AMERICA/ECUADOR - Pan Amazonian Network: "Cardinal Barreto, bearer of hope for the Amazon"

Monday, 21 May 2018 missionaries   bishops   ecology   indigenous  

Quito (Agenzia Fides) - "The appointment of Msg. Barreto as Cardinal has a very profound meaning, of great hope and profound responsibility: all of us who are close to him, commit ourselves to supporting him in this path of parrhesia that the Pope is indicating, to becoming an outgoing Church and with courage, and even more so in REPAM, which for us is a Kairos of God, to promote integral ecology": says to Agenzia Fides Mauricio Lopez (Ecuador), a Catholic layman, Executive Secretary of the "Pan Amazonian Network" (REPAM) regarding the news that Mgr. Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno, Archbishop of Huancayo, in Peru, was included by the Pope in the list of the new Cardinals he will appoint on 29 June.
Lopez recalls: "Mgr. Barreto is a prophet of integral ecology, he was before Laudato Sì and even more after Laudato Sì, that is why we must recognize his commitment. A short time ago, when we were in Rome for the meeting of the pre-Synodal Council of the Amazon, we remembered when he came to Ecuador for the first meeting in Puyo, thinking about the Amazonian Network. Mgr. Pedro said that the initiative of Repam was fruit of the Spirit".
"This spirit - he continues - we have lived in the context of REPAM: a spirit of brotherhood, learning to see the ability of others in defending life, welcoming the cries of peoples, and living a spirit of missionary Church".
Repam the Secretary concludes: "On other occasions, Archbishop Barreto spoke about the Amazon forest as a source of life for the world, for some this seemed exaggerated, but he went further, because he said that this was part of the Church's concern. To have the Amazon as a priority, to give it priority, to consider it the heart of the world: only men with a heart of integral ecology can understand it". (ML/CE) (Agenzia Fides, 21/05/2018)


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