As COP30 begins in Brazil, Catholic Church leaders urge nations to respect Indigenous communities and act unselfishly together to address climate change and protect creation.
Filipe Domingues
Filipe Domingues is a Brazilian journalist who reports on religion, environment and economics.
Posted inDispatches
Catholic leaders respond to police raid that killed 132 in Brazil
“Operation Containment” in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, aimed to disrupt the criminal network Comando Vermelho, but with 132 dead were police too indiscriminate in their use of force?
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
How will Pope Leo lead the church? Clues from his first 100 days
Just over 100 days after the election of Pope Leo, it remains difficult to determine his governing priorities. Yet some early impressions of his personal style are beginning to emerge, along with a few central themes that are likely to shape his pontificate and its approach to evangelization.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
Catholic ‘influencers’ are not evangelizers, according to research group in Brazil
The only way to counter the excessive impact that influencers have on the life of the church is to promote more critical thinking among the Catholic faithful, who must be able to recognize attempts to manipulate the faith for political and economic ends.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
In a surprise to environmentalists and church leaders, Brazil’s Lula revives plans for offshore oil drilling in Amazon basin
The most controversial blocks for exploration are located offshore at the mouth of the Amazon River basin. Petrobras, a government-controlled oil company, is pushing to begin preliminary drilling in search of new oil reserves.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
Climate justice, women’s ministries and spiritual conversations: Synod takeaways from Brazil
Among the main concerns they mentioned were the role of the laity, especially of women; the contribution of the church on ecology in light of the encyclical “Laudato Si’”; and “spiritual conversation,” a method of discernment that was adopted to structure discussions during the first assembly that could become a major legacy of the synod.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
‘It’s genocide’: Brazil’s Catholic bishops on killing of Indigenous Amazon people
Devastated by malnutrition and preventable diseases like flu, pneumonia, anemia, malaria and diarrhea, the Yanomami people have been called victims of a contemporary genocide by government authorities.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
As Lula takes office (again), the church in Brazil calls for reconciliation and a campaign to end hunger
After four years of the far-right government of Jair Messias Bolsonaro, Brazilians peacefully welcomed—for the third time—the inauguration of the popular center-left leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on New Year’s Day.
Posted inDispatches, Politics & Society
Bolsonaro will accept Brazil’s election results only if he wins. The Catholic Church has to defend democracy.
South America’s largest democracy will hold presidential elections on Oct. 2 with two iconic Latin American populists as competing candidates: Mr. Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who served as president from 2003 until 2010.
Posted inDispatches, Faith
Titus Brandsma was killed in a Nazi death camp. This Sunday, Pope Francis will make him a saint.
A renowned Dutch priest, professor and journalist, Titus Brandsma was killed in a Nazi concentration camp. The woman who executed him later became Catholic—and this Sunday, Father Brandsma will be made a saint.