by Gemma Lamarra

Beloved Pope Francis, I love your dreams for the Amazon. All of your dreams. I pray wholeheartedly that people will listen and have a genuine and integral conversion.

My heart danced reading all three of the Amazonian Synod documents, that is until I got to the section in your response, Querida Amazonia, about ‘the strength and gift of women’(nos. 99-103). Here you acknowledge the role of women in keeping the church alive in the Amazon region through their ‘remarkable devotion and deep faith’. But you say women should have access to positions within the church which are ‘proper to them’ and ‘do not entail Holy Orders’. Suddenly it felt like you were guilty of the very clericalism that you want to avoid.

I would like to share with you my dreams for women. Not just women who feel called to Holy Orders, or women in the church, but all women, because, like you, I realise that changing minds and hearts has a ripple effect that can change attitudes and behaviours beyond the church. I dream of the day the church calls for a conversion to an integral humanity, fully integrating male and female insights, experiences, theologies, and discernment in both the laity and in the ordained.