Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service - “We face the concerning phenomenon of the penetration of certain ideologies which claim to defend the indigenous peoples, but in fact manipulate them" Archbishop Iván Antonio Marín López, Archbishop of Popayán in Colombia said with concern in an interview with Fides while in Rome with other Bishops for the ad limina visit.
To understand the phenomenon we must go back to first evangelisation which started here in 1492, with the arrival of Spanish missionaries, mainly Jesuits. The missionaries sought to protect and defend these indigenous peoples and help their development and the work of the first Bishops was very important in this sense Archbishop Marín López told Fides. "The Catholic Church has always worked for the cultural development and progress of the indigenous peoples through a process which helped them realise their dignity, ensure their human promotion as children of God and members of the Church. These people grew in cultural, social and political organisation". Today they have political weight and are represented in national Parliament, at the level of regions and city and town municipal councils. They have assumed importance in the field of culture, with authors and artists and vocations to the priesthood have not been lacking. Colombia’s 1991 Constitution gave them greater attention and protection.
Today purely indigenous peoples represent only 4% of the country’s population. In Popayán, diocese, Archbishop Iván Antonio Marín López told Fides, there are two communities: the Paese, native inhabitants of the area, today about 120/130,000 and the Guambianos descendants of the Quechua and the Inca about 30,000. Both communities have their own language, traditional dress and customs. They are well organised in town and village councils with a governor and a group of counsellors, elected for a term of one year. These people are also perfectly integrated and accepted in society.
"However we are very concerned about these new ideologies - the Archbishop told Fides. -. They claim that they want to help these people return to their ancestral customs, to give up their faith in Christ in which they are deeply rooted, on the grounds that this faith was imposed on them by Spanish colonisers who robbed them of their freedom. However this shows their ignorance of history and cultural development of these peoples because evangelisation is what helped development in all areas. Rather than make them slaves, the faith set them free, free of the fears, taboo and magic practices which they used to attribute to natural phenomena offering them the true freedom as children of God."
The programme is promoted by university anthropologists from Germany, France, Holland and Sweden with the support of many NGOs and sponsored by international bodies and it is subtly advancing. “It has grown enormously since, on the occasion of celebrations in 1992 to mark 500 years since the evangelisation of America, these groups started a campaign against the Church and against evangelisation -. The Archbishop told Fides -. By inculcating a slogan: “for 500 years we have been oppressed”, they are trying to make these peoples renounce their Christian faith and life.”
Also Bishop Jorge Leonardo Gómez Serna, Bishop of Magangué, voiced concern to Fides: "These group hold meetings with local chiefs to indoctrinate them and make them believe Christianity is only another form of slavery. They have even opened schools for indigenous peoples only with their own languages, which educates in a closed circle returning to the ancestral customs. Fortunately because they are deeply rooted in the faith many continue to send their children to Catholic schools which they know guarantee all-round education". (RG) (Agenzia Fides 26/6/2004; Righe 45 - Parole 631)
