BOGOTA, Colombia -- Bishops, nuns, priests and residents of the Amazon basin met in Colombia's capital city in mid-August to prepare for a special Synod of Bishops for the Amazon this fall at the Vatican.

MELBOURNE, Australia (CNA) -- The incarcerated Cardinal George Pell is facing an investigation by Australian prison authorities, after images of a letter he sent to supporters was posted on social media.

VATICAN CITY (CNA) -- The ordination to the priesthood of mature, married men, sometimes called viri probati, is among the topics to be addressed at October’s Amazon synod but is “absolutely not” one of the principle themes of the meeting, Pope Francis said.

VATICAN CITY -- The objective of the upcoming Synod of Bishops for the Amazon is to highlight the need for religious, political and social leaders to come together and defend the dignity of indigenous men, women and children and an ecosystem that is crucial to the environment, said Peruvian Cardinal Pedro Barreto Jimeno of Huancayo.

VATICAN CITY (CNA) -- Cardinal Gerhard Müller, who was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith from 2012 and 2017, presented an analysis with a series of objections and criticisms of the Instrumentum Laboris, or working document, of the Synod on the Amazon, to be held in Rome in October.

VATICAN CITY (CNA) -- That the working document for October’s Synod of Bishops calls the Amazon region a source of revelation is a “false teaching,” Cardinal Gerhard Müller said Tuesday.

When bishops start talking this fall about ordaining married men to serve as priests in their own, remote, Indigenous communities in the Amazon, bishops in northern Canada will be listening closely.

VATICAN CITY -- While the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Amazon aims to highlight the damage wrought by climate change and exploitation, the possibility of ordaining married men to minister in remote areas of the rainforest continues to garner more attention.

VATICAN CITY -- An upcoming Synod of Bishops will study the feasibility of ordaining married men in the Amazon region to compensate for a shortage of priests.

SAO PAOLO – Responding to news reports that the Brazilian intelligence agency was monitoring the Catholic Church, the secretary-general of the bishops' conference downplayed the idea that prelates would use the October Synod of Bishops on the Amazon to criticize their government's policies.