Joshua J. McElwee

About two-thirds of the prelates attending the Vatican's Synod of Bishops for the Amazon are in favor of ordaining married men to address a severe lack of Catholic ministers across the nine-nation region, one of the bishops taking part in the three-week gathering estimated.

Openness to new ways of thinking emerged as the primary theme of the Vatican's Synod of Bishops for the Amazon region on its first day of business, with Pope Francis and the cardinals leading the three-week event telling the participating prelates not to be resistant to new ideas.

Opening a monthlong gathering of Catholic bishops expected to consider controversial issues such as the ordaining of married priests on a regional basis, Pope Francis Oct. 6 warned the 185 prelates taking part against being "smothered by the ashes of fear and concern" in defense of the church's status quo.

Pope Francis Oct. 5 exhorted the world's Catholic cardinals to tend especially for those in need and to practice kindness with those in their care, lamenting what he called the "disloyal actions" of some clerics who only criticize their coworkers.

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.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized a number of global governments for persecuting religious minorities Oct. 2, speaking at a Vatican event as he struggles to deal with the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump.

The head of the Vatican's financial watchdog authority and four staffers of the Secretariat of State office have been suspended from work and prohibited from re-entering Vatican territory as a precaution on suspicion of financial impropriety.

Vatican City: The Vatican press office, which announced the raid in a two-sentence note, did not give many details about its scope or the matter being investigated.

Vatican City: Pope Francis met Sept. 30 with Jesuit Fr. James Martin, an editor at America magazine who has become known for his ministry to LGBT Catholics in the U.S. and his support of advocacy groups such as New Ways Ministry.

Gerard Mannion, who had been a senior research fellow at Georgetown University's Berkley Center since 2014, died Sept. 21 after apparently collapsing during a morning jog. He was 48.

In a series of NCR interviews, those involved with preparing the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon struck back at the unprecedented level of criticism the gathering has already received.

The Vatican officially released Sept. 21 the full list of participants, auditors and collaborators for October's hotly anticipated global meeting of Catholic bishops from the Amazon region.

Archbishop Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo said he understands the pope's choice of him as "recognition of the Catholic Church in Indonesia, which in my opinion is very much alive and remarkably dynamic."

Vatican prosecutors have requested the indictment of an Italian priest on charges of sexual abuse that occurred at least seven years ago at a minor seminary located within the Vatican walls.

Pope Francis warned Sept. 10 that ideology is "infiltrating" the religious teaching of some quarters of the U.S. Catholic Church, and said that in past centuries such infiltrations have led to schisms.

Pope Francis said Sept. 10 that the United States and the United Kingdom should respect a United Nations resolution calling on them to cede control of an Indian Ocean archipelago that includes the U.S. air base of Diego Garcia.

In an eight-hour visit, Pope Francis pointed to economic growth that he said "does not always profit everyone" and "feels the need to sacrifice human lives on the altar of speculation and profit alone."

Francis in Africa 2019: Concluding a two-day visit to this island nation, where 75% of the population of 23.6 million lives on less that $1.90 a day, the pontiff urged workers not to see their poverty as inescapable but to support each other in solidarity.

In his first remarks during a three-day visit to the country, which is the 9th poorest nation in the world and where some 90 percent of the native animals and plants exist nowhere else on Earth, the pontiff said its continued loss of biodiversity would threaten the entire planet.

Pope Francis lamented the high rate of poverty in Mozambique Sept. 6, suggesting that government officials here had become corrupted in the process of securing needed foreign assistance.