Vatican News

VATICAN CITY -- An Italian author who was once tried and acquitted by a Vatican court for publishing leaked documents is claiming in a new book that decades of mismanagement, shady deals and decreasing donations will leave the Vatican no choice but to default.

VATICAN CITY (CNA) -- A confidential report from the Vatican’s anti-corruption authority shows that the Secretariat of State has used about $725 million, most of which came from the pope’s charity fund, in off-books operations.

ROME -- More than a half century after a group of bishops at the Second Vatican Council made a solemn pledge to live a simple lifestyle close to their people, a group of participants from the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon signed a new pact in the Catacombs of Domitilla.

VATICAN CITY -- Whether or not the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon helps open the door to ordaining women deacons, women will continue to play a fundamental role in ministry in the church in the region, religious sisters said.

VATICAN CITY -- 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.

VATICAN CITY -- As tropical forests fall victim to loggers, miners and ranchers, the Catholic Church must take sides to defend the Amazon region and its people, said a bishop whose Bolivian diocese has been ravaged by fire this year.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis and members of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon repeatedly vowed to support, defend and accompany the region's indigenous people.

VATICAN CITY -- Proposals for Amazonian development made by well-known observers at the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon could conflict with the expectations of indigenous people unless they are included in decision-making, some synod participants said.

VATICAN CITY -- While indigenous cultures may have difficulty accepting the concept of celibacy, indigenous candidates for the priesthood are more than capable of understanding that it is a gift from God, said an indigenous priest from Brazil.

ROME -- As the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon heard pleas to defend the rights of the region's indigenous people and of the land they hold sacred, indigenous leaders from Canada and the United States came to Rome to support them.