Teetering on the edge: The crisis in Amazonia
Commonweal
The Amazon Synod’s final document and Pope Francis’s post-synodal exhortation Querida Amazonia both describe a social and environmental crisis of historic proportions, a crisis Francis portrays as “provoking a cry that rises up to heaven.” This crisis now threatens the Amazon region with ecocide and ethnic cleansing, and—because of the role the Amazon rainforest plays in regulating global climate patterns—it also threatens the planet as a whole. Yet the synod’s urgent message was largely drowned out in the United States by ideological controversies about the ordination of (married) viri probati, the value of inculturation, and racist accusations of idolatry. A year later, the “dramatic state of destruction” to which the synod’s final document refers has only gotten worse, and Catholics in the Global North still seem none the wiser.
Many of the Amazon region’s poorest residents live in rural communities and informal settlements. Development of the region has led to economic growth in recent years, but there is little evidence that living conditions are improving. Food security remains a persistent problem; workers in extractive industries are exposed to diseases like malaria and rabies; and there is a severe lack of health and sanitation infrastructure.
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