Deep within the Bolivian Amazon, many Catholic communities are separated by vast distances and challenging travel conditions, including rivers that can only be crossed by boat and roads that become impassable during the rainy season. These geographic realities mean that regular access to priests, sacraments, and organized parish life is far from guaranteed for many residents.
Maryknoll serves these communities directly through the parish ministry in Santísima Trinidad, bringing sacraments, faith formation, pastoral care, and community support to people who would otherwise have limited access to the institutional Church. Given the difficulty of travel, missionaries serving this parish often plan extended visits to outlying communities to make the most of each journey.
Serving remote Amazonian communities embodies the Catholic Social Teaching principle of Care for God’s Creation, recognizing that the wellbeing of these families is inseparable from the health of the rainforest surrounding them. This ministry also reflects Maryknoll’s founding charism of going to the peripheries, sustaining a committed presence in places that geography alone renders difficult for the institutional Church to reach on any regular basis.
Gifts to this project support pastoral outreach, sacramental ministry, and sustainable development efforts that keep remote Amazonian communities connected to their faith, to the Church, and to one another.
