On Thursday, at the headquarters of the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) in Brasília, the report “Violence Against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil – Data from 2025” was presented. The report was prepared by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), an organization that supports and defends the rights of indigenous peoples in the country.
During the launch, Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, OFM, president of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon (CEAMA) and of CIMI, highlighted the report’s value as a tool for bringing to light a reality that continues to profoundly affect indigenous peoples.
“The document aims to strengthen indigenous memory, denounce injustices, inspire commitment, and rekindle hope that another future is possible,” stated Cardinal Steiner.
For the president of CEAMA, that future must be “founded on justice, dignity, and the protection of our Common Home,” as well as on “unconditional respect for the lives of indigenous peoples.”
“We stand with Indigenous peoples so that they may continue to be peoples”
Cardinal Steiner explained that behind the figures cited in the report lie peoples, cultures, and communities struggling to remain on their territories and preserve their ways of life.
Recalling a conversation he had years ago with Ayres Britto, then president of Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court, Steiner cited the judge’s reflection on the demarcation of the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Territory.
“I discovered that there were peoples. It was peoples who were there. They weren’t just individuals; they were peoples,” he recalled.
For Steiner, this statement expresses one of the fundamental pillars of CIMI’s mission: to support Indigenous peoples so they can continue to be peoples, with their own territories, cultures, languages, and ways of life.
“We stand with indigenous peoples so that they may continue to be peoples, have their own space and territory, cultivate their culture, preserve their language, and maintain that indigenous presence within Brazilian culture,” he stated.
Behind the numbers lie lives and territories
The president of CIMI expressed special gratitude for the work of the missionaries who make the preparation of the report possible. It is they who, from different regions of Brazil, accompany the communities, collect testimonies, and document incidents of violence, murders, land invasions, and human rights violations.
“There are many missionaries who collect this data, report deaths and acts of violence on their territories, and then all of this information is systematically organized,” he explained.
The report presented captures precisely this reality. During 2025, there were 258 murders of Indigenous people, 215 suicides, and 1,024 deaths of Indigenous children under the age of five, in addition to hundreds of incidents of threats, assaults, racism, sexual violence, land invasions, and territorial conflicts.
Beyond the statistics, the document seeks to raise awareness in Brazilian society about the value and dignity of Indigenous peoples.
“The spirit no longer speaks”
In his remarks, Cardinal Steiner also shared an experience that, as he explained, profoundly shaped his perspective on the reality of Indigenous peoples.
During a visit to a small community in Mato Grosso do Sul, he spoke with an elderly tribal chief and asked him why the community’s young people were committing suicide.
The answer was brief and forceful:
“The spirit no longer speaks.”
“I was shocked,” Steiner acknowledged.
For the cardinal, this expression reveals a profound dimension of the crisis facing many indigenous peoples: a rupture that cannot be explained solely by public health statistics or economic conditions, but one that also touches on spirituality, identity, culture, and the relationship with the land.
“I think the report aims to give voice, in some small way, to the spirit that no longer speaks,” he stated.
A Record That Becomes a Commitment
The CIMI report is thus presented not only as a statistical record of violence, but as a tool for remembrance, advocacy, and hope.
Data from 2025 show that the defense of indigenous rights continues to face enormous challenges: land conflicts, land grabs, illegal mining, pressure on territories, difficulties in demarcation processes, and serious deficiencies in access to health care, education, drinking water, and sanitation.
In this context, Cardinal Steiner’s words invite us to view reality from a holistic perspective: defending the lives of Indigenous peoples means defending their territories, their cultures, their languages, their spiritualities, and their right to exist as peoples.
From CEAMA’s perspective, this approach is linked to the call for a Church with an Amazonian face, committed to Indigenous peoples and to the care of our Common Home.
The report presented in Brasília poses an open question for all of society and also for the Church: How can we restore the voice of the spirit where violence, dispossession, and the loss of rights have sought to silence it?
The answer, as Cardinal Steiner reminded us, lies in justice, dignity, memory, the protection of territories, and unconditional respect for the lives of indigenous peoples.