Raúl Amaya Rivera
Director of the Secretariat for Laity (2018 – 2023)
He was born in Santiago de Chile in 1967. He belongs to the Province of Santa María de los Andes. He is married to Lourdes Marcet and has two children: Montserrat (22) and Ignacio (20). For two years he studied a Master’s degree in Psycho-spiritual Accompaniment and also a Master’s degree in School Management.
In addition, he completed the Specialisation in Marist Charism and Educational Principles at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PUCPR). He worked as a teacher of Spanish language in the Marist College of Santiago and General Coordinator of Orientation and Psychology. He worked in the College Pastoral and in the Vocational Pastoral. From 2010 he took on the coordination of the Spirituality and Laity Team in Chile, a role he held until 2018. He was a member of the Chilean Mission Council, the Extended Bureau for the Laity and the American Sub-Commission for the Laity.
His tasks in the Chilean Sector have been related to personalised spiritual accompaniment, human and spiritual formation, the animation of days and retreats for educators, the vocational animation of the Marist laity, the charismatic induction of new educators and the formation in the charism of the management teams. Together with his wife, he is part of a community of lay Marists in his Province.
For him, being a Marist is a gift from the Lord “which encourages me to live for others and to walk together with others in following Jesus, like Mary and Champagnat”.