The roots of the word “catholic” go back to the Greek adjective καθολικός, which roughly translates as “universal”. When we are told a person has catholic tastes, we understand them to have broad interests which are not ringfenced by prejudices or secular dogmas. But how catholic should the Catholic church allow itself to be? Somewhat under the secular radar, Pope Francis has become embroiled in another bitter dispute with traditionalists in his church. This time, the objects of dispute were five small and rather beautiful Amazonian fertility figures, which have become known as the Pachamama (Mother Earth) statues. Portraying a naked, pregnant woman, kneeling in apparent contemplation, they appeared this month at a prayer service with the pope in the Vatican gardens, on the eve of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon. That was too much for militant Catholic conservatives, who complained at this use of “pagan idols”. Replica statues displayed in a Rome church were stolen and dumped in the Tiber.

The Catholic church has a long tradition of incorporating and adapting different forms of belief and practice from around the world. Often described as “inculturation”, at its worst this approach can become a form of religious imperialism. At its best, it means a faithfulness to the church’s core belief that God is present in all human cultures; a belief that the ultimate vocation of humanity “is one”, however diverse its myriad cultures. The Vatican said the statues were an “effigy of maternity and the sacredness of life”.

Pope Francis has apologised on behalf of Rome for the mistreatment of the figurines, which were recovered by police from the Tiber. But the theological conservative, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, defended the vandalism saying: “The great mistake was to bring the idols into the church, not to put them out.” Wilder critics, not for the first time, have labelled the pontiff the “first post-Christian pope”.

The dispute might seem somewhat arcane. But the battles that Pope Francis is being forced to fight in Vatican City are spilling over into the public square. As with the migrant crisis, in which the pope has passionately championed the rights of refugees, they embody a struggle over ethics which is driving the west’s deepening culture wars. The pope is routinely denounced by Catholic conservatives as a “globalist” and religious relativist who wishes to turn the church into a kind of ecclesiastical version of the UN. One prominent American critic used the Pachamama episode to denounce “mindless multiculturalism”.

This theological worldview is informing some of the nastiest, most xenophobic politics in Europe, not least in Italy. It is providing a spiritual rubber-stamp for a new politics of insularity. The alleged need to defend “Christian culture” has become a pretext for a reactionary crusade against migrants, Roma, LGBT citizens and other minorities. Inculturation, practised with care, is a doctrine of humility. It acknowledges that no culture or tradition has unique access to the true and the good, making the case for tolerance and openness to difference. Christians, agnostics and atheists of goodwill should defend this kind of thinking. The “Pachamamas” have not been seen in public since they were fished out of the Tiber. They should be placed back on display soon.