Benedito de Queiroz Alcântara is a History professor at the Rede Pública Estadual [State Public Network]. As a member of Repam Brasil’s Rede Eclesial Pan-Amazônica [Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network], he serves as Repam representative in the Diocese of Macapá and as coordinator of the Eixo Justiça Socioambiental [Socio-Environmental Justice Axis] of Repam Brasil. He also coordinates the Projeto Guardiões Ambientais Ribeirinhos [Riverside Environmental Guardians Project], which trains youth from riverside communities located at the mouth of the Amazon between Pará and Amapá. In the Diocese, he additionally serves on the Comissão Justiça e Paz [Justice and Peace Commission] and on the Equipe de Formação Fé e Cidadania [Faith and Citizenship Training Team]. He was part of the Brazilian delegation to the 2023 Encuentro Continental Fraternidad Secular San Carlos de Foucauld América [Continental Meeting of the Secular Fraternity of Saint Charles De Foucauld] in Medellín, Colombia.

Yonar Brenes Masís is an assistant professor at the Ministry of Public Education of Costa Rica and host of the podcast El show de Yonar BM. He was a delegate from the youth Fraternities in Costa Rica to the 2023 Encuentro Continental Fraternidad Secular San Carlos de Foucauld América [Continental Meeting of the Secular Fraternity of Saint Charles De Foucauld] in Medellín, Colombia.

Father Federico Carrasquilla Muñoz is an Antioquian priest born in Itagüí, Colombia and assigned to the Archdiocese of Medellín. In 1958, he went to Rome to study theology at the Gregorian University and was ordained in 1959 in the chapel of St. John Lateran, Italy. He experienced up close the appointment of John XXIII as Pope and the events related to the Second Vatican Council. During his theological studies in Rome, he learned about the spirituality of Brother Charles de Foucauld, who left a deep impression on Fr. Carrasquilla for life. His philosophical work also draws from that of Karl Marx, whose method of analyzing reality Fr. Carrasquilla emulated. His book Escuchemos al corazón: Aportes para una antropología del pobre [Let Us Listen to the Poor: Contributions to an Anthropology of the Poor] (Indo American Press Service, 1997) takes cues from Marx, in addition to his reading of Jesus in the gospels. His other publications include essays in Volver a Jesús de Nazaret [Return to Jesus of Nazareth] (Boletín Horeb, 2011); Los escandalos de pedofilia en iglesia: Una lectura desde la fe [Pedophilia Scandals in the Church: A Reading from Faith] (San Pablo, 2014); and Escuchemos al corazón: Elementos de antropología de la afectividad [Let Us Listen to the Heart: Elements of an Anthropology of Affectivity], with Verónica Reyes Mercado (2022). Upon his return to Medellín in 1962, he began working as rector of Philosophy at the Conciliar Seminary. In 1967, he went to live and work in the parish La Divina Providencia, in the Popular neighborhood of Medellín, where there was a process of “invasion” underway by inhabitants who came from the different towns and regions of Antioquia due to the cycle of violence that the country was experiencing at the time. Alongside the community, he experienced the permanent tension brought on by police, precarious housing, and the subsequent cycles of violence due to the arrival of guerrilla groups such as the ELN and the M-19, and by the emergence of drug trafficking in the 70s and 80s. In 1984, the archbishop of Medellín transferred Fr. Carrasquilla to a parish in the municipality of Bello. He was later part of the Golconda group (“red priests”) and Sacerdotes para América Latina [Priests for Latin America] (SAL). Now octogenarian, he continues to produce scholarship, leading retreats and speaking before groups comprising lay people, educators, intellectuals, and at universities. –Hernán Ramírez

Hernán Darío Ramírez is the Coordinator of the Charles de Foucauld Secular Fraternity of Colombia and one of the main organizers of the Continental Meeting of the San Carlos de Foucauld Secular Fraternity America 2023 in Medellín, Colombia. He has published several writings related to this movement, including the profile “Testimonio de primavera eclesial [Testimony of ecclesial spring]: Federico Carrasquilla Muñoz” (Kairós Educativo) and the foreword to Volver a Jesús de Nazaret [Return to Jesus of Nazareth] (Boletín Horeb, 2011). After earning a degree in mechanical engineering and working in private industry for a few years, he was seduced by Latin American theological thought and made the leap to working with socially conscious efforts from a perspective of faith. He works to support popular organizations–urban and rural–as well as farming and indigenous communities. In the last nine years, he has worked through the Pepe Breu Foundation, an organization that defends the victims of the Colombian internal armed conflict. Foucauldian spirituality has served Ramírez as a source of inspiration and light, as a criterion for making decisions in his life.