Salesians Celebrate 150 Years in Argentina with the Mapuche People

Salesians Gather with the Mapuche People to Celebrate 150 years of Salesian Presence

(ANS - Junin de los Andes, Argentina – November 19, 2025) – In this year of global celebrations for the Salesian Family for the 150th anniversary of the First Missionary Expedition, sent to Argentina, several celebratory activities have been organized there.

In the days just past, some significant events took place near the Salesian house in Junin de los Andes, in which Cardinal Angel Fernandez Artime, SDB, former rector major, took part. The key moments included the Youth of America Retreat and the intercultural celebrations with the Mapuche people in San Ignacio.

The activities began on November 14, when about a hundred young people from different countries of South America gathered to share a few days of retreat together. The proposal included a spiritual journey to the places where Blessed Laura Vicuña, pupil of the Salesian Sisters, lived; a walk along the Via Christi; and a visit to San Ignacio, a locality 40 miles north of Junin, where lives the indigenous Mapuche community from which Blessed Ceferino Namuncurá came, and which houses the kultrum where the remains of the young Salesian student rest.

Then, on Sunday and Monday, November 16-17, there were intercultural celebrations with the Mapuche, in the presence of Cardinal Fernandez Artime, who is now pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life; Bp. Fernando Croxatto of Neuquen; Bp. Esteban Laxague, SDB, of Viedma; and Fr. Darío Perera, SDB, provincial of the South Argentina Province. Members of the Neuquen Diocesan Aboriginal Pastoral Team (EDIPA) and the episcopate’s National Aboriginal Pastoral Team (ENDEPA) also accompanied the events.

In the shrine dedicated to Our Lady of the Snows, on the first of the 2 days, Cardinal Fernandez presided over Sunday Mass, animated by the Mapuche Huayquillan community of Colipilli, in the north of the province of Neuquen.

After the reading of the Gospel of Matthew – read in Spanish and in Mapudungun, like other parts of the Mass that were also expressed in Mapuche language – the cardinal said, “We are gathered before the Lord with gratitude to remember and celebrate an event that marked the spiritual, cultural,and human history of our Patagonia. The encounter, 150 years ago, of the first Salesian missionaries and the first Daughters of Mary Help of Christians with the Mapuche-Tehuelche people. Many of your parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were forerunners of this precious history. It was not simply a crossing of paths, but the beginning of a process of encounter, dialog, mutual learning, and the Gospel in the midst of the realities of this land.”

“Today we can recognize that mission and true encounter which generates life don’t begin by imposing, but by welcoming; they don’t begin by speaking, but by listening; they aren’t based on power, but on closeness,” he added. “To remember doesn’t mean to idealize, nor to erase, nor to ignore. To remember means to look at the truth of history with its lights and shadows, to move forward with humility and fraternity. Today we recognize with sincerity that the encounter between cultures hasn’t always been free of tensions, misunderstandings, perhaps even mistakes. It’s true! But we also recognize that these Salesians and Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, even with their human limitations, have brought respect, education, human advancement, and defense of the dignity of the original peoples. The proclamation of the Gospel and faith in the Lord Jesus was the most precious gift they could leave behind.”

Finally, he spoke words of gratitude: “On behalf of all my Salesian confreres, and with the permission of the bishop and the Church of this land, I wish to thank the Mapuche people and the Tehuelche people who have opened the doors of their culture, their spirituality, their land. They and you have taught the missionaries to walk in these territories, to listen to the wind, to respect the land, to know how to interpret, to value the word, to live in the community.... We all want to walk together as brothers, following Christ Jesus.”

Monday, November 17, began in San Ignacio. The hundred or so young people from all over the continent arrived here, thus concluding their retreat, together with hundreds of pilgrims from different cities in Patagonia and Buenos Aires who had come exclusively for the intercultural celebrations.

Welcomed by the Namuncurá family, all those present made a pilgrimage to the kultrum, escorted by several horsemen, followed by the transport of the remains of Fr. Antonio Mateos, a Spanish Salesian missionary who lived among the Mapuche for more than 40 years and was one of the promoters of the return of Ceferino Namuncurá’s remains to the land of his family. After the appropriate ceremony, his remains were also laid in the kultrum, and there they received the homage of all the pilgrims.

After midday, a procession of the Namuncurá family with some Salesians from Junin de los Andes transported the casket to the chapel of San Ignacio, thus fulfilling the wish expressed in life by Fr. Mateos to remain with the Mapuche forever.

In this way, the Salesians of South Argentina, under the motto “Give Thanks, Rethink, and Relaunch” that has marked this 150th anniversary of the First Salesian Missionary Expedition to Argentina, paid homage to the origins of a history that has been written together since 1880 between Salesians and the original peoples of Argentina.