The objectives of the campaign “Dejate Abrazar” (“Let Yourself Be Embraced”), promoted by the Latin American Jesuits, in view of the Synod of Bishops on Amazonia (October 6-27, 2019), are to “embrace” the planet’s green lung, which risks disappearing, to sensitize “to the main problems of Amazonia, to make known the work of Jesuits in the large region, and to extend the networks of solidarity making it possible to collect funds to support all these activities.
The campaign, which is being carried out in the social and educational realms, was presented recently in Lima, Peru, during a public meeting held at the Antonio Ruiz de Montoya University (UARM), reported L’Osservatore Romano in Italian on July 6-7, 2019. Father Roberto Jaramillo, President of the Provincial Conference of the Jesuits of Latin America (CPAL), Coordinator of the Pan-Amazonian Jesuit Service (SJPAM), attended the meeting.
It is a tireless work of Jesuits that, as can be read in the campaign’s Website (www.dejateabrazar.org) is taking place in different cities of different countries: Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, French Guyana, Peru and Bolivia, in particular in the border areas, such as the Apostolic Vicariate of Leticia, in Colombia, the Apostolic Vicariate of Saint Joseph of the Amazon in Peru, and the Brazilian diocese of Alto Solimoes.
In the realm of education, intervention strategies have been devised to reinforce the feeling of belonging in the territory among the teaching staff, the students and the communities belonging to the Jesuit educational network “Faith and Joy,” continues the same sourced, adding that a program in view of reducing acts of violence, sexual exploitation and the trafficking in human beings was elaborated in collaboration with other institutions.
“The task of the Church in Amazonia is to accompany the people and to stay close to them, to know their problems and ways, always with the desire to learn,” said Monsignor Vizcarra Mori, Apostolic Vicar of Jaen, who attended the presentation meeting.
“We must never lose sight of the main objective: the care of the common home, which is a priority of the Church and of the whole Society of Jesus,” added Father Alfredo Ferro, UARM’s Rector and President of the Network of Jesuit Universities of Latin America, who was also present at the meeting.
The indigenous leader Anitalia Pijachi, collaborator of the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network (REPAM), compared the Amazonian land to a “wounded woman.” An “agonizing woman” that the Jesuits of Latin America try to heal with the remedy of proximity and assistance, promoting the rights of indigenous peoples and responding to their needs in collaboration with the local dioceses as, for example, through REPAM.
