VATICAN CITY (CNS) — With its mandate to seek “new pathways for the church and for an integral ecology,” the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon follows Pope Francis’ call for the church to move forward without fear, Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes told participants.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — While the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon is focused on one small, but important geographical area, the issues involved impact the universal Catholic Church, said Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — People in Western countries need to see the different cultural expressions of faith that exist in other parts of the world, said some participants at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon.

ST. MATTHEW THE APOSTLE, 60th annual Fall Family Festival, Oct. 11, 6-11 p.m.; Oct. 12, 11 a.m.-10 p.m.; Oct. 13, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.  Entertainment: Mojeaux, Oct. 11, 7:30 p.m.; 5 Finger Discount, Oct. 12,  7 p.m. Food, game booths rides, a kiddie land, inflatables, gaming area. 10021 Jefferson Hwy., River Ridge.

The St. Elizabeth’s Guild 49th annual Volunteer Activists Awards luncheon was held Sept. 27 at the New Orleans Hyatt. At left, John P. Laborde, seated, and Blanche Comiskey, Ronnie Kole and Sybil Morial, standing, were recognized as Hall of Fame Honorees. At right, 10 individuals were named community activists.

The mascot for our newly opened school, St. Thérèse Academy, should be the phoenix. Before Holy Rosary Academy closed down last May, the school welcomed each new person under its wings of warmth and light. All of us were carried to a new home – Holy Rosary – until, all of a sudden, its flames started to weaken.

“Increase our faith,” the apostles say to Jesus in this Sunday’s Gospel. Their request to Jesus becomes our prayer as we contemplate God’s word today. Once the disciples meet Jesus, their lives are not the same. For any and every encounter with Jesus is life-changing.

There’s a quote I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately, and it goes like this: “If it’s come into your life, it means you’re ready to receive it.” This sounds good and fine when things are going well in life, but what about when things aren’t? We can double tap our thumbs on the inspirational quotes that pop up in our social media feeds all day, but, sometimes, these light-hearted sayings are harder to accept during tough times.

During the summer, I had a wonderful opportunity to travel with a small group of Maryknoll missioners from across the country on an immersion trip to Guatemala.

It has been 23 years since a school from the three-parish metro area entered the fifth week of the football season without allowing a single touchdown to the opposition.

One of the church’s great missionary documents – the 1919 apostolic letter “Maximum Illud” by Pope Benedict XV – is now 100 years old.

St. Pope John Paul II, in his powerful encyclical letter “Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of Life”), challengingly said “How can we fail to consider the violence against life done to millions of human beings, especially children, who are forced into poverty, malnutrition and hunger because of an unjust distribution of resources between peoples and between social classes?

The 29th annual Greater New Orleans Rosary Congress for Life, Reparation and Peace in Our City, Nation and World will enable local faithful to enter in and out of seven seamless days of prayer, Mass, choir singing and eucharistic adoration.

2019 Archdiocesan Priests’ Convocation: Three days of prayer, study and fellowship

The eight church parishes that comprise the East St. Tammany-Washington Deanery in the Archdiocese of New Orleans have sent an open letter to their parishioners and to their elected representatives in the Louisiana Legislature asking for their support in eliminating the death penalty in the state.

LIMA, Peru (CNS) — 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.

MANAUS, Brazil (CNS) — Three decades ago, when Pedro Mura was 12, ranchers seeking to seize his community’s land threatened his family with death. The family, Mura Indians from a remote village near the border between Brazil and Colombia, fled downriver in canoes, a monthlong ordeal that led them to a riverbank here.

The Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops (LCCB) has issued the following “Public Policy Guide to Catholic voters:

ANAPU, Brazil (CNS) — Across a stream and down a dirt road at the edge of this Amazonian town, a carefully tended crypt marks the burial place of Notre Dame de Namur Sister Dorothy Stang.

ANAPU, Brazil (CNS) — The ads were irresistible: The Brazilian government was selling large tracts of property along a new highway in the heartland of Brazil, offering bargain prices to small-scale farmers willing to work the land.