Sixth General Assembly of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA). “Something new is being born”

Sunday, 15 March 2026 mission amazon local churches indigenous ecology

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Bogotà (Agenzia Fides) – The Sixth General Assembly of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA) will take place in Bogotà from Monday, March 16, to Friday, March 20, during which the present and future of the Church's mission in the Amazon region will be addressed and the next steps in the new path initiated by the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon and Pope Francis's post-synodal Apostolic Exhortation, “Querida Amazonia” will be discussed.

One hundred people are invited to participate in the Assembly: 45 voting members and approximately thirty special delegates, in addition to the staff of the secretariat and the assembly organization, including representatives of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, bishops, religious, priests, and lay people.

On the agenda is the "roadmap" for Church institutions operating in the Amazon for the period 2026–2030. The "synodal pastoral horizons" designed for the coming years will be confirmed based on broad consultation in the regions. Furthermore, the assembly will elect new members to the CEAMA Executive Board, beginning with the position of President, currently held by the Peruvian Jesuit Cardinal Pedro Ricardo Barreto Jimeno, Archbishop Emeritus of Huancayo. In addition to the Colombian delegates, delegates from Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador will also be present. Father Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen, Secretary General of the Pontifical Missionary Union (PMU), will also be present, sent by the Dicastery for Evangelization (Section for First Evangelization and New Particular Churches). In addition, the assembly will be represented by Father Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen.

The assemblies, held at the headquarters of the Council of Latin American Episcopal Conferences (CELAM), are guided by the motto and biblical theme of a verse from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah: “See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”

The Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA)
is the regional ecclesial body established at the request of the bishops of the Amazon region following the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region (October 2019) and canonically recognized by Pope Francis on October 9, 2021.

The Assembly, now convened in Bogotá, also has the task of reaffirming and reviewing the cooperation and methods of coordination with other ecclesial bodies and institutions that have been established in recent years as a sign of the Catholic Church's solidarity with the peoples of the Amazon region. These include organizations such as the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM), founded in 2014 as a continental network to support the peoples and territories of the Amazon region; and more recent initiatives such as the "Red de Educación Intercultural Bilingualüe Amazónica" (REIBA) and the Amazonian University Program (PUAM), which arose from the suggestion of the 2019 Synod of Bishops on the Amazon.
All these organizations share the mission of proclaiming and bearing witness to the Gospel of Christ in a region afflicted by great social and environmental hardship, where ecclesial communities can be a sign of hope for all, beginning with the indigenous peoples.

Among the priorities proposed in the pastoral guidelines for the coming years is a call to strengthen the ecological commitment of local communities and to find concrete answers to the large and increasingly alarming environmental threats facing the region.

A few months after his election as Pope, Pope Leo XIV addressed a telegram to the bishops attending the Ecclesial Amazon Conference in Bogotá, Colombia, from August 17 to 20 (see Fides, 18/8/2025). “It is necessary,” the Pope wrote in the telegram, signed by the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, “that Jesus Christ, in whom all things are recapitulated, be announced with clarity and immense charity among the inhabitants of the Amazon.” Pope Leo XII thanked the bishops for “their efforts to promote the good of the Church for the faithful in the beloved Amazon region” and urged them “to find, on the basis of the unity and collegiality inherent in an episcopal body, a way to help diocesan bishops and apostolic vicars in a concrete and effective manner to fulfill their mission.” (GV) (Agenzia Fides, 15/3/2026)