Pan-Amazon Region

Vatican ‘not precluding’ questions on ordination at Amazon meeting
- Jun 8, 2018
At a press conference on the summit of bishops focusing on the Pan-Amazonian people and region set for October 2019, Vatican officials did not close the door to the possibility of opening up official ministries to women and married men.

By Claire Giangravè
In Peru’s Madre de Dios region, Church helps indigenous peoples survive
- Mar 11, 2018
Madre de Dios, the Kansas-sized region in the Amazon forest on the border with Brazil and Bolivia, has been described as “la periferia de las periferias” (the edge of the edge). Pope Francis’s decision to visit highlighted the plight of indigenous peoples and a valuable rainforest that spans nine countries; both will be discussed at a special Synod of Bishops at the Vatican in October 2019.

By Catholic News Service
Peru’s indigenous await Pope Francis in scorching Amazon
- Jan 19, 2018
After lengthy treks through the muddy Amazon, indigenous men, women and children will greet Pope Francis Friday in a visit to the world’s largest rainforest that native leaders hope will mark a turning point for the increasingly threatened ecosystem.

By Christine Armario and Rodrigo Abd

Priest tends to miners, sex workers deep in Peru’s Amazon
- Jan 18, 2018
More than half of Peru lies within the Amazon biome, which spans nine countries and is home to one-tenth of the world’s species. In recent decades, the Amazon has undergone a dramatic transformation, with dams, expanded ranching and mining decimating nearly one-fifth of the total forest.

By Franklin Briceno

Pope Francis in 2017: Chronicles of a ‘Peace Pope,’ and odds and ends
- Dec 20, 2017
No social issue dominated Pope Francis’s agenda in 2017 like the pursuit of peace, from a campaign against nuclear weapons to engagement in the Korean conflict.

By Inés San Martín
Pope wants church to be voice of poor in Amazon, bishop says
- Dec 13, 2017
Pope Francis’s decision to convene a Synod of Bishops dedicated to the Amazon is a sign of his desire for the choice to be a voice for the voiceless living in the region, a Brazilian archbishop said.

By Junno Arocho Esteves
Latin American leader calls Pope’s Pan-Amazon Synod a ‘kairos’
- Oct 25, 2017
Mauricio López, Executive Secretary of REPAM, the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network, said, “We must understand the synod as a call to conversion, change, which the pope is doing, but also look beyond.” He says, “it is not enough to thank the pope.” Instead he thinks the important thing is that from the fruits of the synod, “comes a deep commitment of fraternity, discernment and ecclesial articulation, involving also people of good will, so that what gives us so much hope today, is sustainable in time and becomes something that can last for a lifetime. If not, the synod will remain as an opportunity, a place for great ideas that never came to fruition.”

By Inés San Martín