On this week’s episode of “Jesuitical,” Ashley and Zac are joined by Sister Laura Vicuña Pereira Manso, an Indigenous activist fighting to protect the Amazon rainforest and serve its people. As the current vice president of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon region (known as CEAMA) and a 2019 auditor of the Synod for the Pan-Amazon Region, Sister Laura has met with Pope Francis to make the case for women’s ministries, including restoring women deacons.

They discuss: 

- Sister Laura’s experience at Amazon Synod, and whether synodality “works”

- What a typical day looks like when you are ministering to Indigenous communities in the Amazon and struggling against powerful (and violent) corporations.

- What she would say to those who criticize women deacons as a “Western obsession”

Links for further reading: 

A Franciscan sister joins the fight for Indigenous rights in Brazil

A nun makes the case for women deacons to Pope Francis

What you need to know about the 2019 Synod on the Amazon

Brazilian Cardinal talks restoring women deacons, ordaining married men at synod press briefing

Synod Diary: Women deacons are not a ‘Western’ obsession

We’d like to give a special thanks to our translators, America O’Hare fellow Leilani Fuentes and Ellie Hidalgo of Discerning Deacons, who helped with the translations for this episode. 

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