Vatican City, 09 October, 2019 / 2:56 pm (ACI Africa).
The push by some Westerners to use the Vatican’s Amazon synod to advance their personal agendas is an insult to God and his plan for the Church, Cardinal Robert Sarah said in an interview published this week.
"This synod has a specific and local objective: the evangelization of the Amazon. I fear that some Westerners are seizing this assembly to advance their plans," Sarah told Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera Oct. 7.
The cardinal mentioned in particular synod discussion of the ordination of married men, the creation of women's ministries, and the jurisdiction of the laity.
"These points touch the structure of the universal Church. Taking advantage to introduce ideological plans would be an unworthy manipulation, a dishonest deception, an insult to God who guides his Church and entrusts to it his plan of salvation," he stated.
Sarah, who is participating in the Amazon synod in his capacity as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, noted that he has heard that some people want this synod assembly to be a "laboratory" for the universal Church, and others think after the meeting everything will have changed.