Bolivia

As heatwaves become more frequent, droughts last longer and blossoming time changes on trees, stingless bees are having a hard time to adapt to climate change and other human-driven environmental changes. 

Now that Luis Arce's landslide victory in Bolivia's election has been confirmed, the socialist economist — and the Catholic Church — has the mission of reuniting an incredibly polarized society.

Bolivia's bishops want environmental concerns to play a key role when voters go to the polls to elect a new government in October. The Oct. 18 vote has been postponed twice because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Bolivia's bishops issued an urgent appeal for protesters to remove roadblocks, which have caused fears of shortages of medical supplies and oxygen in highland regions of the South American country amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Church leaders sent a strong message of support to an unprecedented virtual assembly of more than 3,000 indigenous leaders, small farmers, environmental campaigners and women from the nine countries of the Amazon region seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Catholic leaders warn that as the coronavirus pandemic spreads into the Amazon basin, the region may face a "humanitarian and environmental tragedy."

Bolivia's bishops have called on electoral officials to "make transparent" the vote-counting process as protesters rioted in the

In a press conference, Cardinals Lorenzo Baldisseri and Claudio Hummes focused on the serious implications of Catholics currently living without frequent access to the sacraments and the call of people in the Amazon that the synod address the issue.