In a tweet, Pope Francis also spoke about the harmony of indigenous peoples with nature, quoting a line from one of his speeches from his trip to Canada.

From the press room

This Tuesday 9, International Day of Indigenous Peoples, Pope Francis recalled the date, emphasizing the sense of community and harmony with the typical nature of these populations.

“How precious is this true sense of family and community among #Indigenous people! And how important it is to cultivate the bond between young and old, and to maintain a healthy and harmonious relationship with all of creation!

The message is part of a speech delivered in Quebec, at the end of the trip to Canada, in which the pope recalled the feast of Saint Anne, lived a few days earlier.

During this apostolic visit to Canada in July, Pope Francis sided with indigenous peoples. He went to the country to be with them and, even more, to ask their forgiveness for this trip which he considered a “penitential pilgrimage”.

“I am here because the first step in this penitential pilgrimage among you is to renew my request for forgiveness and to say with all my heart that I deeply regret it: I ask forgiveness for the ways in which many Christians, unfortunately, have supported the colonization mentality of the powers that oppressed the indigenous peoples.

Marked by so many traditions and cultures of their own, these peoples have suffered great reduction throughout history and are struggling to preserve their traditions and languages ​​in the face of the challenges of the present times. Challenges that do not go unnoticed by the Catholic Church and the Holy Father, who has shown concern and zeal for these populations.

Querida Amazonia: struggle for the dignity of Amazonian peoples

The Synod for the Amazon, held in October 2019, brought indigenous peoples into the spotlight of Church pastors. Its fruit was the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation “Querida Amazonia”, launched by the Pope in February 2020.

In the document, Francis took an ecological and social approach, emphasizing that “being sensitive to the cries of the earth means at the same time being attentive to the cries of the poorest and most needy.”

He underlined the attentive gaze of the Church on this region. “The Church’s attention to the problems of this territory obliges us to return briefly to some issues that we must not forget and which can serve as an inspiration to other regions of the earth to face their own challenges” . (No. 5).

The struggle for the rights and dignity of marginalized and oppressed Amazonian peoples is one of Francis’ “dreams” for the Amazon, highlighted in the exhortation.

REPAM and the peoples of the Amazon

One of the Secretaries of the Synod for the Amazon, currently Vice President of the Pan-Amazon Ecclesial Network (REPAM), Bishop David Martínez de Aguirre Guinea, reflected on the region and the work of the Church. In an interview with Vatican News, the bishop of Puerto Maldonado, in the Peruvian Amazon, talks about the role of this ecclesial organization with indigenous peoples, based on the objectives defined during the Synod for the Amazon.

“We talk about what REPAM means for the indigenous peoples, what the Church means, the Amazon, for me it’s the same thing. And what I would say is that for the indigenous peoples, the Church is an opportunity, a great ally that they have, in order to be able to save their culture, to be able to sit at the table with those who are developing the politicians, in order to be able to find a speaker who will have their claims and situations recognized in the world”.

For the bishop, the visit of Pope Francis to Canada was a great loudspeaker that shouted to the world that indigenous peoples exist, that they have a way of life, that they demand to take care of the Earth, out of respect for their cultures. The Church is a great ally of indigenous peoples, because of its program in international politics.