Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Tumaco (Fides Service) - The first group of discalsed Carmelite missionaries from Navarra in Spain made its official entry in Tumaco on June 28 1954. The then Apostolic Prefecture covered a vast area of 18,000 sq. km in the region of Narinho, along the Pacific Ocean coastline, and on the border with Ecuador. The first apostle of the area was Augustinian Saint Ezechiele Moreno. The prefecture was made an Apostolic Vicariate in 1961 and a diocese on 29 October 1999. The first Carmelite Bishop was Mgr. Luis Irizar de Santa Teresina, who earlier worked in Urabà mission in Colombia, now closed. He died prematurely at the age of 56 in November 1966.
The development of the mission in Tumaco in these five decades of Carmilite history, according to information from the General House, can be divided in three periods. The beginning with Mgr. Luis Irizar (1954-1966), which saw the creation of infrastructures, the building of churches, homes, colleges, airport, hospital. Its consolidation (1966-1990), with Mgr Miguel Angel Lecumberri, exemplary Carmelite religious in Chile, presently in Pamplona (Spain), since he retired from Tumaco. A lasting reminder of his intense pastoral activity is Radio Mira opened in December 1970 an important channel for evangelisation in this area where people move mainly by boat. Maturity (1990 to today), with Mgr Gustavo Giron Higuita, first Colombian Carmelite Bishop.
The people are mostly Afro-Americans. The main interest of the mission has always been education with the opening of various colleges run by Carmelite Missionary Sisters. Today Tumaco dioceses is entrusted to the Carmelite province of Colombia. Other religious families, male and female collaborate in the evangelisation of the territory. Pope
