Author and social leader Carmina Navia has issued an open letter to the Indigenous people of Canada to Pope Francis on the occasion of the pontiff’s Maya convict.
“His many gestures and his words give me a very faint light of hope,” wrote Navia to Francisco
Digital Dharma reproduces the document below
Digital Dharma reproduces the document below
Brother Francis:
I don’t think this letter will ever reach your hands or be read by you, much less the answer. However, it comes from deep inside me to write it down and send it to travel the world
I want to tell him that I admire him very much. You are a spiritual leader of great wisdom and power. I believe that his intention to lead a consistent life based on simplicity and closeness with ordinary people is particularly valuable and tells us of a church closer to the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth. I am writing to you primarily on the occasion of your visit to Canada, a journey you have defined as penance and a request to the indigenous peoples for the forgiveness they suffered at the hands of the ecclesiastical territories. It is a brave journey, especially in the state of his health, and the request for pardon shows a very special and necessary harmony with the marginalized and abused in history. This isn’t the first time you’ve apologized and made a gesture of contact with others who are different, who travel different paths, are disadvantaged and victimized.
In his behavior I inspire my words. Honestly, I’ll admit that I don’t expect too much from the church. There is such a strong divergence that it has occurred from the proclamations and evangelical calls that I do not think a return to the directions of Jesus is possible. However, his many gestures and his words give me a very faint glimmer of hope…
And now, my main reason:
Don’t you think that the Church, in its head or in someone else’s, should apologize to women, to women in general? Throughout history, there have been many reasons for this: the silence to which it has been and is subjected to, the complete lack of recognition. Trying to steal the historical memory of a power like Mary of Magdala. The condemnation of the female body as a path of sin. Persecution and killing of witches. The marginalization and condemnation of women as extraordinary and visionary as the Beguiens, passing silently over them in all the history of the Church and the memories of Christianity. A Bible reading identifies them with evil, with sin, with “flesh” and its negative connotations. It has never been given an adequate place in the church structure and deprived of full equality of rights and opportunities in the already developed 21st century.
I could list the situations, but this letter is not about that. I only want to appeal to his subtle sensitivity in certain aspects and problems, so that he puts himself in front of women of faith and encourages them to welcome new times, new dawns, new ones.
I trust you, Pope Francis. I know that you have tried to rectify the mistake of the great church done to them, by losing the contributions and money of women… Real changes have been introduced… Maybe you can’t change things much… Maybe you’re a prisoner of invisible forces… But it is possible to ask for forgiveness. It’s in your hands. Women who love the Master of Galilee await the request that can open us to the future in the embrace of Sororos.
I ask God to bless and protect him.
This is very sad,
Carmina Navia Velasco
Cali, July 2022 – From Mary of Magdala Spiritual Circle.
