In an exclusive interview with Gerard O’Connell, Cardinal Pedro Barreto rejoiced when the Synod on Synodality recognized the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon as “an example of synodality.”

“Synodality helps us a lot because it is the communities that tell us how to be a church, rather than a bishop telling the people how to be church,” Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich Steiner of Manaus, Brazil, said.

Cardinal Pedro Barreto Jimeno, S.J., explained that the now officially recognized body “involves bishops, priests, women and men religious and the lay faithful from the nine countries of the Amazon region.”

The pope will create 20 new cardinals on Aug. 27. Sixteen of them are eligible to vote in a papal conclave, and 11 are from or based in countries outside Europe and North America.

As the diocesan phase of the synod ended on Aug. 15, America touched base with some well-informed sources for insight into how the synod has gone so far in the Amazon region and Asia.

Pope Francis has held up the Congolese liturgy as a model for similarly inculturated rites in other parts of the Catholic world.