Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
San José del Amazonas (Agenzia Fides) - "Strengthen intercultural dialogue with the aim of walking together towards 'monifue' (Good Living) and building a Church closer to the reality of indigenous peoples". This is what the representatives of the native peoples of the Peruvian Amazon proposed, gathered together with the Consolata Missionaries (IMC) in the First Assembly of Native Peoples. It is a "challenge", say the IMC, aimed at local Churches who must reflect daily and concretely on how to walk alongside these people in the here and now.
According to a note from the Consolata Missionaries, representatives of six missions of the Apostolic Vicariate of San José del Amazonas who live directly with the indigenous peoples, along with part of the administrative staff, met in the town of Angoteros to share common concerns and experiences on how to take concrete steps towards a preferential option for indigenous peoples.
"We are aware that this requires a conversion in forms, methods, times, language and spirituality," they noted.
In this way, the proposal to hold a first Assembly of Indigenous Peoples with missionaries who freely wished to be part of this process was consolidated: to feel, learn, walk with them, together in the construction of that fullness of life that in our case is based on gratuitousness and interculturality". The objective was to offer a space for dialogue between cultures that allows them to know each other, value each other, walk together and sow the word of life from their wisdom.
There are 51 indigenous peoples living in the Peruvian Amazon, nine of whom are in the San José del Amazonas Vicariate; a particular Church that has walked and navigated alongside indigenous peoples over the years.
"In the language of the indigenous peoples the concept 'monifue' means abundance and this first assembly represents precisely that: the harvest of this great chagra (field) planted in the diversity that at no time has represented a threat but a promise.
It was significant to see the Kichwa of Ecuador with those of Peru; to the Murui of Colombia with the Murui-Uitoto of Peru," says Father José Fernando Flórez Arias, IMC, missionary in the Vicariate of San José del Amazonas. "The national states wanted to divide, but they could not break the spirituality of the people themselves. And this is also an appeal to the Churches called to walk together, meet and recognize each other. In the Amazon it is not about being, but knowing how to be there. The territory needs joyful missionaries, open to listening, to the word, to the mystery."
The Synod for the Amazon, held in October 2019, proposed new modalities in the relations of the Catholic Church with the territory, cultures and ancestral life. Therefore, it is necessary to walk with the criteria of Pope Francis who, in Puerto Maldonado, told the indigenous peoples "help your missionaries to become one with you" (see Fides, 7/10/2019). (AP) (Agenzia Fides, 25/7/2024)
