Asian Indigenous leaders from 13 countries have called for a fraternal dialogue to respect their environmental guardianship, emphasizing that 80% of Earth’s land is under the care of Indigenous communities.

This concept was highlighted in the final statement of the Asian Forum in Nepal, titled “Celebrating Synodality and Indigenous Living Traditions in the Church in Asia.” The Forum included bishops, priests, lay faithful, experts, religious men and women, and young people, all belonging to Indigenous nations or involved with Indigenous rights organizations. Following Pope Francis’s call for a synodal Church, various organizations, institutions, and communities gathered to reflect on many aspects of Church life in different regions of the world, inspired by the Laudato Si’ and Laudato Deum documents of the South American Pontiff. Indigenous peoples, who make up 63% of Christians worldwide and 73% of Asian Christians, are a significant sector of the Catholic Church. “The face of the Church, both in Asia and globally, has yet to become indigenous,” and “it is imperative to recognize that Indigenous Peoples are not on the periphery but at the heart of the Church,” stated the final declaration signed in the traditional mountainous town of Dhulikhel, Nepal, on December 8, 2024.

Participants came from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Timor Leste, and Vietnam, representing all Indigenous peoples. Representatives included members of Asian Indigenous peoples such as the Ahka, Ati, Ayta, Dusun Bundu, Fataluku, Gurung, Hmong, Jarai, Kadazan, Kasi, Kayan, Kharias, Mao, Oraon, Paskari, Pulangiyēn, Santal, Subanen, Tamang, Tangkhul, and Tetum nations. The sessions, held from November 10 to 16, 2024, began with Asian Indigenous blessing ceremonies that highlighted ancestral spiritual values and the connection with Mother Earth and the Grand Spirit. They celebrated religio-cultural wisdom through concepts like mogitatabang (sharing of best seeds among neighbors), lakēta (welcome), tenhag (co-responsibility), and practices like lumaagon (healing of relational ruptures) and Kroh Yee (village closure).

The global climate crisis and the high pressure on native populations worldwide from a global economy of communism, technocracy, and neoliberalism are affecting the entire planet, with the most vulnerable communities struggling to survive. Migration, global warming, violent conflicts, humanitarian crises, and ecosystem destruction demand that humanity look back to those who live in connection with the first essences of life and ancestral wisdom, such as Indigenous peoples. However, Indigenous peoples worldwide still face difficulties: “We call upon all those perpetrators to urgently cease all forms of discrimination against Indigenous communities, the dispossession of land, the forced displacement of populations, the illegal destruction of their ecosystems, exploitation of their biodiversity, violation of human rights, and the methodical processes of acculturation and destruction of Indigenous cultures,” says the statement, while calling for a fraternal dialogue to respect their guardianship.

The Catholic hierarchy paid attention to the Indigenous Forum in Nepal. Cardinal Michael Czerny, Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said: “Recognition and dialogue will be the best way to transform relationships whose history is marked by exclusion and discrimination.” Archbishop Leopoldo Girelli, Apostolic Nuncio to India and Nepal, added: “In an era of fragmentation of societies and even erosion of a sense of community, tribal solidarity has a message for the present-day individualistic society. The community thinks together, searches together, and arrives at conclusions together. Tribal decisions carry a binding force that a dissenting person, even an outsider, cannot make light of.”

The Indigenous Asian Forum on synodality led to the creation of Roots: Catholic Network Among Indigenous Peoples of Asia, to continue the dialogue, reflection, and vision for a more inclusive Church, walking with its own people, including the Indigenous nations of the ancient continent. Inspired by the Amazonian Synod, some members envisioned a Pan-Asian version that would open the doors for pastoral, missions, theology, and spirituality processes from Indigenous perspectives.