![]() ![]() My reason for returning to the matter now is that Pope Francis himself recently returned to the matter. After a few weeks of tumult, the issue seemed to have become old news. The document refers also to an interview of Cardinal Raymond Burke in which the matter is raised again, but there too we find no detail on what the Pachamama image meant, or even who Pachamama was said to be. But the list of those signing the document includes very few theologians, and it is hard to see whether anyone on the list had expertise on religion in the Amazon region, or even had ventured to learn about the matter. On October 27, in the closing Mass for the synod, he accepted a bowl used in the idolatrous worship of Pachamama and placed it on the altar.īracing condemnations indeed. When wooden images of this pagan deity were removed from the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, where they had been sacrilegiously placed, and thrown into the Tiber by Catholics outraged by this profanation of the church, Pope Francis, on October 25, apologized for their removal and another wooden image of Pachamama was returned to the church. Pope Francis said prayers in a ceremony involving this image and then joined in this procession. Peter’s and then carried in procession to the Synod Hall. ![]() On October 7, the idol of Pachamama was placed in front of the main altar at St. He participated in this act of idolatrous worship by blessing a wooden image of Pachamama. He allowed this worship to take place in the Vatican Gardens, thus desecrating the vicinity of the graves of the martyrs and of the church of the Apostle Peter. On October 4, Pope Francis attended an act of idolatrous worship of the pagan goddess Pachamama. The vandalism has gained support, perhaps most notoriously in a statement – Contra Recentia Sacrilegia (translated as "Protest against Pope Francis’s Sacrilegious Acts") - that condemns wholesale the Pope’s dabbling in idolatry: The issues involved were complicated, and even months later it would be hard to beat the excellent Commonweal essay, “ A Hermeneutic of Suspicion ,” written by Rita Ferrone on this controversy, and I refer readers to it. But from there, they were stolen and thrown into the Tiber, since they were judged by a few to be images of the Goddess Pachamama, rather than “mother earth” or more simply women at the sacred moment of bearing and giving life. ![]() Later these were transferred to a nearby church. Back in October, at the time of the Synod on the Amazon, there was much attention paid to the images of the pregnant woman, larger and smaller, present in the scene set up to mark the Synod. She lives in Mount Vernon, NY.Cambridge, MA. Her bachelor’s degree, in Communications, is from Fordham University. She received their Alumni Achievement Award for Distinction in Congregational Ministry in 2007. Rita holds an MDiv from Yale Divinity School. She has written religion textbooks and educational materials for major publishers, and has served on liturgical commissions in four dioceses. She has given parish retreats and missions, as well as talks to university audiences. As a speaker, she has presented in more than eighty dioceses. Rita’s background in ministry includes work as a parish liturgist (New York) and cathedral liturgy director (Milwaukee) as well as a diocesan director of the catechumenate (New York and Allentown). Her commentary has also appeared in The Washington Post and on CNN International. Her articles and essays have been translated into eight different languages. She co-authored the eighteen-volume series, Foundations in Faith (RCL-Benziger), and the parish renewal program Living the Eucharist (Paulist Evangelization Ministries).Ī contributor to scholarly journals here ( Worship, Horizons, Studia Liturgica), and abroad (La Maison Dieu, Gregoriusblad) as well as international web publications (, Il Sismografo), Rita has written for Catholic general interest magazines ( America, Ligourian), and ministry journals ( Rite, Catechumenate, GIA Quarterly). Rita’s books include Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium (Paulist Press), Sourcebook for Sundays and Seasons 2006(LTP), and On the Rite of Election (LTP). She is a contributor to the Pray Tell Blog, and writes for the Liturgical Press daily prayer resource, Give Us This Day. She is currently a contributing writer and columnist for Commonweal magazine, and serves as general editor for The Yale ISM Review, an ecumenical journal of worship and the arts for the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Rita Ferrone is an award-winning writer and frequent speaker on issues of liturgy and church renewal in the Roman Catholic tradition. ![]()
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