Pope Leo XIV’s upcoming visit to Pucallpa, in the Peruvian Amazon, represents an opportunity to highlight the faith, culture, and hopes of Indigenous peoples, as well as the socio-environmental challenges that threaten their territories. As part of the preparations, the local Church reaffirms its commitment to inculturated evangelization, the defense of our Common Home, and the recognition of the Amazon as a central player in ecclesial life.
The city of Pucallpa, in Peru’s Ucayali region, is preparing to welcome Pope Leo XIV for a gathering that seeks to center the voices of indigenous peoples, their living cultures, and their struggles to defend life and their territories.
The second episode of the documentary series León XIV Returns Home, produced by the Archdiocese of Lima, features testimonies from Church representatives, missionaries, young people, and indigenous communities involved in preparing for this apostolic visit. Their voices express a shared conviction: the meeting with the Holy Father must be, above all, an opportunity to listen to the reality of the Amazon without hiding its wounds or ignoring the richness of its peoples.
For Bishop Augusto Martín Quijano of the Apostolic Vicariate of Pucallpa, the Pope’s presence is a sign of the importance the universal Church attaches to the Amazon—a region historically affected by geographical distances and territorial marginalization.
The visit aims to ensure that the Holy Father’s message reaches the heart of the communities and strengthens the commitment of a Church that is close to the realities of those who inhabit this territory.
Listening, Sowing, and Celebrating: Three Gestures of Encounter with the Amazon
Pastoral preparations in Pucallpa are structured around three actions that express the spiritual and communal meaning of the visit: listening, sowing, and celebrating.
Listening means opening spaces for dialogue with indigenous peoples, acknowledging their voices, their ancestral knowledge, and their proposals for the future of the Amazon. Among the communities invited are representatives of the Shipibo-Konibo, Asháninka, and Kukama peoples.
One of the planned gatherings will take place on the shores of Lake Yarinacocha, where the Holy Father will be able to spend time with representatives of the indigenous communities.
Sowing represents a commitment to life and future generations. As part of the activities, an intergenerational gathering between elders and children is planned, as well as the planting of a shihuahuaco tree—an emblematic species of the Peruvian Amazon that symbolizes memory, resilience, and care for our Common Home.
“Celebrating” will be the communal expression of a Church that gathers around the faith. The program includes a large-scale Eucharistic celebration, with an estimated attendance of around 50,000 faithful, including representatives from Amazonian communities.
These gestures seek to express that the Amazon is not merely a territory in need of protection, but also a space for encounter, spirituality, and learning for the entire Church.
“Not Disguising Our Reality”: Listening to the Cry of the Peoples
Father Lucca Zanta, coordinator of the apostolic journey in Pucallpa, emphasizes that the visit should allow the Holy Father to experience the life of the communities as it truly is, with all their hopes and difficulties.
“We want Leo XIV to encounter the community just as it is—the People of God who live here, who struggle, who pass on the faith, who live by hope, and who also often face the problems we must confront. We must not disguise our reality just because it is the Pope,” he said.
This perspective highlights the challenges affecting the region, including deforestation, drug trafficking, and the lack of protection for communities. In light of these situations, the local Church hopes that the visit will help give greater visibility to the voices of those who defend their territories and promote alternatives for a dignified life.
The Amazon thus appears not only as the setting for an ecclesial event, but as a living reality that challenges the Church and invites it to renew its commitment to the peoples and to nature.
Evangelization That Learns from Amazonian Cultures
The visit also represents an opportunity to deepen the process of inculturation of the faith, recognizing that the proclamation of the Gospel must engage in dialogue with the cultures, languages, knowledge, and spiritualities of the indigenous peoples.
Sister Amparo Zaragozá Castelló, who is in charge of indigenous ministry in Pucallpa and a member of the Missionary Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, shares her decades-long experience of accompanying the Shipibo-Konibo people.
“We went to evangelize, but we have ended up being evangelized by this group,” she affirms, acknowledging the values present in indigenous communities and all that the Church has learned through its encounter with them.
For the missionary, knowing the languages and understanding the cultures is essential so that evangelization does not remain a superficial transmission of content, but rather can take root in the lives of the peoples.
This perspective ties into the call to build a Church with an Amazonian face, capable of recognizing that indigenous communities are not merely recipients of the mission, but protagonists of their own ecclesial journey.
The Missionary Legacy of Luigi Bolla and the Experience of the Achuar People
In this quest, the testimony of Father Luigi Bolla—known as Yankuam Jintia—stands out. He lived for more than four decades among the Achuar people, and his missionary journey serves as a model for inculturated evangelization in the Amazon.
Father Lucca Zanta believes that this experience invites us to reexamine historical models of evangelization that have imposed cultural forms foreign to these peoples.
“This model of inculturation can help our Peruvian Church embark once again on an increasingly missionary path, recognizing that the Church is truly universal and that the Amazon has a very special contribution to make,” he noted.
During the visit, Achuar deacons trained by Luigi Bolla are expected to be present; they will celebrate Mass in their own language and share expressions of their ritual tradition. Their participation is a sign of the richness of the paths of inculturation and of the leading role played by indigenous peoples in the life of the Church.
This experience serves as a reminder that ecclesial universality does not require cultural uniformity, but rather the ability to recognize and welcome the gifts that each people brings to the Christian community.
Amazonian Youth Raise Their Voices in Defense of Our Common Home
Young people will also play an important role in preparing for the meeting with Pope Leo XIV. Young people involved in indigenous ministry express their enthusiasm for the visit, while also calling for attention to the threats affecting their communities.
Alicia Ruiz, a young woman involved in indigenous ministry, expressed her concern about river pollution and deforestation in the Amazon region.
“The Amazonian peoples are the ones who most protect and feel the pain, the cry of our Mother Nature. As young people, we are filled with great enthusiasm and joy because the Holy Father is coming to reaffirm our faith,” she said.
Her testimony reminds us that the socio-environmental crisis is not a distant reality: it directly affects the lives of communities, their food sources, their cultures, and their ability to remain in their territory.
For this reason, the Pope’s presence represents an opportunity for the younger generations to share their concerns and reaffirm their commitment to caring for nature.
Aquiles Vásquez, a representative of the Amazonian Center for Anthropology and Practical Application (CAAAP), also highlighted the importance of the visit in raising awareness of indigenous peoples, their concerns, their ways of life, and the richness of their cultures.
A Church That Listens and Walks with the Peoples
The preparations for the apostolic visit to Pucallpa reflect central challenges for the Amazonian Church: listening to indigenous peoples, strengthening inculturated evangelization, defending territories, and promoting a respectful relationship with nature.
In harmony with the Church’s synodal journey and the guidelines of the apostolic exhortation Querida Amazonía, this experience underscores the importance of recognizing indigenous communities as protagonists of their own history and their own experience of faith.
For CEAMA, the recognition of Amazonian cultures and the defense of the lives of its peoples constitute fundamental dimensions of a Church with its own distinct character, rooted in the territory and committed to caring for our Common Home.
León XIV’s visit to Pucallpa is thus seen as an opportunity to renew the bonds between the universal Church and the Amazon, not from a perspective that imposes answers, but through listening, encounter, and recognition of the contributions of the indigenous peoples.