Since November 2019, at the end of the Amazon Synod in its Assembly phase, Card. Claudio Hummes (president of REPAM at the time) asked to give a decisive impulse to the creation of the new Ecclesial-Episcopal organism (today the CEAMA) and to the promotion of the university project for the Amazon.
PUAM was born as a response to the challenge 114 of the Final Document of the Amazon Synod
We propose the establishment of an Amazonian Catholic University based on interdisciplinary research, inculturation and intercultural dialogue (...) and the urgent inequalities and problems present in the region in terms of access to adequate education, especially higher education, which listens to and preserves the diverse cultures and knowledge of vulnerable peoples.
PUAM was born as a response to the challenge 114 of the Final Document of the Amazon Synod
We propose the establishment of an Amazonian Catholic University based on interdisciplinary research, inculturation and intercultural dialogue (...) and the urgent inequalities and problems present in the region in terms of access to adequate education, especially higher education, which listens to and preserves the diverse cultures and knowledge of vulnerable peoples.
During 2020 and part of 2021, under the coordination of Mauricio López (current director of PUAM), a working commission was formed with people specialized in the subject and territorial referents with experience in higher education in the Amazon. After a pause, in March 2022, when Cardinal Hummes concluded his service as president of CEAMA due to his delicate health condition, and following his mandate, Cardinal Pedro Barreto, who was elected president of CEAMA, asked the current Director to resume the process of founding and directing the Amazon University Program, preparing a proposal of identity, conceptual, objectives and structure, as a commission from his role as one of the vice presidents of CEAMA.
Finally, after an initial construction process, in August 2022, with the intense work of the initial PUAM team, representatives of the Amazonian territory, higher education institutions and the Catholic Church, as well as fraternal organizations, gathered at the facilities of the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador (Quito), developed a workshop to contribute to the PUAM proposal and its consolidation based on various territorial and institutional experiences.
The path of the Church in the Amazon
The experience of the disciple and missionary Church in the geographical, ecosystemic, spiritual and socio-cultural Pan-Amazonian territory represents unprecedented ecclesial paths in the commitment to the peripheries. The ecclesial role has been (to say the least and in spite of its many limitations and errors) decisive in many ways for this territory.
The many testimonies of faith and dedication of missionary women and men, religious and lay people give an account of a pastoral experience of inculturation and interculturality that became a reality and have made a difference in the lives of so many indigenous, mestizo and riverine communities in the Amazon. These experiences are a source of hope in the midst of the undesirable realities resulting from the dominating and subjugating model predominant in the world, which is far from the desire of the Gospel for all peoples to have a full and dignified life.
We are at a crucial moment in which it is imperative to encourage a profound reconciliation of the human spirit. We are called to weave "an alliance between the inhabitants of the Earth and the common home, to which we owe care and respect. An alliance that will bring about peace, justice and acceptance among all the peoples of the human family, as well as dialogue among religions.
Pope Francis message for the launch of the Global Education Pact (2019).
Although the ecclesial presence has been significant in many cases, it has also been an absolutely fragmented presence in this immense territory. Today the challenge is so complex and so urgent, due to the innumerable threats against the life of the peoples and the Amazonian ecosystem, that it is essential to assume a territorial and overall pastoral perspective. If we do not create new articulated paths, we will not have much more to do in the face of the systematic death that weighs on this territory and its communities.
Remaining silent, or simply responding by de-territorialized and superficial means, will be an act of complicity with the many who rob the Amazon and its peoples of their lives, putting at risk the very future of the planet through the interconnection of this biome and its peoples with the global equilibrium.
In this context, after several decades of multiple attempts, experiences, and territorial meetings of exchange of ecclesial experiences on the Amazon (especially since the experience of the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network - REPAM since its inception in Puyo, Ecuador in 2013 and its formalization in Brasilia, Brazil in 2014), a more organic, territorial and articulating pastoral process of diverse experiences in this socio-cultural space has been detonated.
The Church in Panamazonia, in its diverse expressions, should allow the diverse subjects of the territory to WALK TOGETHER with their own experiences and in unity, without pretending uniformity. To be a SERVANT that promotes and fosters concrete responses and approaches to the peripheries for their promotion. To assume a vocation of LISTENING to the people in the territory and to know their dreams, cries and horizons, leaving the self-reference as a church. Promote a missionary perspective of a church PRESENT IN THE TERRITORY, capable of inculturating and interculturating in reality. And to assume a PROPHETIC ROLE of announcement and denunciation in the face of the signs of death that weigh on the Amazon and its peoples, receiving and sustaining the testimony of women and men martyrs and prophets of the church and the territory.