Amazon Synod of Bishops

Pope Francis has denied appeals from a recent Vatican synod of bishops that suitable married men be ordained to the Catholic priesthood.

Dutch bishop Rob Mutsaerts said this week that last fall’s Vatican Synod on the Amazon was a smoke screen to sneak in the issues of married priests and female deacons.

A group of regional leaders from the Amazon proposed Monday at the Vatican that rich nations be compelled to indemnify them for environmental damage caused in the so-called “lung of the planet.”

Pope Francis announced Friday that the fertility statuettes tossed in the Tiber River had been recovered and suggested he may have them placed in Saint Peter’s Basilica for the final Mass of the Amazon synod.

The former chief of the Vatican’s doctrinal office said Thursday that Amazonian ‘idols’ depicting a naked pregnant woman should never have been placed in a Catholic church.

The archbishop of Mexico City said this week in Rome that climate change skeptics are the “black sheep” of the Catholic Church since environmental “experts” believe we are near a point of no return.

Pope Francis said Wednesday that Christianity is a big tent that welcomes everyone, including pagans, but insists that they “reject idolatry and all its expressions” as a condition for following Christ.

A prominent Vatican cardinal declared Saturday that the promoters of the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon are “obviously being instrumentalized in order to push an agenda.”

Many missionaries in Latin America are still living in the 1970s, a papal appointee to the Vatican Synod on the Amazon said Wednesday, as if Marxist class struggle were more important than the gospel message.

The former doctrinal chief of the U.S. Bishops Conference (USCCB) warned this week that Pope Francis is presiding over an “unprecedented new schism” in the Catholic Church of his own making.

Participants in the Vatican synod on the Amazon region proposed adding “sins against the environment” to lists of traditionally recognized sins in their second day of discussions and deliberations.

Pope Francis came to the defense of the indigenous people who have come to participate in the Vatican synod on the Amazon, saying their tribal wear is not much different from the odd hats that Church officials wear.

Pope Francis kicked off the long-awaited Vatican synod for the Amazon this weekend, urging in his opening address on Monday greater acceptance of the wisdom and culture of indigenous peoples and cultures.

The Vatican published the list of participants in its upcoming pan-Amazon Synod Saturday, which includes as “special invitee” Jeffrey D. Sachs, who is among the world’s foremost proponents of population control.

The former papal nuncio to the United States, who has alleged the existence of a “gay mafia” among the bishops and clergy of the Catholic Church, says Pope Francis “himself” is “provoking” a schism because of his support for the Amazon Synod in Rome next month.

Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider have launched a crusade of prayer and fasting to prevent theological errors from being approved at the upcoming Vatican synod on the Amazon.

Two prominent conservative cardinals have blasted the working document of the Vatican’s upcoming pan-Amazon synod of bishops, saying the text contains elements that undermine the Catholic faith.

Pope Francis displayed his solid ecological credentials this week, declaring that climate change is a “global emergency” and insisting that what he fears most is a loss of biodiversity.