The indigenous are those people who "do not have access to the media, cannot encourage the use of their language or promote and share their history and culture ... They are subject to exploitation from the dominant society and the secondary role or situation in which they have been relegated to for centuries." This is an x-ray of the current indigenous world, made by prof. José Ros Izquierdo, from Bolivia.
The indigenous peoples, studies report, are still present in all continents and number about 370 million people, over 5% of the world population; nevertheless, they are among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable and represent 15% of the world's poorest.
The Church, Pope Francis, knows first hand the situation of oppression and misery that many indigenous peoples experience. And for this reason, in the preparatory document of the Pan-Amazon Synod of 2019, it is stated: "The Church with an Amazonian face must seek a model of alternative, integral and supportive development based on an ethics attentive to responsibility for an authentic natural and human ecology ... Listening to the indigenous peoples and all the communities living in the Amazon ... is of vital importance for the universal Church."
The project of evangelization ad gentes for Patagonia, among the indigenous peoples, "beyond the intuition of its dreams ... had as its objective to approach them to catechize them and, if possible, found colonies ... Don Bosco tried to establish hospitals, schools, convents and homes for education," wrote María A. Nicoletti.
Educating and evangelizing the indigenous was Don Bosco's concern, and it is the same concern of today's Salesians who work among the indigenous peoples. If we all worked with these ideals, today's commemorative date would be a tribute to the indigenous peoples.
