Pope Francis Asks for Forgiveness After Amazon Statues Stolen, Thrown Into River in Rome

Pope Francis asked Amazonian bishops and tribal leaders for forgiveness Friday after indigenous statues were stolen from a Vatican-area church and thrown into a nearby river.

The wood-carved figures of naked pregnant women, known as Pachamama, were brought to the Vatican to be displayed during the pope’s three-week assembly of Amazonian clergy, called a synod.

The pope insisted there was no intention of idolatry, which undercut conservative claims that the statues are symbols of pagan worship.

“Above all, this happened in Rome and as the bishop of this diocese I ask forgiveness of the people who were offended by this gesture,” Francis told the synod hall.

The Vatican has said the statues are symbols of life, fertility and Mother Earth.

Harvard astronomer tapped to lead White House UFO council says US government ‘baffled by what they are seeing’

House Democrat Ro Khanna says he was detained by armed Israeli settlers in West Bank

Church in China Announces Massive Government Raid, Almost Three Dozen Christians Detained

Brazilian Couple Sentenced to Prison for Homeschooling Their Own Children

Europe’s demographic time bomb is killing its leaders’ popularity

WATCH: GOP senator warns ‘hammer-and-sickle’ politics will define Democrats’ 2028 primary

Appeals Court Blocks Part of ‘Stop WOKE Act’ in Florida, Allows Professors to Openly Teach Racism Against Whites

DNA technology leads to arrest in 1988 killing of Orlando woman after nearly four decades

Trump’s EPA chief pushes back on climate skeptics being labeled ‘science deniers’

Graham Platner Officially Goes Out How You’d Expect: ‘Free Palestine,’ Vulgar Message for ICE, No Accountability or Seriousness

Nicole Brown Simpson told former lover she’d ‘rather die’ than return to O.J. Simpson before her murder

The new ‘Supergirl’ is a cheerless comic book movie

The World Cup comes to America: Passion, resilience, and the politics of hosting

Former top cop warns of loophole exploited by illicit Chinese vape companies ‘targeting our youth’

America’s cheapest city to grab a cheeseburger, fries and soda isn’t where you’d expect

The wooden figures were found unharmed in the Tiber River this week. The pope said he would consider having them displayed during the final Mass of the synod on Sunday.

The theft was caught on surveillance video Monday as thieves took the figures from the Santa Maria in Traspontina church, just down the block from St. Peter’s Square.

The video appeared to show at least two men enter the church before dawn, take the statues placed at an altar and then throw them in the river. The act was celebrated by conservative Catholics who deemed the statues pagan idols.

Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, the conservative German fired by Francis in 2017 as the Vatican’s doctrine chief, said it was a “great mistake” to bring the statues to the Vatican in the first place.

“To throw it out can be against human law, but to bring the idols into the church was a grave sin, a crime against divine law,” he told conservative U.S. Catholic broadcaster EWTN.

While the theft was cheered by conservative Catholics, progressives denounced the act as racism.

“Can you imagine the conservative outcry if someone tossed the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa into the Tiber?” the National Catholic Reporter, a progressive Catholic magazine, said in an editorial this week. “We do not use the term ‘racists’ lightly, but what else is it?”