Vatican City, Oct 11, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- The Vatican’s Amazon synod began this week. Over 200 people are gathered in the Vatican to discuss the life and ministry of the Church in the Pan-Amazonian region, an area surrounding the Amazon River which spans nine countries.

Here are a few facts about the Amazon synod, as told by the numbers:

2, 260, 87,000

Vatican City, Oct 11, 2019 / 03:01 am (CNA).- Pope Francis will canonize four women alongside John Henry Newman this Sunday. These women -- a stigmatist, a mystic, a Roman orphan, and Nobel Peace prize nominee -- also proclaimed Christ through their lives and their miracles in a unique way.

Mother Mariam Thresia

Vatican City, Oct 10, 2019 / 11:10 am (CNA).- Bishop Wilmar Santin of Itabituba, Brazil said Thursday that the Church has worked to eradicate the practice of tribal infanticide in the Amazon, and compared the practice to the moral evil of abortion.

The bishop said that the Munduruku tribe, resident in his Amazon River basin diocese, were traditionally a warring people, who cut off the heads of their enemies to carry as trophies, and left babies born with disabilities to die.

Vatican City, Oct 10, 2019 / 04:55 am (CNA).- Pope Francis accepted Thursday the resignation of Bishop John Jenik as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York and appointed two New York priests as auxiliaries of the archdiocese.

Jenik, 75, was removed from ministry last year after the archdiocese found credible an accusation of sexual abuse against him. Jenik, who has been an auxiliary of New York since 2014, maintains his innocence.