The author of these lines wishes, first of all, to ask your permission to study the theme presented in this program a trifle more extensively. That is to say, I will not limit myself in a spirit, perhaps, that is too narrow, to study only the evangelization of Brazil and Spanish America, but I will take a wider perspective of ecclesiastical or ecclesial matters, since the missions, as the great Belgian teacher Pierre Charles, S. J. taught me, do not represent anything more than the normal and natural growth of the Church. My comparison therefore will refer to the history of the Church in both dominions. However, I must amplify the theme in another way.