Sao Paulo (AP) – The bishop sat quietly near the front row, the hands occur, and listen as original leaders and church workers about the threats facing the Northern Peru forests, which are part of the Amazon rainy forest. It was 2016, after a year Laudato siPope Francis’ encyclopedia on the environment.
When he was ready to speak, the bishop did not preach although he was in his city in Czechlopia as a regional gathering host. Instead, he was reflected on the things he saw.
“It is a very important encyclopedia,” he said. “It also represents something new in terms of this explicit expression of the Church’s interest in all creation.”
This bishop, Robert Brevost, is now Pope Liu XIV.
“He was always very welcome, very close to people,” said Laura Vargas, the council’s minister between Peru, who helped organize the event, in an interview with a phone with Associated Press.
“He had no problem to say yes when we suggested that – he was really interested in pastoral and social work.”
Since then, Prevost has depth his relationships with environmental networks such as religions and indigenous population organizations such as Aidesep, which puts forest protection and rights at the Church anxiety center.
Accreditation papers brought these hope to the clergy and believers in the Amazon region, a vast area of 48 million people and 6.7 million square kilometers (2.6 million square miles) in South America. They see Prevost born in Chicago, who spent about two decades in the countryside in Peru, as a noon protecting the area and fighting climate change.
Mobility in Amazon
Many Catholics said they believe that Prevost experience Chicio bishopThe city with a population of 630,000 people in northern Peru, not far from the Amazon, was one of the main reasons that were chosen. They also said that an inch experience in a poor area far from the major cities can serve it well in dealing with Amazon and navigating its challenges.
The Amazon is a major climate organizer, as its dense forests absorb the carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas when it is fired in the air. However, many parts of the Amazon are threatened by a wide range of illegal activities: farmers wipe trees to breed cows, bulldozing gold miners, and destroying local ecosystems and lands seizing lands. Forest and dehydration fires, which have been exacerbated by climate change, have also hit Amazon societies hard in recent years.
Prevost is familiar with these issues, after chairing the papal committee of Latin America, which helped him to link the colleagues of the nine countries that the Amazon touched. Many of them are among the 105 bishops of the organization publicly supported by the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network, the Catholic Church network that focuses on the Amazon region.
“I talked to him several times about the Amazon and the environment. He does not need to be convinced of its importance,” said Cardinal Pedro Barretto, the network president, who has known Privost since he became the Bishop of Chicoli in 2015.
Brazilian monk Paulo Kazavier agrees.
“Liu Francis will be followed, we are advancing with environmental protection.” “The Holy Spirit has behaved on our behalf.”
Located in Manaus, a city with two million people in Amazon, who got the first Cardinal ever by Francis in 2022: Archbishop now Leonardo Steiner, who is enthusiastic about Davido C.
Steiner, Kazavier and Manaus’s diocese invested to obtain the encyclopedia in the hands of the locals, even when this means jumping on small brown boats through the brown water of the Negro River to reach isolated villages on trips that can continue in the days on a boat.
Pope to work
In November 2024, Vatican News reported that Prevost called for more measures to address climate change and environmental protection during a symposium in Rome. He pointed to the efforts made by the Vatican, such as the installation of solar panels and electric cars.
On the x social media platform, Prevost has republished messages about environmental protection. One of the messages that he republished on April 1, 2017 expressed concern about the emissions of carbon dioxide, a gas that raises the batch, during his first term for President Donald Trump.
Laura Vikonia, an indigenous woman of the Kariri people and Vice -President of the Kenzi Conference of the Amazon Region, said in a message published on social media that she hopes that the Pope will be an ally in combating climate change. The conference was created by Francis in 2020 to enhance the debate between the clergy and the ordinary population.
Fikonia wrote: “From our dear Amazon, we appeal to you to be our ally in defending what is the most holy for us; life, land and rights.”
The people of the indigenous population such as kariri in Vicuña are often seen as a major protectors of the Amazon, but for many years it was forced to leave their lands by criminals and remove forests and famine, as shown in Yanomami lands in northern Brazil in 2023.
Spaniard Louis Ventura, director of the original missionary council in Brazil, said he was praying for the new Pope to keep his eyes close to the Amazon, with a special interest in the indigenous population. The council was established in 1972, and the council had rare occasions to meet Pontef until Rose Francis in 2013. Its members hope to change this.
“The fourteenth Liu will have a major impact on the Amazon,” Ventura said. “His life has always been with people in Peru, and this allows us to believe that the church will be deep in the region.”
Climate
Francis showed great interest in Amazon during Pontificate. Four years after Laudato Si, hosted Senodes AmazonAnd that sought “new paths for the church and the integrated environment.”
Rose Bertoldo, one of the Mannus Bishops, said she hoped for the future of the region during the Liu era, given that she will be built on the interest of Francis. She added that the new “Pontif” will have an opportunity to visit Brazil, the nation with most Catholics in the world, during the United Nations Climate Summit this year, known as COP30, in the city of Bellim Amazon in November.
“We know that the urges and challenges in the Amazon will be greater due to the global political context of division. We need it in COP,” said Bertoldo.
Irish priest Peter Hughes, who spent most of his life in Peru, met Brevost shortly after his arrival in the Andes nation in 1985. They soon became friends, and they would see each other when he was the bishop of Chicoli in the capital Lima.
“At the time,” Prevost “was concerned about the Amazon extract and the influence he caused on the poor,” Hughes said, referring to the new ink. “It is now a more complex world, the urgency is clear.”
____ mentioned Gratan from Belfast, Northern Ireland. The Associated Press Ezabella Omeli from Philadelphia.
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