Up the River without an Idol

The biggest scandal to come out of the Amazon Synod involved the use of wooden figures in Rome. During the synod, displays representing the Amazon region were set up around the Vatican and Rome, including plants, canoes, and wooden figures of a pregnant woman. In one instance, people bowed to the display, to these figures. When asked what the figured represented, people were first told she was Our Lady of the Amazon, presumably Mary, thought such a title had never been heard of before. While I think an Amazonian depiction of Mary would be wonderful, I’m not sure this was carved as that intention. Later it was said she represented “life, fertility, and Mother Earth.” So, not Mary. Not Christian. And then it was said she was a representation of indigenous fertility idol Pachamama – unambiguously not Christian.

So were pagan idols brought into Christian churches in Rome or not? No one would give a clear explanation, and the fact that no Church official would only caused the concern to grow. I would have understood if we (Europeans) misunderstood a symbol from another culture, but the fact that no one could clearly say “X means Y” made me believe it was a pagan idol after all. A couple of men took the figures from the church and threw them in the Tiber. Yet the figures were fished out and on display at the conclusion of the synod.

Was this a case of Euro-centric Catholics not understanding an Amazonian expression of the faith? Or was this a case of pagan rituals being brought into a church under the guise of dialogue? Christianity has always adopted pagan symbols and practices. There is nothing wrong about taking a symbol a culture already knows and using it to share to the faith. But it must be baptized—cut out of its pagan meaning and given a Christian identity. A culture’s practice can be kept and used, but it must be reordered to Christ. It must teach truth. These figurines caused confusion and division. Christianity cannot not let a pagan remain pagan.

A goal of the synod is to listen and understand the unique needs of the Amazon region. And that includes, perhaps, practices that we don’t understand at first. Perhaps the statues are Christian but just look different than our ideas of Mary. But perhaps not. The concerning part is no one would say. And we can’t let it remain ambiguous. A dialogue goes both ways, and we must reach a conclusion of what the Church can and cannot allow. #1: You will have no gods before me.