German Bishop Criticizes Use of Pachamama Statues at Amazon Synod, by Dr. Maike Hickson

By Dr. Maike Hickson, LifeSiteNews, November 1, 2019

Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg, Germany delivered a homily yesterday in which he criticized the use of the Pachamama statues during the recently concluded Amazon Synod in Rome along with the proposal at the Synod of allowing married priests for the Amazon region.

With regard to both themes, Bishop Voderholzer asked, “does the Christian message bring something new or does it merely confirm and sanctify that which is already present and tradition?”

He asked whether it is the right thing to “carry into the realm of the Church pagan statues” without them being transformed into Christian symbols – as it happened with the Thor Oak that Boniface chopped down and carved into a cross. Concretely, Bishop Voderholzer referred  to “our case of the veneration of natural fertility in the form of the personified Mother Earth, the ‘Pachamama’.”

A boat carrying a wooden statue of a naked woman with child (‘Pachamama’) is carried by indigenous people in St. Peter’s Basilica during the opening ceremony for the Amazon Synod, Rome, Oct. 7, 2019.Vatican News / video screen grab

The homily was delivered on the Feast Day of St. Leonard, the patron saint of Voderholzer’s Diocese of Regensburg.

Voderholzer pointed out that it was Christ Himself who brought “newness” because He brings Himself (St. Irenaeus of Lyon).

In his “newness,” Jesus Christ walks toward the “’natural’ religiosity” of all men, but then “purifies it at the same time and gives them the unsurpassable, divine answer.” “In Christ,” Voderholzer continued, “all religions are ‘lifted up,’ ‘lifted up’ in a three-fold sense: abolished, lifted up, and preserved.”  ….

Read more at https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/german-bishop-criticizes-use-of-pachamama-statues-at-amazon-synod