Amazon

On Jan. 19, the Seattle-based online retail giant announced it would end AmazonSmile, through which participating charities received 0.5% of supporters’ qualifying purchases.

Cardinal Barreto, 76, takes the helm at a critical time for REPAM as it looks for ways to respond to increased pressures on Amazon communities while working through internal organizational changes.

In 1956, Queen Elizabeth’s husband, Prince Philip, established a program designed, in part, to expose young city dwellers to the glories of the wilderness which provides the premise for the wretched British comedy “Get Duked!” (Amazon).

To modify an old political catchphrase, “It’s about the souls, stupid.” The souls of the Amazonians, many of them forced from their land, exploited and vulnerable. The soul of Amazonia itself, being stripped by fire and dam and chainsaw. Even the souls of those who would exploit and burn and lay waste, and the souls of those of us who turn our backs on the plight of the vulnerable.

In his apostolic exhortation “Querida Amazonia” (Beloved Amazonia), Pope Francis made no mention of the idea of ordaining married men to the priesthood so that far-flung Catholic communities would have regular access to the Eucharist.

More than a half century after a group of bishops at the Second Vatican Council made a solemn pledge to live a simple lifestyle close to their people, a group of participants from the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon signed a new pact in the Catacombs of Domitilla.

As tropical forests fall victim to loggers, miners and ranchers, the Catholic Church must take sides to defend the Amazon region and its people, said a bishop whose Bolivian diocese has been ravaged by fire this year.

Decisions made by the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon will ripple to the rest of the Church. Register now for DMD, Sept. 30.