SAO PAULO (CNS): “Crying out to the world for solidarity,” leaders of CELAM, the Latin American bishops’ council, urged international action to save the Amazon rainforest as massive fires continued to burn.
 
“We urge the governments of the Amazonian countries, especially Brazil and Bolivia, the United Nations and the international community to take serious measures to save the lungs of the world,” said the statement on August 22 by the top officers of the council.
 

BRASILIA (CNS): Bishop Jose Ronaldo Ribeiro of Formosa, Brazil, was arrested and charged, along with four diocesan priests, of stealing about $4.75 million of diocesan money.
 
On March 21, two days after the arrest, Pope Francis named Archbishop Paulo Mendes Peixoto of Uberaba, to serve as apostolic administrator of the diocese. The pope did not remove Bishop Ribeiro from his post.
 

LIMA (CNS): Catholic leaders expressed “pain, indignation and strong condemnation” at reports of a massacre of isolated indigenous people by gold miners operating illegally in the Vale do Javari indigenous territory of the Brazilian Amazon.
 
The Brazilian government is investigating reports that the miners killed as many as 20 indigenous people in early August. Little is known about the reclusive indigenous group.