Argentine diocese apologizes for prayer to Pachamama

Walter Sanchez Silva   By Walter Sanchez Silva for CNA

The Prayer to Pachamama posted by Caritas Venado Tuerto.

Venado Tuerto, Argentina, Aug 5, 2021 / 17:49 pm (CNA).

The Diocese of Venado Tuerto’s Caritas branch apologized Tuesday for having posted on its social media a prayer to Pachamama, an Andean deity.

“The pachamama is a symbol of fertility, of the earth and the sacredness of life. It is a myth full of spiritual meaning (that) can be used to advantage,” said the now-deleted Aug. 1 post.

“Some religious festivals have a sacred meaning and are occasions for gathering and fraternity. These are the new paths for the Church and for the achievement of an integral ecology. Holy Father Francis. #somoscaritasarag #caritasvt #equipomagrevenadotueto,” the post said.

The prayer read: “Hail Pachamama, sweet source of our life, may you be forever venerated. Blessed are the fruits of your womb, our daily bread, may you be blessed now and forever. Look with compassion, Holy Mother, upon the human pack that destroys you out of ambition. Blessed be your clemency Pachamama. My land preyed upon by madness. You are the source of life and joy. Pachamama, holy land, Holy Mother, Virgin Mary.”

Pachamama Day is celebrated annually on Aug. 1 in Quechua and Aymara communities in the Andes mountains of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru in honor of the Andean deity.

The posting of the prayer drew massive pushback on social media, leading to its deletion.

Cáritas Venado Tuerto posted Aug. 3 on Facebook: “We want to apologize to those who felt offended by our post about Pachamama, the intention was to communicate our communion with Francis who in the Apostolic Exhortation Querida Amazonia says to us: ‘It is possible to take up an indigenous symbol in some way, without necessarily considering it as idolatry. A myth charged with spiritual meaning can be used to advantage and not always considered a pagan error. Some religious festivals have a sacred meaning and are occasions for gathering and fraternity, albeit in need of a gradual process of purification or maturation. A missionary of souls will try to discover the legitimate needs and concerns that seek an outlet in at times imperfect, partial or mistaken religious expressions …’ (79). ‘Such a spirituality will certainly be centered on the one God and Lord, while at the same time in contact with the daily needs of people who strive for a dignified life…’ (80)

The prayer to Pachamama existed before the Amazon synod, held at the Vatican in October 2019.

During the synod carved wooden figures of a pregnant woman were on display in related churches and events. Those figures, referred to by Pope Francis and others as “Pachamama”, were said by some to depict an Andean fertility goddess, while Vatican spokesmen characterized them more vaguely as symbols of “life.”

Two such “Pachamama” figures were eventually taken from a church near the Vatican and thrown into the Tiber, and were later recovered.

Pope Francis issued an apology asking forgiveness from those who were offended by the Pachamama statues being thrown into the Tiber, and said that they had been displayed in the church “without idolatrous intentions.”

Pachamama Day is celebrated annually on Aug. 1 in Quechua and Aymara communities in the Andes mountains of Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, and Peru in honor the Andean deity.


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4 Comments

  1. We read from Apostolic Exhortation Querida Amazonia ‘,,,Such a spirituality will certainly be centered on the one God and Lord, while at the same time in contact with the daily needs of people who strive for a dignified life…’ (80)

    A nuanced and possibly good point is made, interculturally, but then again, the real issue is not to be marginalized as simply that of one’s “intentions,” or of others being “offended.” Isn’t the issue one of at least appearing to displace the historical Incarnation—-which is the divinely revealed assurance of truly “a dignified life?”

    One parallel to our syncretic times is the 17th- and 18th-century Rites Controversy in China, where the Dominicans were more persuasive than the Jesuits on the nature of ancestor veneration/worship. St. Paul gives an objective clue about pagan trappings and the call for Christians to avoid giving scandal (1 Corinthians 8:4-13). Instead of Pachamama, why not the dignity of Our Lady of Guadalupe?

    As always, we live in interesting times.

  2. St. Paul, in his letter to the Romans, made this revelation about discerning the signs of the times:

    “Ever since the creation of the world [God’s] invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.

    Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator….
    For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men….”

    There are ample signs in the Church today that there is an aggressive cult of abusive homosexual Archbishops/Cardinals like McCarrick and abusive coverup Archbishops/Cardinals like Danneels, and Cupich and Joseph Tobin and McElroy etc etc etc, holding the Church hostage by promoting to power men of the homosexual cohort to (that is, men who actively promote homosexual behavior or who live “double lives” in active homosexual behavior) to power everywhere in the Church, as General Secretaries of conferences (“His Excellency” Burrill), seminary formation directors (“Rev.” Park the suddenly resigned director of the North American College in Rome, being sued by US seminarians in the state of New York, after US Bishops governing the NAC persisted in refusing him justice), “special” representatives (“Rev.” Martin) and Papal gatekeepers (“Rev.” Battista Ricca), and governors of financial and real estate holdings (“His” Excellency Zanchetta of Argentina).

    Thus, the sudden appearance of signs in “the-new-openly-ruled-Church-of-the-Pontiff-Francis,” that the Pontiff Francis himself will orchestrate idolatry, and the men surrounding him everywhere live and/or promote sexual immorality as a norm of their cult.

    The double sign of sexual immorality and idolatry are revealed before our very eyes.

  3. 2084 God makes himself known by recalling his all-powerful loving, and liberating action in the history of the one he addresses: “I brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” The first word contains the first commandment of the Law: “You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve him. . . . You shall not go after other gods.” God’s first call and just demand is that man accept him and worship him.

    2085 The one and true God first reveals his glory to Israel.6 The revelation of the vocation and truth of man is linked to the revelation of God. Man’s vocation is to make God manifest by acting in conformity with his creation “in the image and likeness of God”:

    There will never be another God, Trypho, and there has been no other since the world began . . . than he who made and ordered the universe. We do not think that our God is different from yours. He is the same who brought your fathers out of Egypt “by his powerful hand and his outstretched arm.” We do not place our hope in some other god, for there is none, but in the same God as you do: the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
    2086 “The first commandment embraces faith, hope, and charity. When we say ‘God’ we confess a constant, unchangeable being, always the same, faithful and just, without any evil. It follows that we must necessarily accept his words and have complete faith in him and acknowledge his authority. He is almighty, merciful, and infinitely beneficent. Who could not place all hope in him? Who could not love him when contemplating the treasures of goodness and love he has poured out on us? Hence the formula God employs in the Scripture at the beginning and end of his commandments: ‘I am the LORD.'”-Catechism of the Catholic Church

    The worship of Demon Idols is forbidden by God, and all those who condone, approve and partake in it will answer to Him.

  4. Those clerics, Argentine, Vatican, Mexican [Spanish priest accused of Pachamama monstrance Guadalajara] who have warm feelings for ancient cultural worship as benevolent delude themselves. What they achieve is a rebirth of what Catholicism during the Spanish conquest thankfully ended. Although today we have a revival, Nat Geographic among institutions that present an admiration of this past. Archeologists expressing understanding that Mayans would sacrifice their people, their children to the gods to ensure plentiful crop yields. “Beautiful beyond exaggeration, is how one Spanish chronicler described Tanta Carhua. Carhua was a 10-year old Inca child whose father offered her to the Inca Emperor as a Capacocha sacrifice. She was taken by priests to Cuzco where she met the Inca Emperor. Tanta Carhua was then taken to a high Andean mountain, placed in a shaft-tomb and walled in alive” (Author Liesl Clark Nova). Human sacrifice was practiced by Aztecs and Mayans. Little is known of that practice among Incas. Incas inhabited the Andes and celebrated the goddess of the Andes recently celebrated at the Vatican as culturally and anthropologically germaine. How ironic isn’t it that the oft criticized edicts give by Joshua for the ban on Jericho, God to Saul regards the Amalekites to annihilate the populace, edicts germaine to the times its significance now totally lost even to the point of resurrecting the evil the idolatry practiced by these inhabitants of ancient Israel portends [when becoming permissive in relations with Canaanites Jews began immolating their own children to Baal]. It’s not an exaggeration to consider the Pachamamma enshrinement ceremony prelates and natives dancing singing into Saint Peter’s Basilica into the sanctuary where the sacrifice of the Mass is held is not at least a type of installation of the abomination of desolation. This is where refocus of Catholicism from personal morals to ecology is taking us.

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