Eduardo Campos Lima

A reform to Argentina's 2010 glacier protection law has been met with popular opposition, with opponents arguing that the changes loosen government oversight of mining and oil projects, and put water sources at risk.

A video showing a crying elderly man approaching the altar during Mass — prompting the priest to interrupt the consecration and give him a hug — went viral in Brazil and moved millions of people.

Despite uncertainty, the church will keep trying to offer hope, Archbishop Jesús González de Zárate told NCR.

Over 5,000 indigenous people attended the UN's climate summit in the Amazon to call for land rights over their ancestral territories, but it's unclear to what degree negotiations took them into account.

Nearly 200 countries at the U.N. climate talks did little to counteract papal criticism that "failing" political will is undermining global efforts against global warming, say Catholic officials who attended the COP30 summit.

"COP30 is a signal of hope, but we cannot fool ourselves. The Amazon, like Pope Francis said in Puerto Maldonado [in 2018], is facing its most serious threat," Archbishop Roque Paloschi of Porto Velho said.

A climate march drew people from all over the world into the streets of Belém, Brazil, at the midpoint of the COP30 U.N. climate change conference. It was the first massive public demonstration at a COP in four years.

The joint appeal calls for an immediate halt on fossil fuel exploration and for the taxation of endeavors already in progress. 

While Brazil hosts the United Nations climate change conference, known as COP30, in Belém, Nov. 10-21, church leaders intend to bring a powerful faith presence there.

In a public letter, the bishops say they "consider this law to be contrary to justice, as it encourages impunity for crimes against humanity, including forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, rape, and torture."

A tourist itinerary connecting dozens of landmarks associated with Pope Leo XIV's decades-long mission in Peru was launched in July by the South American country's government, in a joint effort with the church and the tourism industry to draw national and international visitors.

"It will be very disappointing if the Brazilian episcopate fails to express its opinion against such an unprecedented attack," one activist said. "But the laypeople of the social pastoral ministries won't fail and will keep struggling."

"What we do know," said Brazilian-born theologian Leonardo Boff, "is that he's a North American with a Latin American soul."

Many people who worked side by side with him until he left Buenos Aires and was elected pontiff in 2013 affirm that his major goal was always to increase the Catholic presence among the poor. 

While Brazil's bishops work to spread the message of ecological conversion, traditionalist Catholic groups have called for a boycott of their campaign, saying the bishops want to "substitute the spirit of Lent" with a focus on integral ecology.

U.S. President Donald Trump's new policies concerning unauthorized immigrants and mass deportation operations have caught some Latin American countries off guard, prompting them to improvise ways to deal with the unexpected arrival of high numbers of those being deported.

A group of 100 scientists, environmentalists, social activists and Catholics — including 21 bishops — released a public letter Feb. 18 criticizing the Lula administration's plans for oil exploration near the Amazon River.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund, known as UNICEF, sexual violence against minors grew 1,000% between 2023 and 2024 — "a staggering" number, UNICEF spokesman James Elder said Feb. 7.

Supporters demand justice for Fr. Marcelo Pérez's murder, but also cry for peace in the violence-stricken region — including protection of the common home and of the Indigenous communities.

Four days after 53-year-old Father Enrique Fabián Arcos went missing in Ecuador, the authorities found his body Nov. 3 in a dump about 18 miles north of Ambato, where he lived.