Imagine a Church that doesn’t impose and enforce, but instead truly listens to the stories of those on the margins. That was the core theme of Maurizio López Oropeza’s recent conversation for the Helder Camara lecture series at Newman College, in which the influential Ignatian lay leader drew parallels between Australian and Amazonian cultures, and explored how the two regions are shaping Catholic synodality through listening and encounter.
An account of Mr Oropeza’s recent visit to the Melbourne Museum’s First People’s exhibition set the tone for his message. He described the deep reverence and discomfort he felt: ‘This space holds the voices of some of the world’s oldest living cultures, whose wisdom and connection to land have endured for thousands of years.’
But it also revealed the painful truth of colonialism. ‘I heard and saw the testimonies of rupture and loss,’ he said. ‘Yet what moved me most was the strength in the hopeful stories shared through deep listening. Elders and young people speaking, not just of survival, but of cultural pride, memory and future.’
This experience mirrors his work in the Amazon, where he has spent 15 years accompanying indigenous communities. It has taught him that the Church’s role is to acknowledge wounds without rushing to fix them, and to honour every culture as a gift. This, he argued, is the heart of the synodal path.
‘It is about walking with respect in the rhythm of the canoe—as we call it in the Amazon, with its big rivers—inhabiting the tensions with an open heart. Australia has offered me a testimony that is both beautiful and unfinished, where deep wounds coexist with the courage to build new relationships.’
Mr Oropeza said that walking with Amazonian people brought with it a responsibility of carrying the memories of a living, sacred territory—wounded, but full of life.
‘The Amazon is far more than forest and rivers. It is a volume that breathes through its rich biodiversity, its cultural depth, and the voices of hundreds of indigenous nations,’ he said. It houses one-third of the world’s biodiversity, 20 per cent of its unfrozen fresh water, and serves as a vital lung for the earth, as Pope Francis highlighted in Laudato si’.
Its importance to the planet cannot be underestimated, yet this living system is in crisis. ‘Seventeen per cent of the primary forest is already lost. If we reach 25 per cent of deforestation, we will cross a point of no return,’ Mr Oropeza warned. ‘The Amazon will—and believe me, it will—become a savanna, disrupting global climate and extinguishing cultures and ecosystems.’
There is spiritual hope, though, and Mr Oropeza said there had been something of a revolution within the Church, which now recognises the Amazon ‘as a sacred place where God continues to reveal himself and speaks through creation and peoples’.
He referred to the historic Pan-Amazonian synod of 2019, called at the behest of Pope Francis. It marked a turning point for the region and the whole Church, he said, as it listened ‘to the peripheries to discern new paths’. More than 87,000 people participated in an event that Mr Oropeza believes anticipated the synod on synodality, which defined the last years of the Francis papacy. It also echoed the work being done in Australia through the Plenary Council, he said.
‘From the margins, the Church is being renewed,’ he said. ‘I remember very well when Pope Francis asked us to ensure that the periphery would be the ones talking to the centre. He was already pointing in that direction. There is something which is not a folkloric knowledge but true wisdom experience and also a pastoral approach, which comes from the fragility and not from the big institutions.’
He described the Church in the Amazon as committed to transformation, and truly embedded in the lives of people. Women are at the forefront of sustaining the communities. ‘This structure opens new possibilities for leadership, governance and interculturality,’ he said.
It also leaves the region open to other influences. Mr Oropeza noted the rise of evangelical Christian missionaries as a real challenge for the Catholic Church, especially as such groups often attract local populations and can undermine indigenous identities, languages and practices. ‘In Brazil, it’s probably 60 per cent of those who call themselves Christians in the Amazon region are evangelicals,’ Mauricio said.
The Catholic Church, he argued, must respond by ensuring sacramental presence and recognising local ministries. ‘Catholics should be entitled to access sacraments by law. But in some places, priests might get there once a year, some places once every five years,’ he said. ‘The evangelicals have a different approach, a very quick formation process, and that’s [something] that we should learn as well.’
One of the Pan-Amazonian synod’s outcomes was the creation of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA), an unprecedented structure with indigenous women in leadership roles. Mr Oropeza, as a lay vice president, highlighted its significance: ‘The composition of this conference is unique. We have a bishop as president, and four vice presidents—two of whom are indigenous women and one a religious sister. This model challenges traditional hierarchies and opens new possibilities for governance and intercultural dialogue,’ he said.
It’s not just putting some ornaments in the liturgy.
The conference is developing the Amazonian Rite, with its rituals in the final stages of development for an ‘experimental phase’. It has been a long process, begun during the Pan-Amazonian synod and based on the Second Vatican Council’s defence of liturgical pluralism. This Amazonian Rite, according to the synod, would express ‘the liturgical, theological, disciplinary and spiritual heritage of the Amazon’, and assist the work of evangelisation.
Mr Oropeza said the structure would not be an ‘Amazonian feature within the Roman Latin Rite’ because that is not the spirit of the Amazon. ‘It’s not just putting some ornaments in the liturgy,’ he said. ‘The key element is the ministerial feature of the Church, the whole ministerial approach, where the people of God fit.’
He said there are teams of theologians, anthropologists, lawyers, lay pastoral workers all developing the rite. They are ‘listening to people on the ground, trying to bring about a comprehensive understanding of the lived reality of the Amazon’. Mr Oropeza acknowledged the process makes some within the Church hierarchy nervous, but pointed out that the idea stemmed from the 87,000 people at the Pan-Amazonian synod, emphasising the importance of listening to their voices and experiences.
Mr Oropeza concluded his lecture by quoting the work of James McCauley, an Australian poet who had captured his imagination during his visit, and whose poetry he saw as a metaphor for resilience and divine presence.
When storms arise, and tumults jar,
And wreck this mortal form,
There is a bright, a lovely star,
That shines above the storm.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Helder Camara lecture series, started in 1985 by Marist Br Mark O’Connor and named in honour of Brazilian Archbishop Hélder Câmara. Dom Câmara was an outspoken critic of the military dictatorship in Brazil that lasted from the mid-1960s to 1985, and advocated for marginalised people.
A new book on his legacy was launched following Mauricio López Oropeza’s lecture on 30 July. Reasons for Hope: Helder Camara, Global Catholicism and the Australian Church, by historian Dr Julie Thorpe, traces the history and impact of the influential lecture series held at Newman College—a residential college run by the Jesuits at the University of Melbourne—and the wider movement of listening and dialogue it has inspired.
It explores the challenges and hopes that have shaped the Church through the influential theologians and leading Catholic voices who have delivered the lectures over the decades, including Cardinals Charles Bo SDB and Luis Tagle SJ, Sr Nathalie Becquart XMCJ and CNN’s Vatican correspondent Christopher Lamb.
Br Mark wrote the book’s preface, saying, ‘In a world full of violence
and hatred, the gospel witness of Dom Hélder Câmara of Recife, Brazil, stands as a beacon of light and
hope.’
Banner image: A mural featuring a boy in Amazonian tribal facepaint. (Photo by Rob Birkbeck via Lightstock.) All photos courtesy of Parallax Media and the Diocese of Paramatta, except where otherwise credited.
