Catholic News Service

Change is roiling the water around Santarem. The city already has a large port where riverboats call with passengers, and freighters load soy and corn from the country's agricultural heartland.

The settlement resolves 15 lawsuits for sexual abuse claims in the northwestern Minnesota diocese filed between April 2016 and May 2017 because of the Minnesota Child Victims Act.

The July 17 vote came just two weeks after the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly in favor of an amendment to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill to permit both abortion and same-sex marriage in the province.

Mention of the Amazon is likely to conjure images of snaking rivers, seemingly endless forests, indigenous villagers and exotic animals. But poor harvests or a desire for jobs and an education drive people from rural areas to fast-growing cities, which generally are poorly planned and ill-equipped to deal with the influx of newcomers.

Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who served on the court for nearly 35 years, died July 16 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at age 99 after suffering complications from a stroke the previous day.

Catholic bishops in the Philippines criticized "the continuing destruction of our common home" and called for "ecological conversion" amid "climate emergency."

Young people's intensified demand for climate action is a sign of hope during the planet's ecological crisis, said Cardinal Peter Turkson.

Science is showing that hydropower is not as environmentally friendly as once thought, and the struggles of the families uprooted by Belo Monte reveal the dam's dark side.

 The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it would begin implementing the Trump administration's "Protect Life Rule" to bar Title X funds from being used for promoting or providing abortion as family planning.

After current supplies run out, Vatican City State will no longer be selling any single-use plastic items on its tiny territory.

The Trump administration announced the U.S. departments of Justice and Homeland Security are adopting an interim "third country rule" requiring immigrants seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border to first apply for refugee status in another country.

The Congo River basin, which spans six African countries, is coming under pressure, partly due to clearing of the forests for subsistence agriculture, large-scale farming, illegal logging and lack of clear reforestation policies.

The Pew Research Center's annual report on restrictions on religion worldwide showed the United States had the worst scores in the Americas in three of the eight categories Pew surveyed.

"Quilombolos," as the residents of quilombos are known, still suffer from the racism and discrimination that made the brutal slave trade possible in the first place.

Many Catholic and other faith leaders criticized the planned ICE raids.

Praying that Catholics would understand and act on "the inseparable bond" between love of God and love of neighbor, Pope Francis again appealed for a solution to the crisis in Venezuela.

San Francisco Auxiliary Bishop Robert Christian, rector-president of St. Patrick Seminary and University in Menlo Park, died in his sleep July 11. He was 70.

Jesuit missionaries in Guyana are sponsoring a two-year pilot bilingual education program.

Edwina Tancredo last saw her 17-year-old son more than a year ago, when he and some friends left the village of Hiowa to seek work in a mine.