With the help of the Augustinian Recollect missionary Luis Antonio Fernández Aguado (Amayuelas de Abajo, Palencia, Spain, 1963), we are approaching the efforts to make the Prelature of Lábrea a Church that fulfills the dreams of dignity and defense of an integral Ecology in the Amazon rainforest.
Since the Synod for the Amazon was held, its final document was published (2019) and the post-synodal apostolic exhortation Querida Amazonia by Pope Francis was added (February 2020), the call to be a “Church with an Amazonian face” has been hammering in our ears and resonating in our hearts.
What would that be like? What should we do to have an Amazonian face? It has been a recurring question among our people. The eye sees everything except itself. And so I tell them: “The Amazonian face is you yourselves, your history, your culture, especially that of the indigenous peoples and the riverside dwellers who have adopted this way of living in the rivers and the forests and the deep connection to the land.”
The Amazonian face is that history of struggle and resistance of the indigenous peoples; and also that history of servitude and dependence of the riverside dwellers, both situations of violence and oppression that last until today.
The Amazonian peoples cry out and shout for life and freedom. And of course, the Amazonian face is that immense forest with its rich biodiversity of microorganisms, plants, trees, animals, rivers and lakes of all sizes. This forest groans in labor pains for its liberation.
The forest and its people are the Amazonian face, what makes them different from other peoples, what gives them their own face. But the issue here and the ecclesial challenge is that the Church also assumes this Amazonian face because it walks with the peoples of the jungle.
Does the Prelature of Labrea have this face? When we have asked our people there has been silence, reflection and commitment. It is a challenge for all these people of God, although they already have this face.
Do we manifest this face as a Church? Do we missionaries have an Amazonian face, the way of organizing the Church, of celebrating the liturgy and the sacraments, of understanding the ministries and ecclesial services, catechesis, the way of thinking and expressing and celebrating the faith, the administration of the base communities?
The challenges of the Incarnation, of inculturation, continue, and with greater force in this global and plural world with a strong Western cultural colonialism, brutal pressure and influence from the media and new information technologies.
There is a motto that remains very relevant: “Let the church set up its tent in the Amazon.” The challenges are great. Two years ago, at the end of January 2023, at the Assembly of the Prelature of Lábrea held in Tapauá, we undertook to implement the Synod of the Amazon through an integral conversion and the implementation of the necessary actions to fulfill those social, cultural, ecological and ecclesial dreams of Pope Francis in Querida Amazonia.
From an integral vision of the mission, we wanted to put the service and defense of life in our Prelature, its cultures and its territories at the center, from integral ecology.
Today, in the context of the first centenary of the Prelature and the presence of the Augustinian Recollects, an opportunity has come to renew this presence and to be, together with the people, a Church with an Amazonian face.
As a concrete moment and expression of this mission, on January 22, 2025, the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM) organized a Free Conference on the Environment. It took place at the Santa Rita School of the Augustinian Recollect Missionaries, a space of special remembrance for Sister Cleusa Carolina Rodhy Coelho, martyr of the indigenous cause.
She has been an example of the Amazonian face of the Augustinian Recollect Family with her defense of the vulnerable in the Amazon: Hansenians and the sick, minors, indigenous people, prisoners, the impoverished, the excluded…
The Free Conference is an instrument for civil society to send proposals for the formulation of public policies. Among the 19 participants were representatives of REPAM, Pastoral Social, the Pastoral Commission of the Land (CPT), the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), all of them from the Church, together with indigenous and riverine movements and organizations (IEB, OPAN, FOCIMP, OCAPIL, STTR, RESEX Ituxi).
The theme of the dialogues and conversations was the same as that of the National Conference on the Environment: “Climate emergency and ecological transformation”, but from a local perspective “The Trans-Purus region, essential for the Amazon and for Brazil”.
The Augustinian Recollect bishop of the Prelature of Lábrea, Santiago Sánchez, participated together with the bishop emeritus, Jesús Moraza, and other missionaries. The social, cultural and political impact of the Prelature is notable in this area, as a means of promoting the Kingdom of God.
The Church promotes integral ecology and seeks sustainable development models that have people and communities at their center and that defend the life of all of us who inhabit this common home.
We need to make further progress and not just a few, but the Church as a whole, must take on this commitment. Let us be inspired by the many missionaries who, in these hundred years of history, have travelled this path hand in hand with the People of God and in their service. This is having an increasingly Amazonian face!.