Pope Francis urges defence of
rights and lands of Amazonia natives
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| Pope francis meets with representatives of the Amazon basin's indigenous communities in Puerto Maldonado.- AFP |
Pope Francis addresses some 4,000 representatives of
indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin in Puerto Maldonado, the heartland of
Peru’s Amazonia region.
By Robin Gomes
Pope Francis on Friday put the cause of
the indigenous people of Amazonia in the heart of the Church,
sharing their challenges and reaffirming a whole-hearted option for the
defence of life, the earth and cultures.
“You are a living memory of the mission that God has
entrusted to us all: the protection of our common home,” the Pope told some
4,000 natives of Amazonia gathered at the Madre de Dios indoor stadium at Puerto
Maldonado, some 900 kms east of the Peruvian capital Lima.
Pope Francis chose the heartland of Peru’s Amazonia
rainforest, known for its biodiversity, to highlight the cause of indigenous
people. In a symbolic gesture, he handed them copies of his environmental
encyclical “Laudato Si”, translated into their local languages.
Amazonia threatened
Regarding Amazonia as sacred, the Pope recalled God’s words
to Moses: “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are
standing is holy ground.”
He said the people of Amazonia are probably most threatened
today, with great business interests eyeing its
petroleum, gas, lumber, gold and forms of agro-industrial monocultivation, and
certain distorted policies of “conservation” of nature
usurping their habitat.
Noting that these problems strangle the natives
and provoke the migration of the young due to the lack of
local alternatives, the Pope called for breaking the historical paradigm that
views Amazonia as an inexhaustible source of supplies for other countries
without concern for its inhabitants.
Respect, recognition, dialogue
The Holy Father called for respect, recognition and dialogue
with the native groups, acknowledging and recovering their native cultures,
languages, traditions, rights and spirituality. And in this dialogue
about their lands, he said, the natives themselves should be the
principal partners, and that resources generated by conservation practices
benefit their communities.
Pope Francis denounced illegal mining that causes environmental
contamination. He also condemned slave labour and sexual
abuse, especially violence against adolescents and against women.
Pope Francis also called for the defence and protection of
some 64 indigenous groups of Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia (Indigenous
Peoples in Voluntary Isolation) who in the face of extinction due
of encroachment from the civilized world, have voluntarily chosen to live
deeper in Amazonia.
Ideological colonialism
Pope Francis called for the defence of the family that keeps
cultures alive against the ideological forms of colonialism, saying “the disappearance
of a culture can be just as serious, or even more serious, than the
disappearance of a species of plant or animal”.
In this regard, the Holy Father encouraged an education that
does not erase indigenous traditions, languages,and ancestral wisdom.
The Pope commended efforts in this regard, and urged
Amazonia’s natives to help shape a Church with an Amazonian face, a
Church with a native face, which is why he has convoked the Synod for
Amazonia in 2019.
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