Pope Leo is following Pope Francis in showing special concern for the region of the Amazon, as a message to a gathering of bishops shows.
Like Pope Francis, Pope Leo XIV speaks to the Amazon region with experiential expertise.
Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost served in recent years as president of the Commission for Latin America — a role associated with that of prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. As prior of the Order of Saint Augustine between 2001 and 2013, he also worked with communities of his congregation present in the Amazon.
While Peru's diocese of Chiclayo, where the future pope was bishop, does not have regions of Amazon, other bishops of the nation do have dioceses in the region.
All of this adds weight to the message the Holy Father sent via his Secretary of State to the bishops of the Amazon, who are meeting from August 17 to 20, 2025, in Bogota, Colombia. The meeting has gathered some 90 Amazonian bishops under the umbrella of a group created after the 2019 synod: the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA). The papal message was published Monday in five languages,
The Pope's brief message suggests three dimensions that are "interconnected in the pastoral work of the region." Those three are "the mission of the Church to proclaim the Gospel to all, the just treatment of the peoples who dwell there, and the care of the common home."
With the first dimension, the Pope alluded to one of the main issues raised at the synod: the shortage of priests for the region, plagued by the pastoral difficulties of reaching remote communities.
Still, the Pope affirmed:
It is necessary that Jesus Christ, in whom all things are recapitulated, be announced with clarity and immense charity among the inhabitants of the Amazon, so that we may strive to give them fresh and pure the bread of the Good News and the heavenly food of the Eucharist, the only means to truly be the People of God and the Body of Christ.
The Holy Father added that in this mission, "we are moved by the certainty, confirmed by the history of the Church, that wherever the name of Christ is preached, injustice recedes proportionally, for, as the Apostle Paul asserts, all exploitation of man by man disappears if we are able to receive one another as brothers and sisters."
Our common home
The Pope also speaks of the "right and duty" to care for the "'home' that God the Father has entrusted to us as diligent stewards, so that no one irresponsibly destroys the natural goods that speak of the goodness and the beauty of the Creator, nor, much less, subjects oneself to them as a slave or worshiper of nature, since things have been given to us in order to attain our end of praising God and thus obtaining the salvation of our souls."
In this assertion, he references St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of Pope Francis' spiritual family, the Jesuits,
