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.

If You’ve Ever Thought Life Is Too Painful to Be Worth Living, This Piece Might Just Change Everything

Shouting match erupts between RFK Jr and Dem lawmaker over his comments about Black children

Hillary Clinton rips Trump on migrant child detentions, but Bill Clinton’s own record cuts deep

10 House Republicans Side with Democrats in Bid to Block Trump from Deporting Haitian Immigrants

Federal agency approves Trump’s plan for triumphal arch ahead of America 250

FBI has received DNA data from Nancy Guthrie case: sources

Sailors injured after fire breaks out on aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower during shipyard maintenance

Missing general, scientist deaths tied to secret US work prompt White House probe

Illegal aliens are getting taxpayer-funded boob jobs and sex change ops in Newsom’s California, watchdog says

Eleven House Republicans vote to rebuke Trump and protect 350,000 Haitian migrants

US Warns it Will ‘Actively Pursue’ Any Vessels Attempting to Aid Iran Outside of the Middle East

Ted Cruz Rips Tucker Carlson Over His ‘Muslims Love Jesus’ Claim: ‘Deranged, Leftist Psycho’

House rejects Democrat attempt to limit Trump’s Iran war powers

Trump says Israel, Lebanon agree to 10-day ceasefire

Tyler Robinson judge unseals ATF report in assassination of Charlie Kirk

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?”