The Labrea Mission (Amazonas, Brazil) represented a complete novelty for the Augustinian Recollect Family. When they arrived in the Amazon 100 years ago, the Recollect missionaries had only been in Brazil for a quarter of a century, in the central and southern parts of the country.
They carried with them a long missionary tradition, especially forged in the Philippines, where they interacted with the indigenous world and the tropical climate, planned cities and built convents, temples, schools, farms, dams and roads.
That experience proved very useful when they arrived in Panama, Venezuela, and Brazil at the beginning of the 20th century. But in the Amazon, the new conditions demanded creative solutions and a good dose of trial and error.
The Prelature of Labrea is immense: some 600 kilometers from east to west and 400 from north to south, an area of 228,476 km². In 1926 it had 35,000 inhabitants (today there are three times as many) and an incalculable number of indigenous people. Labrea, the largest town, had 400 inhabitants (today, 35,000).
The Purus River is the backbone and only route connecting the four municipalities (Pauini, Labrea, Canutama, and Tapaua). One must navigate its winding course for 3,000 km to reach them.
Except in the case of the indigenous people, it was not a land of first evangelization, but two conditions made Labrea a unique place with respect to the previous missions of the Augustinian Recollects: the social reality and the Protestant influence.
The non-indigenous inhabitants of Purus arrived there fleeing the poverty, droughts, and famines of northeastern Brazil. Two large influxes of thousands of young men sought quick riches in rubber, first between 1879 and 1912, during the Industrial Revolution, and then between 1942 and 1945, during World War II.
With rubber, a few became very rich at the expense of a multitude of exploited people controlled through violence. Indigenous people were forcibly removed using genocidal methods. Violence dominated social, labor, and emotional relationships. Men who came from elsewhere took the women, and the caboclos emerged— mixed-race individuals of northeastern white and Amazonian indigenous descent.
The Recollects arrived in Labrea at the height of the local decline. Rubber had lost its value when the British Empire stole seedlings from the Amazon and spread new plantations throughout Southeast Asia, and later, with the industrial production of synthetic rubber. Those caboclos were left to their own in the middle of the rainforest.
When they arrived in 1926, the Recollect missionaries encountered abject poverty: unschooled children, hunger, mass exploitation, and violence. The parishes and the churches themselves were in ruins.
The second determining factor was the neo-Pentecostal sects, which were the majority in Tapaua or on the Passiá valley, with a single common element among them: confrontation with Catholics.
Despite this reality, the greatest challenge for the Recollects was not external, but internal. The lack of missionaries and resources was never fully addressed by the superiors and led to two serious crises (1926-1930 and 1968-1971) that very nearly brought the mission to an end.
Until 1971 there were only between two and six truly active missionaries in that vast Prelature. Labrea was the only Recollect community from 1926 to 1942; that year, a single friar settled in Canutama; in 1949 they arrived in Pauiní and in 1965 in Tapauá.
To reach the faithful, the missionaries invented the “desobrigas” or “disobligation”: the arrival of the priest one day a year allowed people to fulfill their religious obligations: they married, received communion, baptized, and confirmed their children. During months at the rivers, the missionaries set out, mostly alone, to meet their people.
From 1972 onward, the Augustinian Recollects took the management of their mission more seriously, increasing the number of missionaries and resources. Furthermore, the Second Vatican Council and the documents of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) substantially changed the way mission work was carried out.
The missionaries are putting lay people on the front lines of evangelization through the adoption of Basic Ecclesial Communities. Each community (the neighborhood in the city or the riverside or indigenous village) autonomously celebrates its faith, engages in dialogue, creates solidarity networks, and puts pressure on and demands action from politicians.
Lay people manage and coordinate the liturgy, catechesis, and care for children, adolescents, the elderly, mothers and pregnant women, the sick, and indigenous and riverine communities. Unions and associations emerge.
The population distribution is changing. In the 21st century, there are more urban inhabitants in the municipal capitals than rural inhabitants in the small riverside communities, by a ratio of 70/30.
The current face of the Amazonian mission is different from the one the Recollects encountered 100 years ago. It is a feminine face: women are fundamental to ecclesial activity. The faithful are more aware of their rights, denounce injustices, and live more connected lives.
Missionaries are becoming more present in rural communities thanks to better boats, as they have more resources and many local collaborators.
The Amazon is a theological locus for Catholics. With the immense power of its own Synod and the first encyclical on the region, the Church is a key global actor in its defense of Integral Ecology and our Common Home.
The Church is at the forefront of creating conservation areas for river communities and demarcated lands for Indigenous peoples. Once enemies, they now stand together defending the ecological heritage of the Amazon biome against those who destroy it out of greed, driven solely by profit.
For the past 50 years, the Augustinian Recollects have collaborated with other Congregations and Associations. At various times and/or stages, the following have worked or are currently working in the Prelature of Labrea: the Augustinian Recollect Missionaries Sisters, the Marists, the Missionaries of Jesus Crucified, the Oblates of the Assumption, the Marian Missionaries, the Missionary Minor Friars, the Franciscan Sisters of Parish Apostolate, the Epiphany and Mission Rescue lay communities, and the Dioceses of Vitoria (Espírito Santo), Ponta Grossa (Paraná), Crato (Ceará), and Campina Grande (Paraíba).
