While military dictatorship was at its height in Brazil, the Catholic Church’s pastoral care based on assimilation of South American Indians was discontinued and replaced by pastoral care in view of their liberation, engaging the Church in a strenuous battle to mark out Indian lands and to promote self-determination among South American Indians. Mission transformed itself: from mission “without” the other to mission “with” the other. All that required the Brasilian Church a very high price to pay: persecution and martyrdom. Such was the case of Salesian fr. Rodolfo Lunkenbein, a missionary among the bororo.
