as an ideology
- The consistory of June as ecclesiological kairos
- Christian initiation and religious orders: the inevitable convergence
- The expectations of the bishops of the Amazon
- ✝ Biblical references
In Church history, there are moments when an official issue is merely the outer shell of another, deeper, more pressing question, one that no one yet dares to name aloud. The extraordinary consistory of June 26 and 27, 2026, appears to be one of these moments. Leo XIV is summoning all the cardinals of the world to work, in particular, on "the necessary reform of the paths of Christian initiation." This sober, almost bureaucratic formulation has been immediately deciphered by experts in canon law and theologians working in the field as a signal addressed to a specific continent: South America, and more particularly that vast territory where, for decades, the most burning question of the contemporary Catholic Church has been playing out—how to proclaim Christ where there are almost no priests left?
For it is precisely this knot—pastoral, theological, ecclesiological—that the Special Synod for the Amazon attempted to untangle in October 2019. And it is this same knot that Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis' post-synodal exhortation, published in February 2020, deliberately left the issue unresolved, without endorsing the concrete proposals that a majority of the Synod Fathers had nonetheless adopted. Between this silent refusal at the time and the agenda of June 2026, there is more than mere institutional continuity: there may, finally, be a resumption of the interrupted dialogue.
The door that we hadn't crossed
The 2019 Synod and its unharvested fruits
For three weeks, from October 6 to 27, 2019, the 181 synod fathers gathered in Rome worked on a dual imperative: the ecological emergency and the crisis of sacramental presence in the Amazon. The final document, adopted in plenary session, contained two proposals that would cause an ecclesiological earthquake: the priestly ordination of married men who had previously been deacons—the famous viri probati — specifically to address the shortage of priests in the region, and a strengthening of the role of women, potentially extending to the female diaconate. These two approaches represented not a theological rebellion, but a pragmatic pastoral response to a situation of chronic Eucharistic deprivation experienced by millions of Catholics.
The post-synodal exhortation Querida Amazonia He did not endorse either proposal. Instead, Francis proposed "other avenues": sending missionary priests, a strengthened role for the laity, particularly women, and the development of new charisms. This deliberate choice not to cross the threshold that the synod had partially opened remained a profound disappointment for many Brazilian bishops, a disappointment painfully felt in grassroots communities deprived of the Eucharist for weeks on end. The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians that "we have received the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the gifts God has given us" (1 Cor 2:12)—and many felt that the Spirit had spoken clearly through the synod, but not through the exhortation.
What "reform of Christian initiation pathways" really means
On the surface, the agenda for the consistory in June 2026 focuses on catechesis and the catechumenate. This is no trivial matter: in France alone, more than 21,400 catechumens received the sacraments by Easter 2026, an increase of 281 per cent compared to 2025 and a threefold increase in ten years. The Church is experiencing a genuine baptismal springtime, which demands a structural response. But in the Amazon, the question of Christian initiation is inseparable from the question of who presides, who teaches, who accompanies. Reforming initiation processes in communities that can go months without a priest inevitably raises the question of who keeps the Church going when the priest is absent.
Theologian and missiologist Paul Suess, who dedicated more than six decades of his priesthood to defending the indigenous peoples of the Amazon and remains, at 86, one of Brazil's most respected missiological voices, sees in this consistory agenda a cautious but real reopening. Placing catechetical reform on the agenda of a consistory that brings together the entire College of Cardinals is to invite the whole Church to reflect on what it truly means to "initiate" a people into the faith when ordinary priestly structures are structurally deficient. It is to reopen, through the most collegial institutional means possible, the door through which Querida Amazonia had refused to enter.
Leo XIV and Brazil: A Hermeneutics of Creative Continuity
A pope who knows the reality of the Amazon from the inside
Robert Francis Prevost, who became Leo XIV, is not a pope who is discovering the Amazon through curial reports. He was present in Puerto Maldonado, Peru, in January 2018, when Francis launched his vision of a «Church with an Amazonian face»—a vision that would directly inspire the convocation of the 2019 Synod. This geographical and spiritual proximity to the Latin American continent gives him a particular moral authority to address what remains one of the most complex issues of the previous pontificate. In his telegram to the bishops of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA) gathered in Bogotá in August 2025, Leo XIV declared that it was essential that Jesus Christ be «proclaimed with clarity and immense charity among the inhabitants of the Amazon,» in order to «give the fresh and pure bread of the Good News and the heavenly food of the Eucharist.».
This emphasis on the Eucharist as the ultimate goal of all Amazonian missions is not rhetorical. It lies at the heart of the pastoral crisis that the region's bishops have been denouncing for years. How can one give "the heavenly nourishment of the Eucharist" to communities that see a priest only a few times a year? The question is far from theoretical: it is a lived reality in thousands of villages along the banks of the Rio Negro, the Solimões, and the Tapajós. And it was by recognizing this concrete reality that Leo XIV directed his message toward the "three interdependent dimensions" of the mission: proclaiming the Gospel to all, treating Indigenous peoples equitably, and safeguarding our common home. This tripartite structure is directly inherited from Amazonian synodal spirituality.
Synodality as a method, not as an ideology
The first extraordinary consistory of January 2026 had already placed synodality among its central themes, alongside mission, liturgy, and the reform of the Curia. Leo XIV had expressed his desire to continue in a dynamic of "continuity" with what had been requested during the general congregations preceding the conclave. This word — continuity — is to be read carefully. It does not mean inaction. It means that the reforms undertaken since Vatican II, accelerated by the Synod on Synodality (2021–2024) whose evaluation process runs until December 2026, will not be abandoned, but deepened by ways that respect the communion of the whole ecclesial body.
The process of accompanying the Synod on Synodality, with its diocesan and continental assemblies and the major ecclesial assembly planned for October 2028, constitutes the institutional framework within which the June consistory takes place. This is not a shortcut: it is a deliberate acceleration. For the bishops of the Amazon, whose 2019 synodal proposals slipped through the papal net, this framework represents a new opportunity. The Book of Exodus describes how Moses, after receiving the tablets of the law, had to wait until the people were ready to receive what had been entrusted to them (Ex 34:29-35). Synodality requires this same respect for ecclesial time: true reforms are not imposed; they mature in prayer and common discernment.
The consistory of June as ecclesiological kairos
Christian initiation and religious orders: the inevitable convergence
Any serious reflection on reforming Christian initiation programs inevitably leads, sooner or later, to questioning the structure of the ministries that support them. This is the profound conviction of many Brazilian theologians, and it is what gives the June consistory a scope that extends far beyond catechetical pedagogy. Hans Urs von Balthasar was right to write that the crisis of catechesis is never separable from a deeper crisis in understanding what the Church itself is—an intuition that Cardinal Walter Kasper developed in his reflections on the relationship between the local Church and the universal Church, reminding us that the Church exists first and foremost as a community gathered around the Eucharistic table. It is precisely here that the Amazonian knot is revealed.
The National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB), one of the most dynamic in the world with its 275 dioceses and prelatures, has never wavered in its conviction that the proposals of the Synod for the Amazon deserve thorough canonical examination. The consistory in June, by opening the chapter on Christian initiation, offers an opportunity to revisit these questions not as contentious demands, but as pastoral necessities that the Church is called to address together. And perhaps this is the wisdom characteristic of Leo XIV's style: not to decide by decree, but to create the conditions in which truth can emerge from collegial discernment.
The expectations of the bishops of the Amazon
The bishops of the CEAMA expect a clear signal from the June consistory regarding the direction the pontificate intends to take. Not necessarily immediate decisions on the ordination of viri probati or the female diaconate—no one has reached that point yet—but it is a sign that these questions are not definitively closed, that they can be brought into the space of synodal discernment without being labeled heterodoxy. After the encouragement of Leo XIV to the Assembly in Bogotá in August 2025, who emphasized unity and collegiality in the Amazonian pastoral mission, expectations are real. What the Amazonian bishops hope for is that the «reform of Christian initiation pathways» will be treated not as a Franco-European issue of adult reconversion in a secularized environment—which it also is, and this is important—but as a multifaceted ecclesiological question, one aspect of which is the Amazon.
For the paradox is striking: while the French Church is experiencing a catechumenal spring and must reinvent its structures to accommodate a surge in baptismal requests, the Amazonian Church is facing the exact opposite situation, seeking ways to keep alive what already exists, to transmit a faith often passed down through generations in communities deprived of the sacraments. These two urgent needs converge on the same question: what is Christian initiation, and who can carry it out? The Book of Acts describes how, in Antioch, the community was nourished by the teachings of the prophets and teachers (Acts 13:1-3) long before the episcopal structure, strictly speaking, was definitively established. This early flexibility of the nascent Church is not a matter of nostalgia; it is a theological resource that the consistory in June is invited to revitalize.
Church history teaches us that great reforms never arise from a vacuum. They emerge from situations of pastoral necessity that the Church eventually recognizes as signs of the times. CEAMA, the direct heir of the 2019 Synod, represents nine countries sharing the green lung that is the Amazon basin. It does not expect Leo XIV to do what Francis has not done. It expects him to create the conditions in which what the Synod for the Amazon sought to convey can finally be heard—not as local pressure on Rome, but as the voice of a particular Church speaking to the universal Church in communion and truth. Perhaps this, at its core, is what synodality is: not a mechanism of ecclesial democracy, but a deeper listening to the Spirit who blows where he wills, including on the banks of the world-river.
✝ Biblical references
3 passages · 3 books
If I do not have love, I am nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:2)
Unity of the Church, ethical problems and a hymn to charity for the Corinthian community.
→ Explore the Codex 1 Corinthians- «"A law only achieves its greatness when it can look upon human dignity without shame" — Leo XIV's historic speech to the Cortes Generales
- The Watchman of Vienna: Christoph Schönborn, guardian of an impossible synthesis
- Fatima, a bridge between worlds: why Leo XIV's pilgrimage to Portugal will reconfigure the spiritual geography of Catholicism
- Leo XIV at La Sapienza: when the Church enters the temple of reason to speak about man
You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you… you will be my witnesses. (Acts 1:8)
The birth and expansion of the Church from Jerusalem to Rome under the action of the Spirit.
→ Explore the Codex Acts of the Apostles- Well then! we turn to the pagan nations (Acts 13:44-52)
- God fully fulfilled the promise by raising Jesus from the dead (Acts 13:26-33)
- From the descendants of David, God brought forth a savior: Jesus (Acts 13:13-25)
- Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul (Acts 12:24 – 13:5)
- Paul's testimony concerning Christ, son of David (Acts 13:16-17, 22-25)
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. (Exodus 20:2)
The liberation of Israel from Egyptian slavery and the giving of the Law at Sinai.
→ Explore the Exodus Codex🌍 9 countries involved
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