The diocese of Ciudad Guzmán in the Mexican state of Jalisco has recently celebrated 50 years of its existence. Father Juan Manuel Hurtado López, a Mexican theologian, who spent 17 years in the diocese accompanying the indigenous communities of Tseltal, Tsotsil and Mestizo in southeastern Mexico at the Church of San Cristóbal de Las Casas,…
The ancestral Andean Amazonian wisdom is transmitted through songs, mythological stories, and the narratives of the wise men and women, whose message is the importance of generating, preserving, and caring for life in its entirety. The Ayahuasca ritual in the Peruvian Amazon and the preparation process of the aspiring Amazonian shaman. The name ayahuasca is…
Carajàs is considered the largest open cast iron mine in the world, in the heart of the Brazilian eastern Amazon. After more than twenty years of battles, the first families of Piquiá de Baixo, a suburb of Açailandia, in the state of Maranhã will be able to settle in a new territory, safe from toxic…
From the diocese of Pando in the Bolivian Amazon region, Monsignor Eugenio Coter explains the horizons that the synodal journey is opening up to the Church. “The synodal path is not a motorway. It is like one of the great rivers of the Amazon that I sail on when I go to visit the communities.…
For thirty years, Yeyo wandered from plantation to plantation in southern Mexico. Undocumented, humiliated, and oppressed, he decides with his brothers to return home. Yeyo grew up looking at the deep scars on his father’s back from carrying bunches of bananas during the hellish tropical days in Chiapas and his mother’s arms scorched from making…
Death, kidnapping, extortion, and intimidation have become a daily reality for many priests and religious, particularly in Nigeria, Mexico and Haiti. Father John Mark Cheitnum was found dead after he was kidnapped with another priest, Donatus Cleopas, on the afternoon of July 15 as they were on their way to celebrate a mass in the…
Designing the ‘Common House’. Overall pastoral care. The Synod: ‘Live the experience of the pilgrims of Emmaus’. We talk about it with Mons. Patrizio Bonilla, Bishop and Apostolic Vicar of the Galapagos. The archipelago of about 50 volcanic islands is located in the Pacific Ocean 1000 km from the west coast of South America. They…
Suriname is a unitary Republic with executive power vested in the President of the Republic, who is elected by the members of parliament for a five-year term; while the Chamber, composed of 51 seats, has legislative power. The 51 members of the assembly are chosen from the ten electoral districts into which the country is…
It is the smallest country in South America with a population of just over 600,000 inhabitants and a population rate that has been steadily decreasing since 1970. About 245,000 people live in Paramaribo, the capital. Located near the mouth of the 480 km long Suriname River that crosses the country from south to east, colonial…
In the Central Latin-American tradition, devotion is strong to Our Lady with the child Jesus in her arms. The people have made it their duty in their daily life. The image of Our Lady among the people leads us to contemplate how motherhood is lived-in working-class quarters inhabited by people with indigenous cultures or other…
The period of Dutch colonization made the country one of the main crossroads of both the slave trade and the migration of labour to be employed in plantations and mines, leaving as a legacy the multi-ethnicity dictated by the mixing of cultures, languages, and religions. This, however, has had little effect on the divisions between…
Suriname is a country rich in natural resources in terms of biodiversity, fresh water, raw materials, and cultural heritage. The mining sector is linked to the extraction of bauxite, gold (which is extracted from the alluvial deposits of Saramacca and Lawa), silver, nickel, and crude oil (which is extracted from an offshore field off the…
The Colombian environmental and peace activist has played a key role in establishing a protected area in the Amazon, providing small farmers with access to…
Young people will play an important role at COP30 in Belém, Brazil. This will give young people a greater voice in climate action and policy-making at…