26 Aug
Bishop Ulrich Steiner: “I hope to be the voice and gesture of Pope Francis in the Amazon”
Tomorrow afternoon in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, during the Consistory, Pope Francis will proceed with the creation of the new cardinals with the imposition of the hat, the delivery of the ring and the assignment of the Title or Diaconia. Among them also Mons. Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, friar minor and archbishop of Manaus, Brazil.
Br. Gustavo Medella, Vicar of the Franciscan Province of the Immaculate Conception in Brazil, interviewed him for “Franciscan Morning”.
Bishop Ulrich Steiner said he was taken by surprise by the announcement, he spoke of Franciscan spirituality and the challenges that await the Amazon, especially on the subject of the environment.
Bishop Ulrich Steiner was born on November 6, 1950 in Forquilhinha (SC). He entered the Order of Friars Minor on January 20, 1972 and was admitted to the Novitiate of the Franciscan Province of the Immaculate Conception of Brazil. On January 21, 1978 he was ordained a priest by the Franciscan Archbishop of São Paulo, Mgr Paulo Evaristo Arns, his cousin. On February 2, 2005 he was appointed bishop of the Prelature of São Félix do Araguaia, in Mato Grosso, and was ordained on April 16. On 10 May 2011 he was elected general secretary of the CNBB (Brazilian National Episcopal Conference) and on 21 September of the same year he was appointed auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Brasilia. On 20 April 2015 he was re-elected Secretary General of the CNBB. His mandate ended on May 10, 2019. On November 27, 2019, Pope Francis accepted the resignation request presented by Msgr.Sergio Eduardo Castriani from the pastoral government of the Archdiocese of Manaus (AM) and appointed Msgr. Leonardo Ulrich Steiner as the new archbishop.
Pope Francis, during the Regina Coeli prayer on Sunday 29 May, announced his appointment as one of the new cardinals of the Church. How did you receive this news?
Surprisingly, because they did not contact me before, there was no official communication that I would be appointed and that day I was not following the Pope’s prayer, because on Sunday morning I speak live on a radio in Manaus, Radio Difusora. So, I learned about it through other people and it was a surprise, a pleasant surprise. What can I say? The joy of the peoples of the Amazon region! I didn’t think that for them the appointment of one of their bishops as cardinal for the Amazon region was so important. It is as if they too felt included on this occasion.
What does this choice mean for the Catholic Church in the Amazon?
Pope Francis has always been interested in the Amazon. Whenever the presidency of the CNBB, of which I was a member, visited him, he always addressed the question of the Amazon. The pontiff has also convened a Synod for the region. Therefore, the Pope really cares about the Amazon, the Church in the Amazon, but also the whole reality that makes up this vast region. Then, in the document “Querida Amazzonia” he faced the different dimensions of a great reality, like “four dreams” that he has for this region. I think that with my appointment, being here in Manaus, Pope Francis thought about the Brazilian Amazon. I do not consider it my merit, I have none, but it is he who cares about this region. I hope to answer this call, being his voice and his gesture here in this region of the Amazon.
In practice, what are the new commitments and tasks that derive from your choice as Cardinal?
It will depend on the Holy Father. But the closest commitment is the trust he has in me, representing the Amazon, to be someone who can collaborate with him in his ministry. He said: “I appoint you so that you can help in the exercise of my ministry as Bishop of Rome”. I hope to be able to give this collaboration, being here in Manaus, and I also hope to help Pope Francis to implement the guidelines that he expressed in the document “Querida Amazonia”.
Mons. Leonardo, you are a friar of the Province of the Immaculate Conception and a blood relative of Cardinal Paulo Evaristo Arns, who is also a fellow citizen of yours, both having been born in Forquilhinha (SC). You were ordained bishop by Msgr. Paulo. How did Bishop Paulo inspire your mission in the Church as a bishop and will he now inspire you as a cardinal?
I owe a lot as a person, as a friar, as a bishop, to formation, to the education received in the family, but also to the education received in the first school, a school run by nuns. A school born on the initiative of the small community of Forquilhinha, a school that Cardinal Paulo also attended. I also owe a lot to the formation received in the Province of the Immaculate Conception, in its seminaries and then above all in the studies of philosophy and theology. I think that Cardinal Paulo and I have these two fundamental elements in common: a family and religious formation coming from the community, from the school we attended, but also a formation that comes from our Province.
I got to know him more closely after becoming a friar. What has always inspired me about Archbishop Paulo was his closeness to the communities of the suburbs, his care for the poor and a word he always used in every homily: peace. He was a peace fighter, a peacemaker, a peacemaker. His way of speaking, his way of preaching, was very suggestive. And also his whole struggle in terms of Brazilian democracy. He was an important person, like other bishops, of course.
What can we expect from a friar minor, from a son of St. Francis, as a cardinal of the Church?
That close collaboration that the Pope expects from us. I hope to be faithful to the magisterium of Pope Francis and here in the Amazon we have many themes dear to the Franciscans. For example, the question of the environment is difficult and serious. Also the question of the garimpo [attività illegale dei cercatori di pietre preziose, il cui scopo è individuare e depredare giacimenti minerari]. We have rivers where mercury is so present that it threatens the indigenous peoples who live by fishing and bathing in the river. Mercury enters, upon immersion in water, through the navel. So even breast milk is now contaminated with mercury. Our body is unable to eliminate mercury and therefore a very serious problem arises. Indigenous peoples and our river brothers are in danger! As a friar, I hope to give this collaboration to help open our eyes to this reality, which is guided by the greed of man. There are, however, many other people, thank God, starting with the indigenous and river populations, who have another way of thinking about the environment.
Our Father St. Francis was the man of simplicity and poverty, of living with little, but also of knowing how to live with the environment, where creatures are brothers and sisters. In this sense, I hope to make my contribution thanks to Franciscan spirituality.
He has already mentioned some serious challenges of the Amazon region in relation to the degradation of the environment and native populations. Besides these, what are the other pressing challenges when it comes to the Amazon?
As for the environment, we have other difficulties: the question of deforestation, the advance of the agri-food sector, but also the question of mines. Since our region is rich in resources, such as niobium (Brazil is the largest producer of this metal), there is an international greed towards the Amazon. But there is also the greed for timber. We export it, sometimes illegally, and that is why Minister Salles fell.
Furthermore, indigenous peoples feel deeply attacked, while they have enormous wealth, and feel in great danger for this advance in the Amazon rainforest. Their space, their land, or rather their home, is attacked and destroyed. By destroying these little peoples, these little groups, we are losing cultures, we are losing lives.
In addition to this very serious problem, we have the health problem. Health here is very precarious and, often, to find some extra services, people have to travel long distances to reach the city of Manaus. When, for example, we wanted to transport the body of Dom Alcimar, bishop emeritus of Alto Solimões, we took a small plane for more than three hours of flight. You can imagine the distances. Now, if you travel along rivers, how long does it take? At the time of the pandemic, there was no possibility to provide assistance inside and Manaus could not support everyone, other than the fact that there was a lack of oxygen.
Another very serious problem we have is that of violence. Here in Manaus there is a lot of violence, the dispute between groups is very strong. And a difficulty that is more characteristic of us, of the city of Manaus, which has more than 2 million inhabitants (half the population of the Amazon), is the question of the periphery. It is poor, disorganized, the result of the occupation. So, you take care of it, you don’t take care of the environment, you don’t take care of the waterways. And then there is the question of asphalt, electricity, sewage, which are still a very serious problem. We have not reached 20% of sewage, clean water and basic sanitation. So, in a city of over 2 million inhabitants, you can imagine what it means for our waterways and rivers, what it means for the waste that ends up in the rivers and what it means for the plastic that, with the lack of waste collection , ends up in the ocean. These are some of the issues that worry us and about which we have tried to warn people, in order to move forward and have a more harmonious and peaceful Amazon.
Do you want to leave a last message?
May God bless everyone and may we walk together as a Church. We, starting from the spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, can be a presence of peace, a presence that builds and elevates life in its fullness.
Source: Franciscan Province of Imaculada Conceição do Brasil – OFM
Bishop Ulrich Steiner: “I hope to be the voice and gesture of Pope Francis in the Amazon”