Who is the Catholic Church? Examining the Practices of a Jesuit NGO in the Peruvian Amazon

Conducting research with the Catholic Church poses a methodological challenge in defining the object of study, given its diverse institutional forms. This article explores this issue through ethnographic research with a Jesuit mission in the Peruvian Amazon. Influenced by liberation theology and Catholic teachings on the Incarnation and the inculturation of Christianity in diverse cultures, missionaries were encouraged to “incarnate” themselves in the Indigenous society. Today the Church looks to Amazonian Indigenous peoples for inspiration in shaping ecotheological policies. SAIPE, a Jesuit NGO in the region, draws on theological language, ideas of sustainable development, and Indigenous epistemologies to strengthen Amazonian communities. This article presents the Catholic Church not as a homogeneous religious institution but as a complex assemblage of disparate religious and lay actors, as well as discourses and practices, and reflects on the methodological challenges this presents, thus contributing to the anthropology of Christianity and the anthropology of Catholicism.