Synod on Synodality World Tour: Latin America and the Caribbean, Part II
Synod Participants from Latin America and the Caribbean
This is the second in an occasional series exploring the contributions of different parts of the globe to the upcoming Synod on Synodality in October.
Last week, I offered an analysis of the key themes in the document from Latin America and the Caribbean written during the continental phase of the synodal process, as well as four regional documents, to explore what the Latin American and Caribbean Church might contribute to this October’s Synod on Synodality.
In this article, I want to focus on the Synod participants from Latin America and the Caribbean who will draw on these themes and their personal experiences during the Synod conversations. By my count, there are 80 invited participants from Latin America and the Caribbean. Surprising even myself, I was able to identify at least some biographical details for all 80 participants, a task that was made more difficult by the fact that the Vatican misspelled a few people’s names on the list provided two weeks ago.
The participants include curial officials, bishops appointed to attend the Synod by their respective national bishops’ conferences, a number of bishops, priests, and lay people appointed by Pope Francis, and delegates selected from the continental assemblies, as well as a group of non-voting experts.
The first thing to note is that the delegation from Latin America and the Caribbean is very prominent both in terms of sheer numbers and the leadership positions held by the delegates. For example, three of the nine presidents of the Synod are from Latin America—Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, the Archbishop of Mexico City; Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera, O.F.M., the Archbishop of Guayaquil, Ecuador; and Sr. Maria de los Dolores Palencia, C.S.J., a religious from Mexico. No other continent has more than one president (if one does not count Egypt, represented by Patriarch Ibrahim Isaac Sedrak of Alexandria, as part of the African continent; the Vatican categorizes the Eastern Catholic Churches, including Sedak’s Coptic Catholic Church, separately).
Latin America and the Caribbean are also well-represented among the curial officials who will be participating in the Synod. Perhaps the most important is Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernández, the recently-appointed Prefect of the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith and until recently the Archbishop of La Plata, Argentina. As I discussed in an earlier post, Fernández is a close ally of Francis who has focused on spirituality and the relationship between faith and culture in his prior theological work. Fernández is slated to become a cardinal in September, prior to the Synod.
The other curial official to watch is Archbishop Robert Francis Prevost, O.S.A. He served as the Bishop of Chiclayo, Peru until his appointment as Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops earlier this year. In this position, he oversees the process of appointing new bishops throughout the world. One of the topics under consideration by the Synod participants will be the leadership qualities and diocesan structures that are needed to embody synodality, and Prevost has expressed a desire to appoint bishops who exhibit a “synodal spirit.” Like Fernández, Prevost will become a cardinal in September.
The other two curial officials among the Latin Americans are: from Venezuela, Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the Substitute for General Affairs of the Secretariat of State, responsible for managing the day-to-day governance of the curia; and from Brazil, Cardinal João Bráz de Aviz, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life since 2011. Bráz de Aviz, who took on the office hoping to develop warmer relations between the Vatican and religious orders, is probably best known in the United States for bringing to a conclusion the visitation, or investigation, of U.S. religious women begun under his predecessor, and he likely played a role in the change in tone toward the sisters’ work in the investigation’s final report.
There are also a few “heavy-hitters” among the bishops from Latin America and the Caribbean who will be participating in the Synod. The already-mentioned Cardinal Aguiar Retes of Mexico City was (while serving as Bishop of Texcoco) a participant at the fifth meeting of the episcopal conference of Latin America and the Caribbean (CELAM) at Aparecida, Brazil in 2007, where he served on the drafting committee for the final document, headed by then-Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio. He later served as the president of CELAM from 2011 to 2015. Aguiar Retes is also a veteran Synod participant, attending those in 2012, 2014, and 2015.
Bishop Óscar Vicente Ojea of San Isidro, Argentina, who was chosen for the Synod by the bishops’ conference of Argentina, worked even more closely with Archbishop Bergolgio, serving as his auxiliary bishop in Buenos Aires from 2006 to 2009. He currently serves as the president of the bishops’ conference of Argentina and was among the leading voices at the Synod for the Amazon Region in 2019. Ojea remains close to Pope Francis and shares many of his priorities.
Archbishop Héctor Miguel Cabrejos Vidarte, O.F.M. of Trujillo, Peru, who was chosen for the Synod by the national episcopal conference, also has a great deal of experience. Like Ojea, he was a participant in the Synod for the Amazon Region, and he served on the committee that drafted its final document. Cabrejos Vidarte has been elected the president of the bishops’ conference of Peru three times, most recently serving from 2018 to 2020, and in 2019 he was elected president of CELAM, serving until this past May.
Of course, I don’t want to only focus on those participants with the most ecclesial authority. In this section, I want to highlight some key commonalities I noticed among the participants from Latin America and the Caribbean.
Since this is a newsletter about theology, after all, I want to start by highlighting the theologians in the Latin American/Caribbean delegation. Aside from Archbishop Fernández, I counted at least five academic theologians among the participants. Perhaps the most well-known is Fr. Carlos María Galli, a professor of theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina. Galli has served as the president of the Argentine Theological Society (a position also once held by Fernández, coincidentally), and he is a member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission and a theological adviser to CELAM. Galli is associated with teología del pueblo, a school of thought that draws on the faith and popular piety of “the people,” particularly the poor, and that has greatly influenced Pope Francis.
Rafael Luciani is a professor at the School of Theology of the Catholic University Andrés Bello in Venezuela. Like Galli, he serves as a theological adviser for CELAM. Luciani’s academic work has focused on the theme of synodality, and he is a member of the Vatican team coordinating the synodal process. Fr. Agenor Brighenti is a professor of theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná in Brazil, and his work focuses on ecclesiology, evangelization, and inculturation. Fr. Adelson Araújo Dos Santos, S.J., also from Brazil, is a professor at the Institute for Spirituality at the Gregorian University in Rome. His research includes work on Ignatian spirituality, discernment, and the examination of conscience, and he likewise served as a theological expert at the Synod for the Amazon Region. Erika Sally Aldunate Loza is a professor of theology at the Catholic University of Bolivia in La Paz. Aldunate is a voting member of the Synod chosen for her role in the continental process, while the other four theologians will serve as non-voting experts. Of course, a few of the bishop delegates also have some theological chops. For example, Bishop Pedro Carlos Cipolini of Santo André, Brazil has written a book on synodality and is an outspoken critic of clericalism.
One of the key themes that will be discussed at the Synod, and one that was emphasized in the Latin American/Caribbean document, is the need for a greater voice for lay people in the Church and more opportunities for leadership and participation. The Latin American/Caribbean delegation will bring a number of experienced lay leaders to the Synod. For example, the theologian Erika Sally Aldunate Loza also serves as the Director of the Ricardo Bacherer Center for the Promotion of the Laity in La Paz. Sônia Gomes de Oliveira is the president of the National Council of the Laity in Brazil. In this position, she has advocated for synodality in the form of greater lay participation in leadership and ministry. Mauricio López Oropeza, from Ecuador, is the Executive Secretary of CEAMA, the regional ecclesial conference created in the aftermath of the Amazonian Synod, and the Director of CEPRAP, the office of CELAM responsible for social ministry. Francisco Gerardo Hernández Rojas is the regional coordinator of SELACC, the regional umbrella organization for Caritas. Valeria Karina López Mancini, an attorney, works as the adjunct secretary general of Chile’s episcopal conference. Unlike those lay people who work professionally in the Church, Dr. Leonardo Lima Gorosito is an odontologist from Montevideo, Uruguay who also serves as a member of the Department of the Laity of that country’s bishops’ conference and is a member of the Communities of Christian Life (Comunidades de Vida Cristiana, CVX) lay movement.
Some of the more fascinating lay participants are involved in using social media, as well as traditional media, in innovative ways. Sr. Xiskya Lucia Valladares Paniagua, P.M., a delegate from Nicaragua appointed by Pope Francis, is a member of the Congregación Pureza de María, a religious order founded in Spain in the 19th century, and also the co-founder of iMisión, an organization focused on training Catholics how to evangelize on the internet and social media. Holding a doctorate in communication, she is the Director of the Communication Department at the Alberta Giménez Center for Superior Teaching at the Pontifical University in Comillas and has written the books Best Practices for Evangelizing on Twitter (2016) and Best Practices for Evangelizing on Facebook (2018). José Manuel de Urquidi Gonzalez, another papal appointee, is an entrepreneur from Mexico currently living in Dallas, Texas who is the founder and CEO of Juan Diego & Co., a consulting firm that helps Catholic organizations develop media strategies aimed at Latinos. He was also a participant in the Digital Synod, an online gathering that was part of the synodal process. Néstor Esaú Velásquez Téllez from Nicaragua is the Administrator of Media for the Diocese of León. The Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, written in preparation for the Synod notes that “what continues to be lacking is a fuller awareness of the potential this environment [i.e., digital media] offers for evangelization or a reflection, particularly in anthropological terms, on the challenges it poses” (p. 35), and so these delegates have much to teach on these questions.
The Latin American and Caribbean delegation also includes a number of leaders among religious men and women. Ten superiors of religious orders were chosen to participate in the Synod, and two are from Latin America. Ernesto Sánchez, F.M.S., from Mexico, has served as the Superior General of the Marist Brothers (distinct from, but connected with, the Marist Fathers) since 2017. Better known is Arturo Sosa, S.J., the Superior General of the Jesuits, who is from Venezuela. The first Latin American Jesuit general, Sosa led the order through a discernment process identifying the priorities of the order from 2017 through 2019. Sánchez and Sosa are not the only religious superiors who will be attending the Synod, however. Sr. María de Fátima Vieira Diniz of Venezuela, S.Smo.S., a delegate chosen by Pope Francis, is the superior of the Servants of the Blessed Sacrament (Siervas del Santisimo Sacramento), a contemplative order founded in Venezuela late in the 19th century (not to be confused with other, similarly named, orders). Although not religious superiors, Sr. Gloria Liliana Franco Echeverri, O.D.N. of Colombia is the president of the Confederation of Latin American and Caribbean Religious (CLAR), and Sr. Daniela Adriana Cannavina, C.M.R., likewise of Colombia, is its secretary general. Cannavina was a participant in the Amazonian Synod and is an advocate for women deacons. It is also worth noting that Archbishop Carlos Alfonso Azpiroz Costa, O.P. of Bahía Blanca in Argentina, who will be attending as a delegate of that nation’s bishops’ conference, was the Master of the Dominican Order from 2001 to 2010.
The Instrumentum Laboris suggests that one of the key themes of the discussion will be how synodality can help the Church better live out the ideal of a "church of the poor” and its members to be “agents of reconciliation and artisans of peace” (p. 27). Appropriately, a significant number of the participants from Latin America and the Caribbean have experience advocating for the vulnerable or mediating social conflicts. Sr. Maria de los Dolores Palencia, C.S.J., who is serving as a synodal president, runs a shelter for Central American migrants, the Albergue Decanal Guadalupano, in Tierre Blanca, Veracruz. She also served as the vice president of CLAR from 2006 to 2009, participated in the Aparecida conference, and likewise participated in the 2019 Ecclesial Assembly of Latin America, a synod-like online gathering of bishops, priests, religious, and lay people. Another participant, María Cristina Dos Anjos da Conceição, serves as the National Assessor for Migration and Refugees for Caritas in Brazil. William Ernesto Iraheta Rivera, the Bishop of Santiago de María, was among a group of Salvadoran bishops who traveled to Washington, DC in 2018 to advocate for the restoration of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of migrants in the United States after it had been terminated by the Trump administration. Sr. María Suyapa Cacho Álvarez, DC, from Honduras, works among the Garífuna people, a group of mixed African and indigenous ancestry living in Honduras, Belize, and St. Vincent in the Caribbean.
Among those with experience as peacemakers, Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon of Port-of-Spain, in Trinidad and Tobago, is well-known in his country for his role mediating between rival gangs in Port-of-Spain and helping to reduce violent crime while serving as a priest. Archbishop Cabrera Herrera from Ecuador helped mediate amidst social unrest over austerity measures imposed by the government in that country in 2019, and similar protests in 2022. Similarly, Archbishop Luis José Rueda Aparicio of Bogotá, Colombia promoted dialogue during a national tax protest in 2021. Archbishop Jaime Spengler, O.F.M. of Porto Alegre has called on Christians to resist the increasing social and political polarization in Brazil. Spengler has a lot on his plate besides the Synod, having been elected president of the Brazilian bishops’ conference in April and president of CELAM in May. His fellow Brazilian, Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, O.F.M., the Archbishop of Manaus, is considered the “voice of the Amazon” and helped attend to the needs of the people of his archdiocese during the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic even as the Bolsonaro government engaged in pandemic denialism.
Some of the episcopal participants lead the Church under repressive governments. For example, Archbishop José Luis Azuaje Ayala of Maracaibo, the president of the episcopal conference in Venezuela from 2018 to 2021, has spoken out against human rights violations by the Maduro government. Cardinal Juan de la Caridad García Rodríguez, the Archbishop of Havana, heads the most important see in Cuba in the midst of uneasy dialogue between the Church and the Cuban government. An intriguing participant is Sócrates René Sándigo Jirón, the Bishop of León in Nicaragua. Some have suggested that Bishop Sandigo is sympathetic to the Ortega government in that country, even as the Catholic Church is persecuted and his fellow bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa sits in prison. Sandigo was elected to attend the Synod by his fellow bishops, however, which suggests he has their confidence and that the rumors shouldn’t be given credence.
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Not surprisingly, some of the attendees are controversial. Perhaps the most noteworthy is Cardinal Óscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, S.D.B., the retired archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, who was appointed as a Synod participant by Pope Francis. Rodríguez was the president of CELAM from 1995 to 1999 and was considered papabile before the 2005 conclave that elected Pope Benedict XVI. He was the president of Caritas Internationalis from 2007 to 2015, and Pope Francis appointed him the coordinator of the Council of Cardinal Advisers he created in 2013. In 2017, however, an auxiliary bishop of Tegucigalpa was investigated, and eventually dismissed, by the Vatican for the sexual abuse of seminarians and financial corruption. Rodríguez was suspected of protecting his protégé, and in 2017 allegations of financial misconduct against the cardinal himself were first alleged. The Vatican opened another investigation into these allegations in 2021. It appears that Cardinal Rodríguez was allowed to quietly retire early this year without the investigation yet reaching any conclusions. Interestingly enough, Rodríguez’s successor, José Vicente Nácher Tatay, C.M., will also be at the Synod, chosen by the Honduran episcopal conference. Nácher has an unusual story; a Spanish missionary to Honduras and superior of the Vincentians in that country, he was appointed archbishop while still just a priest, a very rare occurrence.
Archbishop Peña Parra, the Substitute for the Secretariat of State, played a role in the ongoing Vatican scandal over a London real estate deal, admitting to hiding wrongdoing from the authorities. Archbishop Ricardo Antonio Tobón Restrepo of Medellín, Colombia, was involved in a legal dispute with government authorities over the release of records related to clerical sexual abuse. Luis Fernando Ramos Pérez, the Archbishop of Puerto Montt, was among the Chilean bishops who collectively offered to resign over the cover-up of abuse in that country, although as far as I know, Ramos is not accused of any personal misconduct.
Although I’m ending on a sour note, I think it is clear that the Latin American and Caribbean representatives to the Synod bring a lot to the table, both in terms of valuable leadership and pastoral experience and bold ideas for helping the Church better live out its mission. As the authors of the Latin American and Caribbean continental document point out, the Church in that region has already made great strides in trying to live out synodality, although there is plenty of room to grow. It has also made great contributions to the worldwide Church, including its example of how to embody the preferential option for the poor and how to inculturate the Gospel in the midst of cultural diversity, although again there is still room to grow. It will be exciting to see the role these participants play at the Synod, building on these contributions.
Of Interest…
Last week, I argued that Pope Francis’s recent wave of appointments showed that he was concerned about his institutional legacy. Ed Condon, writing at The Pillar, notes, “[W]ith the 86-year-old Francis coming off a recent surgery and heading into a punishing international travel schedule, it’s difficult not to see the slate of nominations as legacy planning.” Condon struggles to identify the agenda Francis hopes to push forward with his picks for the Synod and for elevation to the cardinalate, but I think Condon underestimates the extent to which Francis’s goal is not necessarily to pursue a specific agenda, but rather to put in place a process. For example, Francis doesn’t see the Synod primarily as a way to achieve certain predetermined outcomes, contrary to some of its critics, but as a Spirit-guided conversation whose outcomes are yet to be determined. Writing for Religious News Service, Thomas Reese, S.J. makes the interesting point that by appointing a range of voices to the Synod, Francis ensures that even those who might have been skeptical of the process will now have some buy-in. Maybe.
Staying on the topic of the Synod, Brian Fraga at the National Catholic Reporter interviews theologian Catherine Clifford, who was appointed as a voting delegate at the Synod after her work at the continental level in North America, about her hopes for the gathering.
Coming Soon…
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