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.

Cuban ex-President Raul Castro indicted on charges including murder, conspiracy to kill US nationals

Trump-backed housing bill clears House after GOP defies Senate pressure campaign

Makeup Mogul Walks Away from Hollywood, Donates Fortune to Become Catholic Priest: ‘Never Been Happier’

‘Trying to Break Me… Because I am a Christian’: Ex-Lawmaker Targeted for 10 Commandments Capitol Monument

Georgetown Cupcake keg tosser suspected in second brazen M Street attack caught on video

Fmr Dem Rep Barney Frank, sharp-tongued liberal trailblazer, Dodd-Frank co-author dies

The red states charging ahead with America’s wealth as rivals watch billions slip away

Media Melts Down Over More White Afrikaners Coming to America as Refugees and We All Know Why

Leftists Are Spiraling After Thomas Massie’s Loss and Conservatives Should Take That as a Good Sign

Kentucky voters deliver verdict on Thomas Massie and more top headlines

Leftists Beg College Athletes to Ditch SEC Schools in States with Redistricting

Costco Recalls Popular Item After Person Suffers Second-Degree Burns

MTG says GOP’s future ‘destroyed’ after Trump-backed primary challenger defeats Thomas Massie in primary

Trump admin accuses Hamas of backing Gaza flotilla, sanctions activist and Muslim Brotherhood networks

Trump roils Senate GOP amid struggles with immigration bill

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?”