The Jubilee of the synod teams that takes place in the Vatican from October 24 to 26, allows the reunion of realities from various parts of the world that walk with the spirit of synodality. In conversation with the Vatican media, the Coordinator of Cáritas for Latin America and the Caribbean, Nicolás Meyer, and participant in this jubilee and synodal meeting, takes stock of the synodal life of the Church, particularly from the experience of Cáritas.

“We are very involved with this synodal agenda, with this process. From the beginning, Pope Francis presented it as a process and not as an event, not as events of the Church, but as a process of conversion, a process of change, of resignification and transformation. A word that at Cáritas resonated with us a lot from the last Paths Document, which was the one that came to facilitate and show the itinerary after the Final document of the synod, was the theme of experimentation. As a Church we need to experiment with new ways of connecting, new working mechanisms, new processes, procedures, new structures,” says Meyer.

The Coordinator of Cáritas for Latin America and El Caribe expresses its satisfaction with the synodal accompaniment of the Successor of Peter: "we were very happy that León could give so much continuity to what Francis had been proposing, showing that it is a decision of the pontificate beyond the person who embodies the Holy Father at each moment of history. It is our Successor of Peter who continues to encourage us and invited us to have this moment with him."

The Synod a strong voice

Nicolás Meyer also highlights that, in his region, "the synod was a voice that resonated strongly and that felt very much its own. I think that, since our last conference in Aparecida, then with the Ecclesial Assembly of the entire continent, in Mexico during the pandemic, we had a strong resonance with the aspects that the Synod proposed. Therefore, the local churches, the episcopal conferences, the dioceses were forming teams."

I notice a great life, a great commitment to this synodal process. -says Meyer-, that we must always continue revitalizing it, we must not rest on the laurels of the expressions that we see are beautiful, that we see that they make sense, but that they translate into practices that are what transform the concrete life of the ecclesial communities.

Dilexi te, the caress of God to the most needy

About the synodal response of Cáritas in Latin America, Meyer points out that “They have to do with being able to give a response that is the caress of God to those most in need, to those who suffer the most, especially addressing the reality of migration, trafficking and refuge, the reality of livelihoods, of work as a response also to structural poverty, the whole issue of emergency risk management, which is something very much our identity and which is a service that society and this moment of climate crisis strongly asks of us.”

For which reason it also considers that the apostolic exhortation of Pope Leo at this moment in history, but rather recapitulates John Paul II, takes Benedict, takes Francis, and now we see the pen and contribution of León. That voice of the Church, of the social teaching of the Church, which transcends the moments of history, which also transcends the ecclesial moments, where it returns to the evangelical root that the poor are the presence of God in our midst," he said.

We work for the poor

“That the poor evangelize us as a Church, that they are a vitality that the Church needs to welcome, embrace, and that it is not that we work for the poor, but that we work with them. With them for their promotion, for their development, to generate just structures in the face of so many unjust structures due to a structural sin,” says Meyer.

Finally, he considers that, in this Jubilee of the Holy Year, “hope has to be a reality that is incarnated and that can be touch, not just a speech or a narrative or a wish. And we have to be able to show how hope becomes flesh in very specific communities. And that, Caritas has a very big challenge because we work so much with pain and suffering, but we know that in that pain and in that suffering Christ transforms those realities, from hearts to structures.”

Publication by Johan Pacheco, in VaticanNews.va