Barbara J. Fraser

Chile's bishops called for national dialogue and an end to the violence that has wracked the country for the past month.

Governors from eight Amazonian states in Brazil and Peru meeting at the Vatican agreed that the Amazon is threatened and called for a "green economy" that would allow people to generate income without destroying the forest.

Solutions to environmental problems discussed at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon must involve not just Amazonian nations, but countries in Europe and North America, bishops said.

Proposals for Amazonian development made by well-known observers at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon could conflict with the expectations of indigenous people unless they are included in decision-making, some synod participants said.

Existing formation programs are not preparing priests and other pastoral workers to be leaders in a church with an Amazonian and indigenous face, according to bishops participating in the synod for the Amazon.

Anitalia Pijachi, an indigenous woman from the Amazonian town of Leticia, Colombia, came to the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon bringing a message from the elders of her people to Pope Francis, an elder of the Catholic Church.

Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno met with indigenous leaders and agreed to roll back austerity measures that had sparked 10 days of protests.

Ecuadorian observers at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon are keeping an eye on massive protests that have claimed the lives of five people in their country.

By demanding respect for the cultures of indigenous peoples, Pope Francis was not promoting pantheism, but — tapping into his Jesuit roots — urging respect for a worldview that sees God in all things.

Pope Francis joined Amazonian church workers and indigenous people Oct. 4, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, to plant a tree in the Vatican Gardens.

A series of violent events on the Amazonian border shared by Brazil and Peru has placed isolated indigenous people at risk, church workers say.

Peruvian church leaders called for dialogue and an end to corruption amid a political crisis that erupted Sept. 30, when President Martin Vizcarra dissolved Congress and the legislature then voted to remove him from office.

Wildfires raging in Bolivia and Brazil underscore the urgency of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon that Pope Francis has called for October, said Bishop Eugenio Coter of the apostolic vicariate of Pando in northern Bolivia.

Change is roiling the water around Santarem. The city already has a large port where riverboats call with passengers, and freighters load soy and corn from the country's agricultural heartland.

Mention of the Amazon is likely to conjure images of snaking rivers, seemingly endless forests, indigenous villagers and exotic animals. But poor harvests or a desire for jobs and an education drive people from rural areas to fast-growing cities, which generally are poorly planned and ill-equipped to deal with the influx of newcomers.

Science is showing that hydropower is not as environmentally friendly as once thought, and the struggles of the families uprooted by Belo Monte reveal the dam's dark side.

"Quilombolos," as the residents of quilombos are known, still suffer from the racism and discrimination that made the brutal slave trade possible in the first place.

Jesuit missionaries in Guyana are sponsoring a two-year pilot bilingual education program.

Edwina Tancredo last saw her 17-year-old son more than a year ago, when he and some friends left the village of Hiowa to seek work in a mine.

Borderlands are places where "conflicts and violence are aggravated, where the law is not respected and corruption undermines government control, clearing the way for indiscriminate exploitation by many enterprises," according to the working document for the synod.