Vatican City, Oct 14, 2019 / 11:00 am
While the Vatican's Synod of Bishop on the Amazon discusses the idea of "inculturating" the Gospel's proclamation with local culture, one bishop shared that the Gospel called one tribe in southern Venezuela to a difficult cultural concept: forgiveness.
"The Gospel helps cultures maintain all the good they have and at the same time brings new things that helps them grow," José Ángel Divassón Cilveti, former head of the apostolic vicariate of Puerto Ayacucho, Venezuela, said at a Vatican press conference Oct. 14.
Cilventi, a Salesian who served as apostolic vicar of Puerto Ayacucho from 1996-2015, explained how his religious order has carried out missionary work among the Yanomami people in the Amazon rainforest along the Venezuelan-Brazilian border for more than 60 years.
He said that in the past there was much violence among the Yanomami people. "In the past, if you killed others, you were killed," he said. "And then started the continuous fights and struggles that made their lives difficult."