The Diocese of Northern Argentina (Diócesis de Argentina Norte) in the Anglican Church of South America (Iglesia Anglicana de Sudamérica) has gained three indigenous bishops. The Revds Cristiano Rojas, Mateo Alto and Urbano Duarte were ordained & consecrated in the town of El Portillo Argentina. El Portillo is in the Gran Chaco region of Argentina which is also in Bolivia & Paraguay. They will serve as bishops suffragan, assisting the bishop diocesan, the Rt Revd Nicholas Drayson.
The bishop diocesan of the Diocese of Uruguay, the Rt Revd Michael Pollesel, also attending the consecrations, reported that the presence of about 1000, mostly indigenous, Christians demonstrated the importance of Anglican ministry among the indigenous. The bishops represent the Wichi and the Toma peoples, native to the Chaco area. Dio Nothern Agentina has about 140 Anglican churches which are mostly attended by indigenous people. It has the greatest number of churches of any of the seven dioceses in the province.
The Rt Revds Rojas, Alto & Duarte join 4 other indigenous Anglican bishops in The Anglican Church of South America. The Café reported the consecration of three suffragan bishops in the Diocese of Peru last AUG 2015. There is an additional indigenous bishop serving in the Diocese of Chile.
The photo and original story are from the Anglican Communion News Service.
The map is by Flyhighplato at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Dmitri Lytov using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8495306