The Church is being urged to find ways for women to be granted an “official ministry” in the Amazon region, a part of the world suffering from a shortage of priests and where Catholics are unable to attend Mass for long periods. A preparatory document ahead of the Synod of Bishops gathering on the Pan-Amazon region in 2019 says it is “necessary to identify the type of official ministry that can be conferred on women, taking into account the central role which women play today in the Amazonian church.”

Due to the scarcity of clergy, lay women have long been involved in coal face parish ministry in the region including conducting baptisms, weddings and bringing pre-consecrated communion to communities.

While the Vatican’s doctrine prefect, Archbishop Luis Ladaria, recently ruled that the Church’s teaching on an all-male priest-hood is “definitive,” a papal commission has been established to examine the question of female deacons.

The new consultation document, known as the “lineamenta” and released by the Vatican’s Synod Office, says there is an “urgent need to evaluate and rethink” ministries that respond to the needs of the Amazon.

“One priority is to specify the contents, methods, and attitudes necessary for an inculturated pastoral ministry capable of responding to the territory’s vast challenges,” says the text, titled “Amazon: new paths for the Church and an integral ecology.”

One bishop in the region, Erwin Kräutler, has argued this could include ordaining married men in the region, a topic he has raised with Pope Francis. In his province Xingu there are just 27 priests serving 800 local communities and 700,000 Catholics spread across a vast region. Pope Francis has indicated he is open to the idea.

“God’s Mason,” “Mother Teresa with pants,” “God’s soldier,” “the apostle of garbage” and “the insurgent of Madagascar” are but a handful of the nick-names given to Father Pedro Opeka, nominated multiple times for the Nobel Peace Prize, who’s also a recipient of France’s Legion of Honour and several papal awards.

Born in Argentina in 1948 to Slovenian parents who fled Europe after World War II, Opeka is a missionary priest who’s been serving in Madagascar, the world’s ninth poorest country, for almost 50 years.

He’s in Rome because three countries Argentina, Slovenia and Monaco are throwing a dinner to raise funds for his foundation, “Akamasoa,” which means “good friends” in Malagasy.

On May 28, Opeka was received by Pope Francis.

“When we arrived, the doors opened and the Pope came to encounter us,” Opeka said. “He tells me ‘Pedro, how are you?’ Like a friend, a father, as if we’ve known each other for years.”

Persecution is the work of the devil, and while anti-Christian persecution is evident in many parts of the world, the devil also is attacking the image and likeness of God present in many other people as well, Pope Francis said.

“In the world today, Christians are not the only ones being persecuted; human beings, man and woman, are because the father of every persecution cannot tolerate that they are the image and likeness of God. So he attacks and destroys that image,” Francis said on June 1 during Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae.

“Cultural colonization,” or the pressure some nations place on others to accept practices that go against their own culture, is another form of persecution, the Pope said. Francis often has denounced the practice by which wealthy donor nations try to impose acceptance of abortion, contraception or liberal attitudes toward homosexuality and gay marriage on poorer countries as a condition for aid.

With the youth Synod only a few months away, a major new survey of young Catholics in Britain has some startling findings. On the plus side, Complex Catholicism: The Lives and Faith of Young Catholics in England and Wales Today shows a strong increase in regular Mass attendance (at least monthly) from 25% of all respondents in 2009 to 36% in 2017. Irregular Mass attendance (less than monthly) has increased from 59% in 2009 to 75%.

But the survey also includes some unsettling findings about what young Catholics actually believe: well over half do not hold traditional Catholic beliefs on God, many believe that Jesus was only human and not the Son of God, and a large number are willing to ignore the Church’s moral teachings.

The study was conducted by Catholic research group Camino House and Cymfed, the Catholic Youth Ministry Federation, in September and October last year. A total of 1,005 Catholics in England and Wales, aged 15-25, were surveyed online. Just over half were 15-19, and 48% were 20-25; 68% were female and 32% male. Two-thirds of the respondents self-identified as Catholic; the remaining third did not, but came from a Catholic family or had attended a Catholic school. Unsurprisingly, many of these “non-identifiers” still held some Catholic beliefs and attitudes, but were less likely to hold strongly to the Church’s teachings.

The finding that should cause most concern to the Church is that half of the respondents who self-identify as Catholics don’t believe in a personal God. Only 38% hold to the Church’s teaching that God created the world and is involved in what happens to the world now. A further 12% believe. He created the world but is not involved in the world today.

One in five said they believed in a higher spiritual power but not a personal god, one in four said they weren’t sure whether they believed in God or a higher spiritual power and five percent of self-identifying Catholics said they didn’t believe in God or any higher spiritual power.