QUITO, Ecuador -- One of the challenges for bishops at the Amazon synod will be finding ways to meet the spiritual needs of the region’s people.

BOA VISTA, Brazil -- Driving up the BR401, it’s hard not to be startled by the sight of a giant soy farm stretching out on both sides of the highway — the empty land is parched and denuded in mid-summer, after the crop is in. 

MANAUS, Brazil -- As a caçique or chief of the Apurinã people, Xytara Apurinã has a pretty clear-eyed view of her people’s position in the Amazonian metropolis of Manaus. 

MANAUS, Brazil -- For Enock Barroso Tenente, what’s at stake at the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon is life as he knows it.

CORNWALL, Ont. -- Canada’s bishops will monitor next month’s Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, but the issue of ordaining married men is not a priority for bishops here, said Archbishop Richard Gagnon of Winnipeg.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis has named Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston and the other members of his international Council of Cardinals to be voting members of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon.

BOA VISTA, Brazil -- 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.

RAPOSA, Brazil -- Summer evenings in the community of Raposa are golden and gentle. Half-wild horses wander in from the fields to feed on mangos that have fallen from huge trees in front of St. Isidore’s Catholic Church. A few young Makushi grab rakes to push the mangos into piles out of harm’s way. The setting sun seems so close, a giant ball of fire slipping behind the mountains that ring the prairie where the Makushi live. Makushi tradition says life exists as a kind of force — stkaton — that comes from the sun. It’s hard to disagree.

Bishop Dom Mário Antonio da Silva knows the Amazon is in trouble, but he doesn’t want its crises — political, ecological and cultural — to define the synod he will attend in Rome Oct. 6-27.

MANAUS, Brazil -- On the third finger of his left hand Oblate Fr. Robert Valicourt wears a black, wooden ring made from the pit of a tacumã palm tree, a plant native to the Amazon. 

VATICAN CITY -- Before members of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon began packing their bags for the synod assembly at the Vatican Oct. 6-27, a variety of groups were announcing side events.

OTTAWA -- The upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon will challenge Canada regarding its own relationship with Indigenous peoples and the environment, said Archbishop Donald Bolen of Regina.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis appointed three delegate presidents for the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon.

SAO PAULO -- With a month to go before the start of the Synod of Bishops for Amazon, retired Bishop Erwin Krautler of Xingu said the Brazilian government should not fear the discussions to be held in Rome.