Members of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon asked that women be given leadership roles in the Catholic Church, although they stopped short of calling for women deacons. In the Amazon, like in the rest of the world, the essential roles women play within the family, the community and the church should be valued and recognized officially, members of the Synod said in their final document.

The document, which Synod members voted on Oct. 26, included a call for the creation of “the instituted ministry of ‘woman community leader,’” something they said would help meet “the changing demands of evangelization and community care.”

Speaking after the vote on the document, Pope Francis said the Synod’s discussion on women “falls short” of explaining who women are in the church, particularly “in the transmission of faith, in the preservation of culture. I would just like to underline this: that we have not yet realized what women mean in the church,” but instead “we focus on the functional aspect, which is important,” but is not everything.

Synod members also asked Pope Francis to revise St Paul VI’s 1972 document on ministries, “Ministeria Quaedam” (“Some Ministries”), so that women could be installed formally as lectors and acolytes and in any new ministries to be developed.

The final document also asked that “the voice of women be heard, that they be consulted and participate decision making” in the church.

“It is necessary for the church to assume with greater strength their leadership within the church and for the church to recognize and promote it by strengthening their participation in the pastoral councils of parishes and dioceses, or even in instances of government,” the document said.

While noting that a “large number” of participants in the pre-synod consultations asked for women deacons and that several members of the Synod itself made such a call, the final document did not include an explicit request for such a move.

Poor people from the Amazon have shown that God’s creation must be treated “not as a resource to be exploited but as a home to be preserved, with trust in God,” Pope Francis said.

He celebrated Mass on Oct. 27 to mark the end of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon, which brought together bishops, priests and religious, and lay men and women, including indigenous people, from the nine Amazonian countries.

Synod participants, some wearing their native dress and feathered headdresses, led the procession into St Peter’s Basilica. During the offertory, an indigenous woman presented the Pope with a plant.

Their presence was a reminder of the Pope’s rebuke to a bi-shop who had made a derogatory comment about an indigenous man wearing his headdress at the Synod’s opening Mass on Oct. 6. Instead of using a crosier made of precious metals, the Pope carried a carved wooden crosier that the Vatican said was a gift from the Synod. During the assembly, participants described the environmental devastation and social problems caused by mining in the Amazon.

Pope Francis apologized that two men entered a church near the Vatican, took controversial statues and tossed them into the Tiber River.

“As bishop of the diocese, I apologize,” he said on Oct. 25, the first time the full membership of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon was gathered since the statues were taken from the Church of St Mary in Traspontina on Oct. 21.

Referring to the statue as “Pachamama,” like many media had done, Pope Francis told bishops at the Synod that the statues had been displayed in the Rome Church “without any idolatrous intention,” although the men who took the statues claimed on social media that they did so because the statues were idols. “Pachamama” is a term for “Mother Earth” used by some South American indigenous people.

The Pope also said that the statues, which floated, had been recovered by Italian police. The statues, “which created such a media clamor,” he said, “were not damaged.”

Addressing concerns about a proposed Amazonian rite in the Catholic Church, an indigenous participant at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon called on Catholics to soften their hearts and understand the needs of Catholics in the region.

At a Synod briefing on Oct. 24, Delio Siticonatzi Camaiteri, a member of the Ashaninka people and a professor from Peru, said that fears about the proposal are unwarranted because indigenous people seek unity and not division.

“Do we (want to) have our own rites? Yes, we do! But those rites must be incorporated with what is central, which is Jesus Christ. There is nothing else to argue about on this issue! The centre that is uniting us in this Synod is Jesus Christ,” he said.

Throughout the Synod, members discussed the possibility of incorporating local traditions and cultural elements in the liturgy. While there are nearly two dozen different rites in the Catholic Church, those critical of the proposal fear that it would introduce so-called pagan elements into the liturgy.

Speaking to journalists at the briefing, Siticonatzi said that he noticed those present seemed “a bit uncomfortable” and did not “understand what the Amazon truly needs” when it comes to establishing a new rite. “We have our own world view, our way of looking at the world that surrounds us. And nature brings God closer to us. Our culture brings the face of God closer to us, in our life,” he said. Nevertheless, he added, there are many who are “doubtful of this reality that we are looking for as indigenous people.”

“Do not harden your hearts! Soften your hearts; that is what Jesus invites us to do,” he said. “We live together. We all believe in one God! At the end of it all, we are going to be united.”