Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Pope Francis attends the first session of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon at the Vatican Oct. 7, 2019. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)Pope Francis attends the first session of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon at the Vatican Oct. 7, 2019. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Indigenous people are hoping that the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon will awaken the world's conscience to their plight and not simply offer them lip service, an indigenous participant told Pope Francis.

During a Vatican news briefing, Yesica Patiachi Tayori, a member of the indigenous pastoral office for the Apostolic Vicariate of Puerto Maldonado, Peru, told journalists that her address at the synod hall Oct. 15 centered on the discrimination against indigenous people as well as the indifference they face from those who claim to fight climate change.

"We told the Holy Father that we are afraid because we are forgetting our language; it is being extinguished because we are asphyxiated by the models of development that come from outside that do not respect life," she said Oct. 16.

A member of the Harakbut indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazonian region, Patiachi said indigenous people "have been, are and will continue to be the guardians of the forest." However, there are many who continue to discriminate against them because they "want to see indigenous people on display and not as a living culture."

In her speech, Patiachi said she "asked the pope to bring a message to the national and international organizations ... so that they will not extinguish us a people, that our customs, our language are respected, and (they) let us live in self-determination."

While social networks have offered a platform for many people who raise the alarm on the dangers of climate change, she continued, many of these "new defenders" rarely speak of "the reality of indigenous people" who have borne the brunt of environmental crimes.

"Our grandmothers, our mothers had already warned us about this climate chaos a long time ago," Patiachi said. "The problem was that they were invisible. Why? Because not one journalist reported on their protests. On the contrary, they were persecuted and murdered."

Patiachi said she expressed her and her people's hope that the Synod of Bishops will awaken "the human conscience" and call attention to the threats against their territory, health and education because "currently, we have no court to denounce these crimes."

"Where is the U.N.? Where are the OAS (Organization of American States) and other international organizations?" she asked. "The abuses, murders, so many victims of human trafficking, sexual abuse, the mistreatment of women; where do we go to report these crimes?"

She also expressed her hope that the synod does not "end up becoming a mercantilist discussion or just one of many political discourses in the world."

"We want this to be the result of the human conscience so that we can start using renewable resources without placing any risks against humanity and the common home," Patiachi said.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
Craig B. Mckee
5 years 6 months ago

'If women can't claim as much as a pronoun in this church, you'll never claim the diaconate.'
—Sr. Joan Chittister
"We ought to stop calling the church 'the church' unless we understand what it means," Chittister said. She said "the church," which means "an assembly of all worshipers," denies full membership to women because of "bad theology built on bad biology."

The latest from america

Pope Francis centered the poor and elevated joy in the mission of the church. These characteristics help us understand what a field hospital church is about. As a field hospital, the church’s structures and actions should always be in service of its mission.
Erin BrighamApril 24, 2025
A Homily for the Second Sunday of Easter, Sunday of Divine Mercy, by Terrance Klein
Terrance KleinApril 23, 2025
On this week’s episode of “Jesuitical,” Ashley and Zac are joined by magazine’s editor in chief, Sam Sawyer, S.J., and America editor at large James Martin, S.J., to discuss “the people’s pope.”
JesuiticalApril 23, 2025
My wife and I lost a friend on earth, Gerard O’Connell writes, but we now have a friend in heaven.
Gerard O’ConnellApril 23, 2025