It has come out that, whilst still a Priest, Pope Leo knelt before an image of the pagan "goddess", Pachamama, just as Francis did. Is this not apostasy?
From One Peter Five
By Fr Romano Tommasi, SLD
A comprehensive analysis of Pachamama 1.0 and 2.0.
As a young man, I recall an anthology containing a Russian nineteenth-century chronicle of a missionary priest in Siberia near Mongolia. This priest initially judged himself a missionary success by leading a family to accept Jesus and the Mary. He gave them icons to put into their dwelling, as a newly christened family. Later, he experienced the horror of entering the lodging only to see that his icon of the Savior and Mary mounted next to other household-pagan deities. The missionary immediately realized that he failed, for Christ was not one among the gods, but one of the Holy undivided Trinity, one God, one Lord, one faith, one baptism.
I too worked briefly in the Amazon missionary territories and for a longer period in South and Central America, where living conditions, lack of recourse to legal justice and law enforcement, namely, extreme poverty, was shocking. What is more, the recent concentration on USAID scandals of fraud and waste were part of my hardly singular experience in Amazonian mission territory. The Roman Catholic dioceses too often proved willing allies of the immoral work done by the agency. The Church took money in many regions in exchange for educating the ignorant masses in propaganda literature for artificial contraception, abortion, et al. Priests, nuns, and laymen worked under a local bishop, with whom I briefly stayed and discerned out rather quickly (following some heated discussions) with diocesan apparatchiks. US AID propaganda passed out to peasants and Indians was patently irreconcilable with Catholic perennial teaching. Yet, there was no financial aid without promoting population control. This widespread practice of USAID aligned with so-called liberation theology, cooling my missionary zeal for the Amazon. Liberation theology subordinated Catholic religion to communistic class warfare theory.
While no direct coordination between USAID and liberation-theological actors is formally demonstrable, both operated within overlapping development and social-action fields, often engaging the same populations, institutions, and intermediary networks. This produced a functional convergence in shared sympathies, community organization, and structural approaches to poverty. USAID, like many such institutions was staffed by professionals formed within academic and policy environments not reducible to any single ideology, but often converged with the project of liberation theology.
In the name of anti-colonialism (similar to the philosophy emanating from the USSR under Lenin), peoples were divided into special groups and were declared liberated from the olden imperial Russia by Leninist Marxism. The establishment of special republics gave the appearance of inter-ethnic communism of equality among different languages and societies. These creations were often artificial according to historians and ethnologists. This division into arbitrary groups colors the attempt to disentangle European religion from an imagined folklore religion (of preliterate cultures in South America). We are too aware of language changes, loss and gain of information in oral tradition, and ever-evolving practices of oral cultures in sociology and ethnology. Pacha Mama stands at the center of this kind of instability. Generations of liberation theologians propagated in Peru, and elsewhere, a non-religious communistic totem, as an artistic celebration of anti-colonialism. This includes the missionary territory of Fr. Robert Francis Prevost. However, Pacha Mama had many faces: (1.) a communist symbol of proletarian resistance, (2.) a syncretistic religious symbol, (2.) and sometimes a Christianization of a pagan symbol.
I once accompanied liberation-theology missionaries into a village, where the head catechist and local church lay leader, along with his community elders, rejected this Spaniard-Carmelite insistence on an enculturated statue in the form of some aboriginal art form. Instead, the locals voted publicly for a traditional Spanish-style statue of Mary. The Carmelite scoffed at their vote, which was supposed to be a community decision. Community self-determination was here rejected by withholding the Spanish bishops’ purse strings: the Indians were to be decolonialized from the bourgeoisie overlords by economical power, if not by persuasion.
My present treatise is not anecdotal on the main, but Pope Leo XIV has expressed his devotion publicly to the people of these places; his situation requires understanding – not justification – the proper meaning of his acts (which may admittedly prove not to be virtuous). This situation defines much of the ministry of Pope Leo XIV. His Church is statistically dying by defections to evangelical life, plausibly due the Marxist impetus behind pastoral care that is still undergirding the conscious and unconscious reasoning of many priests in this region. On the one hand, distraught priests and nuns coming there for the first time are shocked by the havoc of post-Masonic anti-colonial corruption in South America (too often mislabeled as free market economics). Millions are still devoid of food security. The suffering I saw was anguishing and the temptation for limited human agents is to embrace a philosophy of action, promising to impact people’s ability to eat not just to pray and to act morally. I merely contextualize the environment of this priest formed in the failed post-Vatican II experiment of the Augustinian seminary of Villanova (that followed the trend to abandon scientific theology for sociological-psychology). Fr. Prevost could not have been expect to receive formation in scientific theology or historical disciplines aligned thereto. His theological instincts would have been more likely honed by his training as a canon lawyer. Even so, lawyers and priests without the requisite theological background cannot comprehend Tradition and traditions but only principles of juridically applying ecclesiology and governance. My concerns are about the semantic drift in terms and definitions of perennial theology and their continuity with past magisterium. To what extent were they available to Fr. Prevost to carry out theological reasoning?
The available reporting on Prevost’s years presage something positive: He was a math major, took Hebrew and Latin electives, read Augustine, (but naturally discussed Rahner), and was involved in founding Villanovans for Life. Prevost’s Peruvian ministry in Chulucanas (1985–86), Trujillo (1988–98), and Chiclayo (2014–23) unfolded more worriedly at three evidentiary levels: Firmly documented is the fact that his early work and formation roles were embedded in post-Medellín/Puebla ecclesial models (small communities, lay participation, preferential option for the poor), and the wider Peruvian theological landscape (including influential liberation-theology institutions such as the Lima-based Instituto Bartolomé de Las Casas). Within that same context, Pachamama is well attested in scholarship as:
- a traditional Andean religious figure,
- a focal point of syncretic practice, and
- an image reinterpreted within Christian symbolism.
The fair question to ask, and answer by responsible journalists, will be: Which Pacha Mama did Fr. Prevost serve? The evidence is forthcoming. It is likewise firmly documented that USAID maintained a large and sustained presence in Peru from the 1960s through the 1990s, directing substantial funding toward family-planning programs in regions overlapping with northern and coastal dioceses, and operating through networks of NGOs, educational institutions, and state partnerships. Does Prevost’s interference in US politics ultimately align with American ideologies undergirding US AID?
Probable: Given this convergence, clergy in these regions lived in an environment shaped simultaneously by (a.) liberation-theology-adjacent ecclesial priorities, (b.) a threefold Pachamama vector: ecological-liberationist, cultural-pristinizing, and “baptized” version, and (c.) US AID funding structures.
Plausible but not demonstrated: A strong synthesis emerged from USAID-linked ideologies and liberation-theology currents into an alliance. This was really functional overlap: reconfiguring traditional moral hierarchies. The worry here is that Pope Leo’s endorsement of Amoris Laetitia may prove to be the result of living in a Peruvian Church comfortable with practical solutions to morality under the financial pressures of US AID funding and new morality of Liberation theology. Fr. Prevost’s biography doesn’t suggest that he championed an ideological alignment with these groupsbut living, and working with ideologues (as for example his positive interactions with the Liberation theologian Gustavo Guttiérez), presage a theological drift from the inexorable principles of true religion to more elastic categories rationalized to solve the practical problems of the masses.
Pacha Mama 1.0 – Pope Francis in Rome
The old Pacha Mama scandal was one where sacred images and Pacha Mama were apparently on equal footing. Pacha Mama 1.0 was well known to have occurred at the Traspontina in Rome under the official Presidency of Pope Francis. Ostensible syncretism is pastorally important to address. The notion of a papal correction on such kinds of matters is still in the air. Incidentally the idea of papal correction was formally endorsed at the ecumenical (section) of the Council of Basel (1431-1437) [transferred thereafter to Ferrara-Florence], at which the future “inventor” of the language of modern “papal infallibility” (namely, Master of the Sacred Palace, John Torquemada, OP) endorsed in 1434 the theological fact (already accomplished in times past) of papal correction and its theological legitimacy in matters of faith (and morals) as well as when some item causes potential rupture in the Church. Hence the Acts of Basel have enshrined the principle for over 500 years.
Pacha Mama: Essentially the scandal of Pacha Mama 1.0 (AD 2019) consisted in publicly blessing an image that Pope Francis identified as “Pacha Mama” and the Vatican Press Corps semi-officially described the Pacha Mama as “Mother Earth”[1] – designating her to be a “who” or “hypostasis/person” – that gives it a personality versus an unhypostatic attribute. Hence, it is accurate to say an hypostasis’s icon, called Mother Earth, was publicly blessed in a filmed personal moment of audience with what appears to be a member of an Amazonian delegation. This is an ostensible act of apostasy, particularly when – during the next period of the Amazonian synod itself – the artistically same statue was acknowledged by Pope Francis as intentionally housed in a Roman archdiocesan church in plain view, for which Pope Francis publicly and officially announced his approval and his willingness to restore the aforesaid statue to a consecrated Roman Church in which the closing Roman Mass of the synod would take place. Clearly, these announcements and acts allowed sincere Christians to infer that Pope Francis unequivocally supported the hypostasis of Mother-Earth reverence in the context of Roman Catholic sacraments and in consecrated buildings of worship during said sacramental celebrations. The question must be: “To what end?”
The Italian allocution of Pope Francis apologizing for youthful rapine of Pacha Mama and precipitating it into the Tiber river provides our first key: “vi vorrei dire una parola sulle statue della pachamama che sono state tolte dalla chiesa nella Traspontina, che erano lì senza intenzioni idolatriche e sono state buttate al Tevere (I would like to tell you a word on the statues of the Pacha Mama that were taken from the church of Traspontina, which [same statues] were there without idolatric intentions and were thrown into the Tiber [river]).”[2]
The Theological and Canonical Question
The question of intentionality – especially for Latin Christians – became more and more incorporated into theology and canon law (e.g., penal law) as moral theology advanced along the lines of what – since Peter Abelard’s advances in moral theology – has become known as Scholasticism. As such, we can take a look at the Jesuit and Roman pope from the point of view of his own church’s theological and legal tradition. I turn to the definition of Apostasy in St. Thomas Aquinas’s (Doctor of the Universal Church; d. 1274) definition of apostasy in Summa Theologiae IIa-IIae, q. 12, a. 1:
Objection 2. Further, unbelief is an act of the understanding: whereas apostasy seems rather to consist in some outward deed or utterance, or even in some inward act of the will, for it is written (Proverbs 6:12-14): “A man that is an apostate, an unprofitable man walketh with a perverse mouth. He winketh with the eyes, presseth with the foot, speaketh with the finger. With a wicked heart he deviseth evil, and at all times he soweth discord.” Moreover if anyone were to have himself circumcised, or to worship at the tomb of Mahomet, he would be deemed an apostate. Therefore apostasy does not pertain to unbelief.
Reply to Objection 2. It belongs to faith not only that the heart should believe, but also that external words and deeds should bear witness to the inward faith, for confession is an act of faith. On this way too, certain external words or deeds pertain to unbelief, in so far as they are signs of unbelief, even as a sign of health is said itself to be healthy. Now although the authority quoted may be understood as referring to every kind of apostate, yet it applies most truly to an apostate from the faith. For since faith is the first foundation of things to be hoped for, and since, without faith it is “impossible to please God”; when once faith is removed, man retains nothing that may be useful for the obtaining of eternal salvation, for which reason it is written (Proverbs 6:12): “A man that is an apostate, an unprofitable man”: because faith is the life of the soul, according to Romans 1:17: “The just man liveth by faith.” Therefore, just as when the life of the body is taken away, man’s every member and part loses its due disposition, so when the life of justice, which is by faith, is done away, disorder appears in all his members. [1.] First, in his mouth, whereby chiefly his mind stands revealed; [2.] secondly, in his eyes; [3.] thirdly, in the instrument of movement; [4.] fourthly, in his will, which tends to evil. The result is that “he sows discord,” endeavoring to sever others from the faith even as he severed himself.
While it may be the case that we have our own criteria for judging one faithful or unfaithful member, a member in good standing or not a member at all, of the Church, we can generally rely on most knowledgeable Roman Catholics within their own theological and canonical tradition respecting and reverencing Aquinas’s definition. Notice nos. 1-4.
[1.] “First by his mouth, whereby chiefly his mind stands revealed”: Here we see that the final phrase of the papal allocution goes thus: “Il Comando dei Carabinieri sarà ben lieto di dare seguito a qualsiasi indicazione che si vorrà dare […] per le altre iniziative che si vogliono prendere a riguardo, ad esempio, riferisce il comandante,’l’esposizione delle statue durante la Santa Messa di chiusura del Sinodo, si vedrà. (“The Commandant of the Carabinieri will be quite happy to follow up to whatever indication that should be given […] for other initiatives that are desired to be undertaken likewise: for instance, the commandant refers to the exposition of the statue during the Holy Mass at the close of the Synod,which remains to be seen”). The allocution clearly reveals that the placement of the idols in the church is not for the sake of adoration (but for some other purpose left undiscussed). Note the following:
Consequently, only the convergence of the two elements – the theological content of the interior act and its manifestation in the manner defined above – constitutes the actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia catholica, with the corresponding canonical penalties (cfr. can. 1364, § 1).[3]
Conclusion: The intention of Pope Francis through his words is not himself to commit or promote others to a personal act of idolatry as a baptized member of the church.
[2.] Secondly, however, if “the mouth” reveals that Pope Francis, after identifying an image of the hypostasis Mother Earth, and after witnessing baptized persons of the Amazon bow down in reverence to her on the 4th of October, 2019 in the Vatican Gardens, he is willing to look on (viz., [his mind stands revealed] “in his eyes”) while idols are worshipped by his worshipping juridical subjects acting as syncretists celebrating Pacha Mama both within and outside of rituals of the sacraments. This implies that that his action is out of human respect for the baptized persons of Amazon who do syncretize and pay worship to a personal non-human or quasi-human entity called Mother Earth. This leads us to Aquinas’s second criterion: “Secondly, [his mind stands revealed] in his eyes.” It is reasonable to infer that Pope Francis wishes to accommodate syncretists, even if he has no intention of himself worshipping their goddess. This view is supported by the 04 October 2019 Vatican Garden ceremony in which Pope Francis was an observer.[4] Consequently, the eyes-looking on at pagan worship and subsequently blessing an idol of a worshipping member of the garden party – would qualify Pope Francis under no. 2, above. His mind stands revealed to permit syncretism among his juridically believing subjects in Amazonia.
Conclusion: The mind of Pope Francis is revealed by his looking upon syncretism with favor as being tolerant of idolatry sub conditione (e.g., Amazonians), if not simpliciter (all faithful indiscriminately).
[3.] “Thirdly, [the mind is revealed] in the instrument of movement.”[5] The participation in a procession with an image of the hypostasis of Mother Earth as part and parcel of an otherwise Christian paraliturgical event in a consecrated Basilica includes Pope Francis as an active participant, even if no active reverence is paid by him directly to the idol. This is revealed by participating by foot in procession, by stance toward the idol and by respect toward the syncretists.[6]
Conclusion: Pope Francis has participated actively in syncretistic ceremonies wherein his fellow participants reverenced and sought the intercession of a non-Christian and allegedly divine being known as Mother Earth.
[4.] “Fourthly, [the mind is revealed], in his will, that tends to evil.” While Pope Francis announced his non-idolatric intention, there is simply no evidence expressed by Francis in the external forum of action, writing, or speech to indicate what – if any – theological intention is held by him in allowing syncretists to worship in their manner, in the midst of sacramental rites within a consecrated church with their idols present, or on Vatican grounds outside of a liturgical context with the Pope and Cardinals present patronizing the event of reverence paid to idols.
My Conclusion: Insufficient evidence exists for specifying the object of the will or end in view of Francis’s active participation in syncretistic rites.
General Conclusion: Pope Francis did not fit the perfect definition of apostasy insofar as all four components are necessary to qualify as a full apostate according to Aquinas’s criteria. He can, according to theological criteria, only be imperfectly designated as an apostate. Hence, one may recognize each error individually (requiring for example a correction and the imposition of a penance), but he cannot be assumed by Aquinas to be ipso facto an apostate contrary the faith.
The theological and the juridical are two separate spheres. While the theologian may conclude based upon the loci theologici (Cf. Mechior Cano, De locis theologicis), the ecclesiastical forum is alone entitled to formally designate an individual a heretic and to impose a remedial and/or punitive penance on the offender. Naturally, the question arises:Does Pope Francis, granted he meets the juridical definition of apostasy, cease to be a member of the Church? I refer to the Pontifical Council of the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, whose sentence represents both the law and its universal and only interpretation in the Roman Catholic communion of Churches:[7] Note the following:
3. The juridical-administrative act of abandoning the Church does not per se constitute a formal act of defection as understood in the Code, given that there could still be the will to remain in the communion of the faith. On the other hand, heresy (whether formal or material), schism and apostasy do not in themselves constitute a formal act of defection if they are not externally concretized and manifested to the ecclesiastical authority in the required manner (emphasis mine).
The required manner includes recourse to the proper ecclesiastical authority (e.g., bishop). Here, Pope Francis would have needed to manifest his intention to apostatize to a proper authority in the Roman Catholic Church (e.g., the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith). Hence, any questions of the commemoration of Pope Francis at Mass and individual intercessions are technically moot points until such an intention by Pope Francis has been announced to a proper authority.
Overall Conclusions with respect to communion with Pope Francis: With respect to the law, CIC, can. 1404 (1983) and CCEO, can. 1058 (1990), the Roman Pontiff or “Prima Sedes” is judged by nobody. Hence, no juridical process can or does exist in either the Latin or Oriental Churches for canonically imposing a penalty of apostasy on a sitting pope. Secondly, a sitting pope must manifest his intention to leave the church to a properly designated ecclesiastical authority to be deemed canonically an apostate by said authority. Lastly, though the matter of scandal of apostasy and active participation in non-Catholic rites of worship might have for the average Christian canonical and moral implication, the current code provides no canonical remedies for a sitting pope. The only implications that the theologian (not the canonist) can conclude are that it is reasonable to suppose or even obvious to suppose the pope to have caused scandal or to have actively participated in non-Catholic cult of worship. The only recourse canonically for such a theological conclusion is as follows:
CCEO 1990:
Can. 15 §1. Conscious of their own responsibility, the Christian faithful are bound to follow with Christian obedience those things which the sacred pastors, inasmuch as they represent Christ, declare as teachers of the faith or establish as rulers of the Church.
§2. The Christian faithful are free to make known to the pastors of the Church their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires.
§3. According to the knowledge, competence, and prestige which they possess, they have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.
Pope Francis objectively put the then current status ecclesiae in an upsetting position. The fact that most Western countries in a state of managed decline and fighting the specters of nihilism found their Catholic populations unimpressed by syncretism is different from whether it meets the criteria of Aquinas and canon law, which actions surely did. This allows for the following remedies available to Catholics in good conscience:
- To disobey any exhortations or commands “inasmuch as they [do not]represent Christ” (e.g., participating in non-Catholic worship actively),
- To make known one’s spiritual needs for the pope to confess, repent and reconcile with the Church,
- To make one’s mind known in any and by all means of communication to their pastors (especially bishops) on their opinion on scandal and ostensible (though not perfect) apostasy by the pope of Rome and their desire that a moral correction of the pope of Rome take place in fraternal charity shared among brother bishops as manifested by the spiritual work of mercy in teaching the ignorant and correcting the prudential and potential theological errors (implied thereby) in Pope Francis’s aforementioned public and official actions.
Failure to do so may be plausibly argued to place the faithful and priests of the Church in the same position of our nineteenth century Russian Orthodox missionary: We can see that a failure to formally remove the position of dignity of the idol of the Pacha Mama from the privileged and consecrated space – proper to the Holy Trinity wherein its representations and others of canonically and liturgically approved saints only have a right to exist – implies that the Pacha Mama constitutes a de facto approval of material apostasy placing her as the member of a pantheon of gods or divine beings,[8] whose number may continue to increase through other and future official papal actions or by similar tacit approval in future papal allocutions.
An old Specter resurrected and Poor Theological Training: Pacha Mama 2.0
We have seen that the patently irresponsible and scandalous behavior of Pope Francis proved damning enough to require press corps verbiage (an odd apology) and justifications, and ultimately a quiet (though not entire) abandonment of a push to openly promote more syncretism in Catholic communities. This work goes on, but more privately in the Vatican and as per usual in Latin America. With all this in mind, we recall that St. Thomas Aquinas supposed the possibility of Catholics praying (devotionally) at the tomb of Mohammed in the Summa Theologiae. In the preface of his Summa in the thirteenth century, St. Thomas reminded his readers that he edited out superfluous or exaggerated questions of little benefit for the Christian planning to learn scientific theology and its allied disciplines (of probabilistic and plausible theological argumentation), as for examples: Scripture exegesis, patristic theology, and historical theology. With all this in mind, St. Thomas felt this was a practical pastoral scenario, probably known from Latin pastoral experiences in the Holy Land.
Apropos, the emergence of a more intense scandal is in the making due to Fr. Robert Francis Prevost’s (today’s Pope Leo XIV’s) actual participation in Mother Earth worship immortalized in photos. His Augustinian order’s profession of a syncretistic Communist-liberation-theology Creed is serious, since he was not merely a silent participant but an active contributor. The question will arise again among sincere Christian faithful who profess belief in one God and one objective order or reality and real beings in the universe: “Moreover if anyone were […] to worship at the tomb of Mahomet [=Mohammed], he would be deemed an apostate.” Did Fr. Robert Prevost commit apostasy? Was an apostate elected to the papacy? Christians are free and have “infinite dignity” within this pope’s own framework to decide for themselves whether Pope Leo XIV is an unabashed liberation theologian based upon the facts. It necessarily colors their ability to show human faith in his words and their referents in the real world (namely, whether his spiritual language cloaks deeper liberation meanings). To quote a commentator who shall remain unnamed, and who is a secular sports figure, his axiom may well apply to Pope Leo XIV: “If people think you’re spiritual they won’t notice you’re unethical.” Ethics in philosophy and morals in theology are the question, not whether or not one promotes spiritualities to a world that is often purely materialistic in influential and large swaths of territories. Spirituality is not enough, Catholics are not wrong to demand orthopraxy, and demand it publicly.
Nonetheless, from a technical point of view, we have a moderate answer available to us, which was anticipated by Thomas Aquinas as enfleshed in today’s Code of Canon Law and its Eastern counterpart (CCEO). Let us briefly review St. Thomas: “First by his mouth, whereby chiefly his mind stands revealed.” For Fr. Prevost, this theological criterion is expressed by formal rules or canon law as we already saw:
Consequently, only the convergence of the two elements – the theological content of the interior act and its manifestation in the manner defined above – constitutes the actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia catholica, with the corresponding canonical penalties (cfr. can. 1364, § 1).[9]
A sincere Catholic is right to ask whether Fr. Prevost committed an objective act of apostasy, and accusations of impiety to demand an explanation are harangues to embrace irrational and fideistic trust in a leader due to his spiritual role at the head the Church. However, the canonical courts alone investigate with jurisdiction in their duty to investigate an interior intention when the legitimate authority accuses a Catholic of apostasy, but outside of legal status before the law, real apostasy can be manifested by authenticated documentation or by Fr. Prevost’s own words as matters of fact that reasonable men must take into consideration when asked to obey man rather than God (Acts 5:29-32).[10] Undoubtedly, the restraints of Church law will annoy those convinced of his guilt. Be that as it may, countries and societies are civilized and rational when the force of law, not suspicion, determine rights and obligations. If the law here is perceived as irrational, it must be proven to be so, not imputed ad hoc.
Conclusion
So, far the evidence strongly suggests the exterior criterion was met for an apostatic act, but Fr. Prevost would, like his predecessor, be expected to deny intent of syncretism, even were the evidence stronger against Fr. Prevost than for Pope Francis of active participation in a Pacha Mama ritual (whose context immediately needs clarification).[11]
[2.] Secondly, however, if “the mouth” reveals that Fr. Prevost participated after identifying an image of the hypostasis Mother Earth, and after witnessing baptized persons of the Amazon bow down in reverence to her, then Prevost qualifies under condition #2 of apostasy above. His mind stands revealed to permit syncretism among his juridically believing subjects in Peru.
[3.] “Thirdly, [the mind is revealed] in the instrument of movement.”[12] The participation in bowing to an image of the hypostasis of Mother Earth in a Christian paraliturgical event makes him an active participant.
[4.] “Fourthly, [the mind is revealed], in his will, that tends to evil.”
Fr. Prevost undoubtedly has canon law on his side, so that no formal process was ever brought against him, nor will it be. The canonical situation of the Church has no remedies enshrined in the CIC 1983 for erring popes at any rate, and has been elected without a canonical penalty prior. In the past, erring pontiffs were corrected by their successors, their contemporary cardinalate, or by sitting Fathers of synods. It speaks volumes how timid and taciturn all of these options proved to be among prelates after the Pacha Mama 1.0 scandal. Cardinalate and episcopal silence betrays the state of the Church universal. We ought not to expect any canonical follow up on this situation today, nor any papal correction from cardinals, though this does not excuse them from their duty.
For the majority of the episcopate, the scandal among the faithful is not sufficient to reform the Church “in its head and members” as bureaucratic complacency determines outcomes here by incentive structures in Roman law (imperial law of the empire) and peer exclusion for being a prophetic voice saying: the Temple of Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. Any prelate who prognosticates evil, will suffer the fate of Jeremiah, and thus demands the faith of Jeremiah to bear the burden. A papal correction is merited once a reasonable inquiry and evidence corroborates what has not yet to be fully investigated from a journalistic point of view. Prevost actively participated in Augustinian liberation theology structures and cooperated with their projects. As a willful confident and trusted companion, he was elected superior to continue their work. It is supremely reasonable to demand of others to demonstrate in what ways Prevost challenged the group-think of the S. American Augustinians and greater liberation theology context. The burden of proof is on others to show how he is not like all his peers, with whom he publicly appears and cooperates in their projects.
Additionally, an adequate report on the species of Pacha Mama 2.0 (Prevost’s version of which may not be as superstitious as that of Pope Francis after his presser and endorsement by Italian Conference of Bishops). Fr. Prevost’s context requires extreme rationalization to excuse him from partly conscious and perhaps even more unconscious sway of liberation theology which used syncretism in its horizontal and secularist agenda. The decades spent under obedience and in participating actively under the constraints of liberation theology are a form of moral cooperation formally, not materially. That is simply how obedience and professions of vows work. Still, rational minds need to stay open to the option that Fr. Prevost’s position within Peruvian missions was a moderate one, viewing Pacha Mama a christened pagan symbol for the Church or Mary. It may appear to be more or less unlikely, which is why investigation needs to continue for the best plausible conclusion. For those unfamiliar with Pacha Mama literature and the range of meanings that it had at various times and places in South America, the Christianized Pacha Mama may sound like a red herring. Scientific, probable, and plausible theology – in the image of St. Thomas – leads to good pastoral theology and protection of the faithful by following processes not propaganda. Whatever the result of such an investigation – and I admit that journalists may be conceivably damning in their findings – the results will not be enough to justify a formal break of communion for a real lapse into an apostatic action (AD 1995), never canonically prosecuted, which does not carry with it an ipso facto excommunication in the AD 1983 CIC but the requirement of determining the offender’s intention.
Photo by Megan Kotlus on Unsplash
[1] For the semi-official explanation by a Vatican appointed spokesperson for the happening of the Amazon synod with respect to the identity of Pacha Mama, see (accessed 31 October 2019): https://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2019/pope-apologizes-that-statues-were-vandalized-says-they-were-recovered.cfm.
[2] For references to the allocution, see (accessed 31 October 2019): https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-apologizes-that-amazon-synod-figures-were-thrown-into-tiber-river-46833.
[3] For the passage, see Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Actus formalis defectionis ab ecclesia catholica (accessed 31 October 2019), paragraph 5: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/intrptxt/documents/rc_pc_intrptxt_doc_20060313_actus-formalis_en.html.
[4] For a supporting photo, see (accessed 31 October 2019): http://www.ncregister.com/blog/edward-pentin/pachamama.
[5] For confirmation of the official nature of procession, see (accesed 31 October 2019): https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/analysis-why-pachamama-took-a-dip-23186
[6] For the quasi-liturgical honors given to Pacha Mama, see (accessed 31 October 2019): https://gloria.tv/post/nK8YgEUATNuj4WXBi9WrfBzPg.
[7] For the full document, see (accessed 31 October 2019): http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/intrptxt/documents/rc_pc_intrptxt_doc_20060313_actus-formalis_en.html.
[8] For the full document, see (accessed 31 October 2019): http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/intrptxt/documents/rc_pc_intrptxt_doc_20060313_actus-formalis_en.html.
[9] For the passage, see Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Actus formalis defectionis ab ecclesia catholica (accessed 31 October 2019), paragraph 5: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/intrptxt/documents/rc_pc_intrptxt_doc_20060313_actus-formalis_en.html.
[10] This is an oblique citation by St. Luke of Socrates’ Apology, where the point was that state bureaucracy cannot force the conscience and dignity of Socrates to deny the revelation he received from the unknown God, which is argued in Acts by St. Paul on the Areopagus to be Jesus Christ.
[11] NB, the local variations and symbolism of Pacha Mama go from full-fledged superstition, to cultural vagaries, to a baptized version, whereby Pacha Mama is replaced in its symbolic meaning by the Virgin Mary or other Catholic notions. Therefore, one must be cautious at this stage of journalistic investigation to preserve the pope’s innocence depending on the local and cultural meaning that was given to it. That the anglophone faithful is unaware of post-Reformation openness to transforming cultural images into Catholic meaning can be at the base of unnecessary prejudices. It may be arguable now, with specialized sociological studies, that Pacha Mama is generally a confused notion, but this then demands better missiology or abandoning a project that has been a failure over the last several hundred years. The issue is pressing, but it needs to be informed by principles not a quasi-theological reactivity.
[12] For confirmation of the official nature of procession, see (accesed 31 October 2019): https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/analysis-why-pachamama-took-a-dip-23186
Pictured: An image of Pachamama
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