Due frasi per iniziare. Austen Ivereigh nel suo articolo How to Read ‘Querida Amazonia’- New Wine, New Wineskins (Come leggere Querida Amazonia – Nuovo vino, nuovi otri, commonwealmagazine.org, 25 febbraio 2020) scrive:

1. “The pope’s purpose in Querida Amazonia is to offer—passionately, but without dictating or lecturing—some of the answers he sees flowing from that fountain. They are answers that indignant progressives or triumphant conservatives still focused only on the institutional, clerical issue simply fail to see, because they are expecting law and have been given something more like a parable.”

2. If you ask that question again but replace “Amazon” with your own parish or diocese, then you’ll get Francis’s larger point. But not everyone will: these are new wineskins.

Per chi ancora fosse reticente ad accettarlo, si ribadisce come il disegno dell’esoratazione sia decisamente più ampio delle singole questioni su cui si è posta l’attenzione (larger point), apra vie sicuramente nuove (new wine, new wineskin) e, soprattutto, vada ben oltre le liti del condominio conciliare progessisti vs conservatori (indignant progressives or triumphant conservatives still focused only on the institutional).

Appena pubblicato il documento, su Radio Spada, si disse più o meno lo stesso: non c’era nessuna frenata, al massimo un cambio di marcia. A questo proposito rimandiamo volentieri all’intervista col Guelfo Rosa pubblicata il giorno dopo l’uscita dell’esortazione:

Ivereigh – si noti – è biografo di Bergoglio e studioso ben inserito in ambiente cardinalizio (ha tra l’altro ricoperto ruoli di responsabilità nella rivista cattolica “Tablet”), insomma una voce decisamente rilevante.

Oltre al senso generale, ciò che colpisce nell’articolo sono alcuni passaggi molto specifici. Perdonate la lunga citazione in inglese, ma è necessaria:

The bishops have discerned; the pope respects their discernment; now it is they who must act.

[…] The bishop of Juína in the Brazilian region of Mato Grosso, Neri José, who spoke to me regularly during the synod, was one of those strongly urging the ordination of married men and women deacons. “He’s thrown the ball right back in our court,” he told me after reading the exhortation. “Now is the time for courage.”

How will the Amazonian church respond? The pope himself points to the doors waiting to be pushed open: in favorably noting the proposal for an Amazonian rite, and for a territorial episcopal council that would allow the bishops of the region to act together across national boundaries. Dom Neri is among those urging his fellow bishops to form this Amazon-specific “strong synodal body” alongside Celam—the transcontinental episcopal conference—to push these proposals forward. “If [Celam] doesn’t take the initiative,” Dom Neri tells me, “the bishops of the dioceses can seek the competent authority to proceed.” In other words, they can apply diocese by diocese for permission from Rome to ordain viri probati.

But given that this is a decision that would affect the whole Latin-rite church, most observers believe that the ordination of viri probati will be the result of a regional synodal process that creates a new Amazonian rite. “The pope is asking the bishops to come up with concrete proposals,” another Vatican official involved with the synod process told me. “He thinks the time wasn’t yet ripe for any kind of decision by him: there’s too much anxiety, too little clarity. But he expects the bishops to move forward with it.”

Insomma: la prossima mossa dovrebbe essere in mano ai vescovi che, lungi dal trovarsi paralizzati dall’esortazione, hanno ricevuto la “palla nel loro campo”. Starebbe a loro prendere l’iniziativa ed è possibile che richiedano il permesso a Roma per l’ordinazione dei viri probati (they can apply diocese by diocese for permission from Rome to ordain viri probati), probabilmente nel quadro di un rito amazzonico (most observers believe that the ordination of viri probati will be the result of a regional synodal process that creates a new Amazonian rite)