WATCH: Bp. Schneider Praises Removal of Pachamama: ‘Will Be Recorded in the Annals of Church History as a Heroic Act’, by John-Henry Westen

In his letter, Bishop Schneider drew attention to several of the many verses in Scripture that warned against the worship of false gods. He said that he had to speak up in respoinse to the Amazon Synod because “syncretism and paganism are like poisons entering the veins of the Mystical Body of Christ.” As a successor to the Apostles, entrusted with care for God’s flock, he continued, “I cannot remain silent in the face of the blatant violation of God’s holy will and the disastrous consequences it will have upon individual souls, the Church as a whole, and indeed the entire human race.”

Noting the “evasive and contradictory” answers given by persons in the Vatican Press Office on what the Pachamama idols truly represented, His Excellency firmly stated, “Catholics cannot accept any pagan worship, nor any syncretism between pagan beliefs and practices and those of the Catholic Church. The acts of worship of kindling a light, of bowing, of prostrating or profoundly bowing to the ground and dancing before an unclothed female statue, which represents neither Our Lady nor a canonized saint of the Church, violates the first Commandment of God.”  ….