For three days, from August 29 to 31, members of various institutions, congregations, and communities gathered in Brazil to celebrate and reflect on the 25th anniversary of the Amazonian Itinerant Team, an inter-institutional and inter-congregational initiative born out of a commitment to accompany the peoples and communities of the Amazon, especially the most vulnerable and isolated.
In a message addressed to the participants of the 25th Interinstitutional Meeting of the Amazon Itinerant Team, Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, highlighted this anniversary as a “reason for thanksgiving,” but also as an opportunity to pause, look back on the journey taken, and discern the challenges posed by the present.
The meeting, held at the Integral Escola Agrícola Rainha dos Apóstolos in Brazil, had as its theme: “Itinerant Team: Our Life in Mission Is Care”, and as its motto: “Weaving Together Charisms and Resources in Service to the Kingdom.”
For Cardinal Czerny, these 25 years should not be merely a celebration. Like any Christian anniversary, he affirmed, it must also become a time for examination of conscience.
A Network of Charisms at the Service of the People
The prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development emphasized that the Amazon Itinerant Team is called to continue being a network of charisms, institutions, people, peoples, and communities.
A network capable of working in a coordinated manner without losing the richness of its diversity and of walking alongside the Church, while also acknowledging its strengths and weaknesses.
Over the years, the Itinerant Team has traveled through Amazonian territories, accompanying communities and learning that evangelization is not merely about delivering a message or a solution.
Evangelizing also involves listening, learning, accompanying, and allowing oneself to be transformed.
In this regard, Cardinal Czerny invited everyone to engage in an honest review of the path taken and to ask themselves whether, at times, the mission has been marked by self-referentiality, division, or excessive activism.
The challenge, he noted, is to continually discern whether structures and institutions are truly at the service of the mission or whether, on the contrary, they might end up hindering it.
An Amazon That Remains Wounded
Looking at the current reality, Cardinal Czerny warned that “the Amazon remains wounded, even more so than ever.”
The Amazonian peoples continue to face threats, abuses, exploitation, and new forms of violence that affect their territories, cultures, and ways of life.
In light of this reality, he recalled the calls of Pope Leo XIV—in continuity with the path championed by Pope Francis—in favor of unity, peace, the care of creation, and the defense of life.
The prefect also referred to Pope Leo XIV’s message addressed to the 6th Assembly of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA), held in 2026.
On that occasion, the Holy Father acknowledged that the Church’s pastoral ministry in the Amazon is experiencing a privileged time of listening to the Holy Spirit and encouraged the pursuit and consolidation of the Synodal Pastoral Horizons as a tool to guide the mission and continue the implementation of the Synod for the Amazon.
The Amazonian Church is thus called to be a sign of unity in diversity and a safe haven that generates and protects life.
What does it mean to have an “Amazonian face”?
One of the most significant calls in Cardinal Czerny’s message related to the identity and mission of the Church in the Amazon.
Reflecting on the path the Itinerant Team must continue to follow, he posed fundamental questions: What should be continued? What needs to be left behind? What new responses does the Holy Spirit call for?
In this process of discernment, he recalled that the Church’s mission is deeply linked to the concrete wounds of these territories.
The Church is called to exercise its prophetic dimension: to proclaim the Gospel, to accompany those who suffer, to care for creation, and to respect life in all its forms, especially human life.
In this context, Cardinal Czerny affirmed that the call for a Church with an “Amazonian face” cannot be reduced to a mere institutional expression.
Inculturation, he noted, is a complex but necessary journey.
This involves asking what the Church learns from the peoples with whom she walks and what real place their knowledge, voices, spiritualities, and decisions occupy within ecclesial life.
The big question, he noted, is how to ensure that the Amazon is not merely the territory where the mission takes place, but also the place from which God continues to evangelize and transform those who come to it.
A Church That Listens and Allows Itself to Be Transformed
The journey of the Amazon has shown the Church the importance of a mission based on listening and encounter.
Indigenous peoples, riverine, rural, and urban communities, as well as the diverse groups inhabiting the Amazon, are not merely recipients of evangelization.
They are also protagonists in the life and mission of the Church.
Their cultures, spiritualities, knowledge, and experiences are part of the richness that challenges and transforms the Church’s journey.
This perspective is deeply in harmony with the synodal process experienced in the Amazon since the creation of REPAM, the celebration of the Synod for the Amazon, the publication of the apostolic exhortation *Querida Amazonia*, and the creation of CEAMA.
The goal is to continue moving toward a Church that listens, learns, discerns, and walks alongside the peoples.
Responding with Generosity and Courage
Cardinal Czerny recalled that Pope Leo XIV has emphasized that the love of Christ, contemplated in prayer, impels us to respond with generosity and courage to the challenges of the present.
This response cannot remain detached from the concrete wounds of the Amazon.
The care of life, the defense of peoples, the protection of territories, and the care of our Common Home are an inseparable part of an incarnate mission.
The Church is called to accompany, but also to allow itself to be accompanied; to proclaim, but also to listen; to serve, but also to learn from those with whom it shares the journey.
Memory, Conversion, and Hope
In concluding his message, the prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development recalled the words of Pope Leo XIV on the responsibility to continue a mission that has been sown by those who preceded us.
“We are called to sow in a furrow that has been watered even with the blood of so many men and women who have gone before us.”
This remembrance invites us to recognize that no generation begins history from scratch.
We have inherited a path that others have traveled before us, and, in turn, we will pass on a mission that will continue after we are gone.
For this reason, Cardinal Czerny expressed his hope that the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Amazon Itinerant Team would be much more than a commemoration.
May it be a time of celebration and conversion; of remembrance and discernment; of gratitude and examination of conscience.
From the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA), we join in this thanksgiving for the 25th anniversary of the Amazon Itinerant Team and acknowledge the valuable journey undertaken by so many people, communities, congregations, and institutions that have placed their charisms and resources at the service of the Amazonian peoples.
May this anniversary renew our hope and commitment to continue walking together, listening to the cry of the peoples and the earth, and building a Church that is truly synodal, missionary, and inculturated.
A Church that not only has an Amazonian face, but also allows itself to be challenged, evangelized, and transformed by the life, wisdom, and hope that spring from the Amazon.