Inter-religious relations are a topic of huge importance for twenty-firstcentury Latin America for several reasons. First, Pope Francis, the current head of the Roman Catholic Church, has given inter-religious dialogue a permanent place in his pontifical agenda due to his own previous experience as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. Second, a variety of migratory movements have brought about growing religious diversity, and Catholicism no longer dominates the religious sphere as it once did. Third, metropolitan environments are more fertile soil for inter-religious relations, and Latin America is one of the regions with the highest proportions of urban population on earth.

For many reasons, among them the presence of a large Muslim community and the third-largest Jewish community in the world, Argentina might be the country with the most articulated interfaith relations in the region. The presence of Muslim and Jewish communities throughout the twentieth century constantly increased not only in terms of demography but also in terms of recognition of their religious freedom and institutional representation.

Due to the history of colonisation and the historical prevalence of the Catholic tradition in Latin America, the transformation of Catholic theology since the Second Vatican Council has played an important role in inter-religious relations in these countries. From this perspective, the Vatican II documents Pacem in Terris and Nostra Aetate were important to the development of a new approach to matters of peace and interreligious relations.

The development of a constant conscience and discernment of the cultural environment and its implications for the mission of the Catholic Church in Latin America started with the creation of the Latin American Episcopal Council (CELAM) in 1955. In 1967 the CELAM conference held in Lima posed the challenge of creating three special units, one for ecumenical relations, another for relations with non-believers and a third for interfaith relations. Out of these, only the Department for Ecumenism succeeded, followed in 1973 by the foundation of a programme for relating to non-believers. In 1985, the Department for Ecumenism was enriched by including in its mission relations with non-Christian traditions. It was not until 1992, in Santo Domingo, that the matters of Indigenous cultures, religions and spirituality first appeared in the CELAM documents.