In a new report by Vida Nueva digital, groundbreaking details were revealed about the proposed Amazon rite of Mass – a fruit of the 2019 Amazon Synod held at the Vatican.
While not giving any verbatim quotations, Vida Nueva stated that “the Amazon rite will enter the experimental phase – which will last three years until 2028 – at the end of 2024.”
The news is arguably the most significant development in relation to the Amazon rite since it was proposed back in 2019.
Father Agenor Brighenti, Vida Nueva’s source, serves as the head of the Theological Team of the Latin American and Caribbean Episcopal Council (CELAM) and also advisor to the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA).
Brighenti additionally serves as coordinator of “the process of elaboration of the Amazon rite for the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon,” and advocates for the ordination of women to the diaconate and the priesthood, along with married priests. The influential theologian is a key advisor to the current Synod on Synodality.
Amazon rite?
The Amazon rite is a product of the highly controversial 2019 Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, or the Amazon Synod. Among the many proposals raised by the Amazon Synod and its final document are the opening of the clerical state to women and admitting married men to the priesthood, in an attempt to make the Church more appealing to Catholics in the region.
Additionally, based on the Second Vatican Council’s defense of “liturgical pluralism,” the Amazon Synod’s final document called for “a rite for native peoples” which would be based on their “worldview, traditions, symbols and original rites that include transcendent, community and ecological dimensions.”
This “Amazonian rite” would “expresses the liturgical, theological, disciplinary and spiritual heritage of the Amazon,” which would assist the “work of evangelization.”
Details have since been scarce on what the rite might look like; however, Pope Francis has suggested it could be formulated in line with the Zaire rite, which has been in use in the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 1988.
In a preface to a 2020 book on the Zairean rite, Francis wrote that the rite “is considered an example of liturgical inculturation.”
“One feels that in the celebration according to the Zairian rite, a culture and spirituality animated by religious songs with African rhythm, the sound of drums and other musical instruments vibrate, which constitute a true progress in rooting the Christian message in the Congolese soul. It is a joyful celebration,” he commented.
Francis directly linked the Zaire rite – replete with local customs, native dancing, singing and clapping – to the forthcoming Amazon rite:
The case of the Zairean rite suggests a promising path also for the possible elaboration of an Amazonian rite, in that the cultural needs of a specific area of the African context are received, without distorting the nature of the Roman Missal, to guarantee continuity with the ancient and universal tradition of the Church. We hope that this work can help to move in this direction.
Development
Following calls from liberalizing forces and key campaigners behind the Amazon Synod, a commission was formed to guide the development of such a rite.
In June 2022, the notoriously anti-traditional secretary of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship – Archbishop Vittorio Viola – commented that the formation of an Amazon rite was “on the high seas.”
He also highlighted Pope Francis’ comments and linking of “the inculturation of the liturgy” with the “new evangelization.” Just as the Pope had done in his 2020 book preface, Viola linked the Zaire rite to the proposed Amazon rite, attesting that so-called “inculturation” of liturgy is the “new frontier” for the Church.
Results of the various sub-committees studying the proposed rite were presented to the Dicastery for Divine Worship in September 2022. The process was crucially aided by the papal formation of a new episcopal conference in the Amazon region: the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA) in 2021.
Vida Nueva reported that Brighenti said the proposed Amazon rite was presented to the second assembly of CEAMA this August. After a “phase in communities,” stated Brighenti, the rite will be presented to the Dicastery for Divine Worship.
Currently, the theologian said that some 13 commissions are formulating the rite’s details about “the rituals of the sacraments and also thinking about the liturgical year of the Amazon, the liturgical space, the liturgy of the hours, among others.”
“We hope that it will be accepted and approved by the Church so that the ecclesial communities can express their faith according to their culture and customs in this immense territory of the Amazon,” he said.
Context of news
Brighenti, as noted, is a highly influential theologian in Rome. The fact that he is predicting the rite will officially enter an “experimental phase” before the year is out is a key development for the future of the rite which has found heavy criticism among conservatives and advocacy from liberal voices.
In the meantime, and alongside the quietly developing Amazon rite, the Vatican is currently mulling over another pagan-linked, inculturated rite.
The Mayan rite proposed by Mexico’s Catholic bishops is now being examined by the Dicastery for Divine Worship. Though the dicastery has been slow in issuing a statement on the rite – much to the consternation of the Mexican bishops – the rite was drawn up with the key involvement of Dicastery Undersecretary Bishop Aurelio García Macías, suggesting that Vatican approval is a mere formality.
LifeSiteNews’ Dr. Maike Hickson has provided an in-depth analysis of the Mayan rite, the draft and final copies of which both she and this correspondent have studied.
The final draft of the Mayan rite contains liturgical actions based on, and drawn from, pagan actions. Such a liturgy would then be at the liberty of the individual cleric involved, who would feel at ease incorporating the wider, accompanying pagan aspects of the rituals which the Vatican would have approved.
Such a style gives an insight into the likely future of a similarly inculturated Amazonian rite.