Indigenous peoples

Deacon Pereira will become the first priest from the Tikuna ethnic group, a tribe of about 60,000 people that live deep in the Amazon, along a stretch of the jungle shared by Colombia, Peru and Brazil.

Members of nonprofit Catholic missionary groups have traveled the Eastern Coachella Valley area, seeking to connect with the indigenous Purépecha community.

The church has made a great effort to build a genuinely indigenous Catholic tradition in the Amazon region, reports Eduardo Campos Lima, and indigenous leaders have great hopes for the upcoming synod.

Less than two weeks before the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon was scheduled to begin at the Vatican, the Brazilian bishops' Indigenous Missionary Council reported that the number of indigenous land invasions and indigenous murdered in Brazil in 2018 soared.

But the Pan-Amazon Synod’s organizers say much of the unhappiness with the its working document simply reflects Eurocentricism. Many critics “have little knowledge of the Amazon and in some cases have no commitment to its people.”

After denouncing the record number of wildfires in the Amazon in August and the growing deforestation of the region, the Brazilian Catholic Church is pressuring the government to guarantee the safety of several Amazonian indigenous peoples, alerting the authorities of the imminent risk of genocide