Pope Francis has spoken out against “envy” and “gossip” amidst protests against him by prominent sections of the Catholic community for allegedly promoting ‘sacrilege’, ‘idolatry’ and ‘superstition’ by consecrating the Amazonian fertility Goddess Pachamama. The ceremony took place in the Vatican Gardens at Rome during the Amazon Synod with the Pope’s active participating and apparent support.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò heavily criticized the Pope on Tuesday for his participation and called upon him to “repent publicly and unambiguously of these objectively grave sins” and asked bishops across the globe to “offer fraternal correction to Pope Francis for these scandals.” The eminent members of the Catholic community claim that they “protest against and condemn the sacrilegious and superstitious acts committed by Pope Francis, the Successor of Peter, in connection with the recent Amazon Synod held in Rome.”

The Catholics claim that the ‘sacrilegious acts’ of the Pope include “idolatrous worship of the pagan goddess Pachamama.” Their statement claims, “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. Thus, a new profanation was initiated.”

Read: Being gay is ‘fashionable’, homosexuals should leave the Church: Pope Francis on gay clergy

- Advertisement -

The statement also cited the words of St. Paul. It said, “St. Paul taught the early Church that the sacrifice offered to pagan idols was not offered to God but rather to the demons when he said in his First Letter to the Corinthians:

“What then? Do I say, that what is offered in sacrifice to idols, is any thing? Or, that the idol is any thing? But the things which the heathens sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, and not to God. And I would not that you should be made partakers with demons. You cannot drink the chalice of the Lord, and the chalice of demons: you cannot be partakers of the table of the Lord, and of the table of demons.” (1 Cor. 10:19-21)”

The Catholics claim that Pope Francis has incurred the ‘reproach’ uttered by the Second Council of Nicaea. The ‘reproach’ says, “Many pastors have destroyed my vine, they have defiled my portion. For they followed unholy men and trusting to their own frenzies they calumniated the holy Church, which Christ our God has espoused to himself, and they failed to distinguish the holy from the profane, asserting that the icons of our Lord and of his saints were no different from the wooden images of satanic idols.”

In a recent interview with LifeSiteNews, Vigano had called Murthi-puja (idol worship) “appalling idolatrous profanations.” “The abomination of idolatrous rites has entered the sanctuary of God and has given rise to a new form of apostasy whose seeds, which have been active for a long time, are growing with renewed vigor and effectiveness,” he stated.

He further said, “The process of the internal mutation of the faith, which has been taking place in the Catholic Church for several decades, has seen with this Synod a dramatic acceleration towards the foundation of a new creed, summed up in a new kind of worship [cultus]. In the name of inculturation, pagan elements are infesting divine worship so as to transform it into an idolatrous cult.”

Read: Pope Francis and Catholic Church shamed after Chile gets tough against child sexual abuse scandal

Earlier, the Idols were thrown into the Tiber river. It was reported that thieves had stolen the Idols and thrown them into the Tiber river. It was later recovered and consecrated in the ceremony that Pope Francis attended and participated in. Even ahead of the Amazon Synod, Catholics had slammed the occasion as a ‘heretical celebration of paganism’. Pope Francis had personally apologized for the incident.

On Wednesday, the Pope said that the “envy of that proud angel who refused to accept the incarnation” led him “to destroy humanity” and added that this is how “jealousy, envy [and] rivalry” entered our hearts. He also said, “When you talk badly about someone you destroy them. The tongue is a fearsome weapon – gossip kills, slander kills, but the jealousy and the envy of the one destroyed the other.”

The statement is clearly not an apology amidst demands that he”repent publicly and unambiguously … of all the public offences that he has committed against God and the true religion”. However, the Pope has clearly not addressed the core doctrines which pave the way for bigotry of the worst kind.