  We present a determination of the pion-nucleon sigma-term based on a novel
analysis of the $\pi N$ scattering amplitude in Lorentz covariant baryon chiral
perturbation theory renormalized in the extended-on-mass-shell scheme. This
amplitude, valid up-to next-to-next-leading order in the chiral expansion,
systematically includes the effects of the $\Delta(1232)$, giving a reliable
description of the phase shifts of different partial wave analyses up to
energies just below the resonance region. We obtain predictions on some
observables that are within experimental bounds and phenomenological
expectations. In particular, we use the center-of-mass energy dependence of the
amplitude adjusted with the data above threshold to extract accurately the
value of $\sigma_{\pi N}$. Our study indicates that the inclusion of modern
meson-factory and pionic-atom data favors relatively large values of the sigma
term. We report the value $\sigma_{\pi N}=59(7)$ MeV.
