The first 2026 program of The Voice of the Bishops, on Radio María España, had a different feel: the protagonists were also two children. Led by journalist Cristina Abad, Juan and Gerson interviewed Bishop Jesús María López Mauleón, Augustinian Recollect , bishop of the Amazonian prelature of Alto Xingú-Tucumã (Brazil), in the week before Missionary Childhood.
A young Church in an immense territory
The prelature of Alto Xingú-Tucumã was born in 2019, and Bishop López Mauleón was sent as its first pastor. Geography defines the day-to-day: 140,000 square kilometers spread over eight municipalities, an extension that the bishop himself compares to “ten Navarras”. In many sections there is no asphalt; the roads become mud, water and potholes. The distances are not a logistical detail, but a spiritual pedagogy: they teach you to value each celebration, each visit, each sacrament.
“The distances… 140,000 kilometers… that is like ten Navarras.”
The testimony impresses with its concreteness: traveling 200 or 300 kilometers to celebrate a single mass is not exceptional, but part of the pastoral routine. And what in Spain would seem disproportionate, there it is the normal price of accompanying communities that, on occasions, have spent years without the Eucharist.
“The missionary goes to meet”: faith is sustained house to house
One of the most significant moments came when a child asked how people get faith in that region. The bishop responded with realism: it is a land of internal immigration, with people arriving “from all over Brazil” looking for land, cattle or minerals. In that crossroads, many grow cold in the faith, different Christian denominations coexist and secularization dynamics grow.
The pastoral response? It is not a religious marketing strategy, but an evangelical style: visiting houses, listening, accompanying, proposing Christ “as the only savior”, and leaving space for the action of the Holy Spirit. Where the family lives the faith, the faith is transmitted; where it goes out, the Church goes out to seek, without waiting for people to return “by inertia”.
In that same line, the bishop shared a fact that breaks schemes: every year he baptizes more than one hundred adults. In many communities, Christian initiation is lived in another way: baptism, confirmation and Eucharist can be celebrated together when the person comes to faith in adulthood. It is the face of a Church that welcomes real processes, not ideal itineraries.
The vocation: a “yes” that is renewed over time
The children also asked about the vocation. Bishop López Mauleón spoke from his own history: a believing family, childhood experiences, a serious illness at the age of eleven, and the awareness that God calls in different ways. His phrase remained as a synthesis:
“The important thing is not to say no to God”.
That logic of “yes” reached a culminating point when they proposed the episcopate to him. He confessed his fear and his feeling of unworthiness, but he understood that the ministry is not an ascent, but a delivery: “learn to die to oneself to love”. In his simple and profound explanation, being a bishop is less like a distinction and more like a concrete way of configuring oneself with Christ the Good Shepherd.
“Servus verbi tui”: the motto that defines a life
There was an especially beautiful moment when another child asked about the episcopal motto. Bishop López Mauleón responded with enthusiasm: “Servus verbi tui”, an expression taken from the Confessions of Saint Augustine, which he translated as “Servant of your word”. It was not an erudite detail: it was a declaration of spiritual identity.
That motto connects directly with the missionary key of the interview: announcing Christ is not mainly talking a lot, but belonging to the Word, letting oneself be guided by it and serving it with life. From there his insistence is understood: the mission is not reduced to “doing things”, but to being witnesses.
Missionary Childhood: small gestures, universal impact
Within the framework of Missionary Childhood (January 18), the interview took on a pedagogical and hopeful tone. The children asked how to collaborate, also economically. The bishop explained clearly that sustaining the mission has real costs: fuel, travel, training of seminarians, construction of basic pastoral structures. But he immediately pointed out the essential: the deepest need is spiritual.
His call was direct: the greatest gift is not an object, nor a comfortable life plan; it is Christ. That is why he invited the children to understand that they can already be missionaries: praying, sharing, taking an interest in other children in the world, and also living in their environment a faith that is noticeable. “Announce Christ where you can” begins at home, in the parish, in the school, in the way of treating others.
And he left a very complete ecclesial perspective: by baptism, we are all missionaries. It is not necessary to be a priest to evangelize; also the lay person —in his profession, in his family, in his community— can bring Christ “with works and sometimes more with silence than with words”.
A final request: prayer for vocations and for perseverance
In conclusion, Bishop López Mauleón asked for something very specific: prayer for the priests and missionaries who can sustain the prelature. In huge territories and with few ministers, each agreement that ends, each replacement that does not arrive, leaves communities without a pastor. His plea was not dramatic, but filial: “pray… so that they have compassion on us.”
The mission, in the end, is sustained like this: with Christ at the center, with Mary as a constant companion on the road, and with a people of God who do not look at the Amazon as a “far away”, but as part of the same Church.
Missionary Childhood returns us to a truth that this interview made visible: God continues calling and sending, and many times he does so through simple questions, like those of a child. Today, the prelature of Alto Xingú-Tucumã needs prayer, ecclesial friendship, and available hearts. And we, here, can start with the closest thing: living the Gospel with coherence and announcing Christ where we can.
