Religious sisters living mission and faith in highlands of Argentina

By Sr. Leontina Elisa Melano, MD

Existential peripheries and geographical peripheries are different: migrants, elderly people, villages built on top of landfills or in the desert areas of the highlands.

For thousands of years, the Colla people have been living in the highlands of Argentina’s Jujuy Province, (puna in Quechua), some 3,500 to 5,800 metres above sea level.

The region is marked by a harsh landscape: large plains surrounded by hills with scarce vegetation, where winter temperatures range between -28°C and +20°C, and where there are strong winds, snow in the summer, and long distances between villages.

Life unfolds in harmony with the geography. The locals recognize, appreciate, and pass this message on.

Village of Lagunillas del Farallón, located almost 4,200 metres above sea level, on the border with Chile and Bolivia. Photo: L. Melano   (©L. Melano) {"@context": "http://schema.org","@type": "ImageObject","contentUrl": "https://www.vaticannews.va/content/dam/vaticannews/multimedia/2026/maggio/04/PS179-Foto-1.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.thumbnail.cropped.750.422.jpeg","creditText": "Vatican News","height": "750","width": "422"}

Forty-eight-year-old Sergio from Lagunillas del Farallón, an animator of the local Catholic community, says, “My wish is to always live here, to raise livestock and work in the fields, where nothing has a price, unlike in cities where everything is about money. I have instilled these values in my daughters: how to live in the country, how to cook… they have lived this. I taught them this. There are also difficulties involved with living here, such as the cold, transportation, including of animals, the walking.”

Recognition of the pre-existence of the original peoples and of their rights in the National Constitution was a slow process, which ended in 1994. The same recognition was a slow process for the original peoples.

To identify with their Andean identity, culture, spirituality and costumes was not easy because, on several occasions, this acknowledgment had resulted in discrimination.

Visit to families. Photo: María Elena Galeano   (© María Elena Galeano) {"@context": "http://schema.org","@type": "ImageObject","contentUrl": "https://www.vaticannews.va/content/dam/vaticannews/multimedia/2026/maggio/04/PS179-Foto-3.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.thumbnail.cropped.750.422.jpeg","creditText": "Vatican News","height": "750","width": "422"}

At the same time, life is appreciated and lived in full: “To be from the territory, with our own way of living and being on this earth means being part of the Colla people. I am truly a Colla”, says Delma joyfully. She is from the village of Potrero de la Puna.

“The countryside is life, the livestock an extra family, because it is not easy to live alone,” she says. “I am very happy that I was able to recognize the value of the place in which I was born among the Colla people, including the decision to live according to the ancestral values that were passed on to me, which has its difficulties.”

A religious community of Diocesan Missionary Sisters has been living in these villages since 2012. The dream of being a Church that always goes forth, stay beside the people was the catalyst for opening a new mission in the Prelature of Humahuaca.

The Sisters participate in a procession carrying the image of Our Lady of the Rosary through a village. Photo: Miriam Pinatti, MD   (©Miriam Pinatti) {"@context": "http://schema.org","@type": "ImageObject","contentUrl": "https://www.vaticannews.va/content/dam/vaticannews/multimedia/2026/maggio/04/PS179-Foto-4.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.thumbnail.cropped.750.422.jpeg","creditText": "Vatican News","height": "750","width": "422"}

There were great challenges from the very start. “Within the same country, we found a culture and a way of seeing the world, life and time that was completely different. It takes years to understand,” says Sr. Andrea Landetcheverry, Superior General of the Congregation at the time of its foundation, who has been a member of the community since 2024.

Over the years, the Sisters, along with lay-members of the community and bishops, went in search of new ways of being present on the territory, in constant listening to reality and to God’s plan for the Prelature: to be a more indigenous church with distinct characteristics.

Today, the Diocesan Missionary Sisters are responsible for the pastoral care of two rural parishes, made of 50 villages, which do not have a priest.

Sr. Andrea says that the “challenge is to continue to listen and to try to provide answers to today’s needs, the current mission is our feminine contribution—our way of being present, of being a Church, of listening, of making community and being close companions.”

In his first Apostolic Exhortation, Dilexei te, Pope Leo XIV states: “Growing up in precarious circumstances, learning to survive in the most adverse conditions, trusting in God with the assurance that no one else takes them seriously, and helping one another in the darkest moments, the poor have learned many things that they keep hidden in their hearts”.

The Missionaries Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church, like those from many other religious Congregations, bear witness to this mission of a synodal Church.

The majority of houses in the countryside have common spaces where the community gathers to celebrate the feast of their village’s patron saint. Photo: Miriam Pinatti, MD   (© Miriam Pinatti) {"@context": "http://schema.org","@type": "ImageObject","contentUrl": "https://www.vaticannews.va/content/dam/vaticannews/multimedia/2026/maggio/04/PS179-Foto-5.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.thumbnail.cropped.750.422.jpeg","creditText": "Vatican News","height": "750","width": "422"}