Barbara J. Fraser

Consolata Br. Carlo Zacquini was ministering among the Yanomami people in a remote area of Brazil, near the border with Venezuela, when gold miners invaded their lands.

There is some irony in the situation. The places where Amazonian cities were built were once indigenous territories. 

When Pope Francis came face to face with more than 2,000 Amazonian indigenous people in Peru in January 2018, he told them the place where they live is holy ground, and that they and the Amazon region are important to the Catholic Church and the entire world.

Throughout Latin America, people whose lives and land have been affected by industries that extract natural resources, such as mining or oil operations, find strength in their spirituality, church leaders say.

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of 75-year-old Peruvian Cardinal Juan Cipriani Thorne of Lima and has named a 68-year-old professor of theology to succeed him.

Gabriel Rentaria was 7 years old when he started using a gun. Never to kill, he said, just to scare people. But he saw people -- enemies and friends -- fall dead "in my face," he recalled.

If Colombians truly seek peace, they must give up vengeance and seek reconciliation by forgiving themselves and one another, said a priest who is devoting his life to such a mission.

Catholic Church leaders are urging the Colombian government to protect community leaders who are being targeted by hired assassins.

Peru's bishops expressed support for an overhaul of the country's judicial system after phone-tap recordings revealing influence peddling and corruption became public.

Vatican officials have denied protecting the founder of Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a Peru-based religious movement, who is accused of sexual, physical and psychological abuse of minors and young adults.

Less than two months after Pope Francis spoke out about environmental destruction in the Amazon basin during a visit to Peru, bishops from Latin America and the Caribbean have issued a pastoral letter calling the region's Catholics to an "integral ecological conversion."

Pope Francis took his message of hope to this sprawling, dusty capital of Peru, celebrating Mass within view of the rocky, waterless Andean slopes where most of the city's poorest residents live.

Chile and Peru, the two countries that Pope Francis will visit Jan. 15-21, have recently received thousands of migrants seeking safety and opportunities. 

Pope Francis' weeklong trip to Chile and Peru in January will take him to two regions where environmental issues and demands for indigenous land rights have led to sometimes-violent conflict.

Latin America has some of the highest income disparities in the world. Tourists flock to the Caribbean city’s beach resorts, which contrast with the poverty in which most of the city’s Afro-Colombian population lives.

Catholic Church leaders in Bolivia are opposing a controversial new law, signed by President Evo Morales, that strips protection from a national park and indigenous territory.