Catholic News Service: Why does Catholic Latin America need missionaries?

Half a millennium has passed since missionaries arrived in what is now Latin America, and the region -- which was then inhabited entirely by native peoples, some with complex civilizations -- is now considered the most Catholic in the world.

So why does it need missionaries?

Meeting in Aparecida, Brazil, in 2007, the region's bishops called for the Latin American church to be in a "permanent state of mission."

The bishops realized that "Latin America is a continent of people who are baptized, but who are not really disciples, much less missionaries," Jesuit Father Victor Codina, a theologian who lives in Bolivia, told Catholic News Service. "Many people have little sense of belonging to the church."

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"You have to begin by encouraging people to have a spiritual or religious experience, which in technical terms is called mystagogy -- initiation into the spiritual life," Father Codina said. "Without that, there is no faith, no mission, no Christian life."

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"There must be recognition of the values of the various indigenous people, who are the ones who suffered most from the impact of colonization," said Franciscan Father Roberto Tomicha, who hails from a Chiquitano indigenous community in Bolivia's eastern lowlands.

Today's challenge is to establish a relationship of equals between the church and indigenous peoples, because the first European missionaries "had a paternalistic mentality," Father Tomicha said. "We were considered to be like children who never grew up."

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Besides recognizing the history and cultural identity of the region's indigenous people, responding to the Latin American bishops' exhortation at Aparecida means addressing the rapid social changes that have occurred in the past few decades, said Dominican Sister Gabriela Zengarini, an Argentine theologian.

The shift from a predominantly rural, agrarian society to a primarily urban one has posed challenges to which the church has yet to respond effectively, she said. Those changes are amplified by the impact of economic globalization, with greater access to technology and communication, increased migration, consumerism and a faster pace of life.

But while most Latin American countries have seen significant economic growth in the past decade, largely spurred by high international prices for minerals and petroleum, millions of Latin Americans -- especially indigenous people, women and children -- still live in poverty, and income distribution is among the most unequal in the world.

Island of the Sun, Bolivia