Capuchin Franciscan Father Luis Antonio Salazar is breaking with traditional ways of preaching and bringing the Gospel to thousands of cellphone users each week through an Instagram video series called “Vivir el Evangelio,” or “Living the Gospel.”
Latin America
Posted inFaith, News
Synod groups propose an Amazonian rite and new ministries for women
Creating an Amazonian-rite liturgy and new ministries for laypeople, including the ordination of women deacons, are some of the recurring proposals made by small groups at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon.
Posted inFaith, Features
What the Day of the Dead can teach us about life
Darkness and light are but one, the psalmist tells us. Our lives are filled with both. Sugar and skulls. Flowers and dust. Love and loss. You cannot embrace one without allowing the other.
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
The Amazon synod is halfway over. Here’s what we know so far.
As the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon reaches its halfway point, leaders of indigenous communities are speaking with passion about what is at stake for their communities and their hopes for this synod.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
The unique challenges missionaries face in the Amazon
According to priests and women religious who have worked in the Amazon for decades, the particularities of the Catholic mission in the region—especially the lack of clergy to attend to thousands of geographically isolated communities—has led them to make hard choices.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
One year after his canonization, is St. Óscar Romero still ‘the people’s saint’ in El Salvador?
On Oct. 14, 2018, he was canonized by Pope Francis. Today, Salvadorans ask themselves what the transition from “Msgr. Romero”—what he has been called in El Salvador for decades—to “St. Romero” means for his legacy.
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Here’s what happened on the first day of the Amazon Synod.
The general relator of this special synod, emphasized several themes of Pope Francis’ pontificate: the church must “throw open her doors”; “true tradition” is “the church’s living history”; and “God always brings newness,” so “one must not fear what is new.”
Posted inFaith, Vatican Dispatch
Cardinals Hummes and Baldisseri respond to critics of the working document for the Amazon synod
“It is the voice of the local church, the voice of the church in the Amazon—of the church, of the people, of the history and of the very earth, the voice of the earth…. And this has value, it is not fake news,” Cardinal Hummes said.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Peru’s church leaders call for end to corruption amid political crisis
Catholic church leaders in Peru have called for an end to political corruption in that country in the aftermath of President Martin Vizcarra’s act to dissolve Congress, which subsequently led to a vote to have him removed from office.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
How Jesuits in South America are working to promote an ‘Amazon-like’ church
His work is increasingly to support what synod organizers call creating a more “Amazon-like” church. A more Amazon-like church incorporates the customs and sensibilities of the local population, like indigenous spirituality, and promotes new forms of evangelization.