Defense Turned Disaster: "Leo XIV Didn’t Worship Pachamama – Just Offered to Her"
On 22 March, Nann wrote on ReligionDigital.org that Leo XIV "is not an idolater, nor did he worship Pachamama".
However, Nann admits that "the young missionary Robert Prevost did indeed participate in this 1995 ecology and theology congress, and within the context of a Mother Earth ceremony, he knelt".
Nevertheless, Nann "cannot see any worship of Pachamama as a goddess".
"We see an interreligious act where a representative of Andean culture makes an offering to the Earth — a gift and a dialogue with the Earth.' Other people, including Augustinian priests, attended this ceremony, which forms part of Andean culture. Respecting the Earth as a 'being with a soul' does not mean that it is not a creature of God. Pachamama is the earth, or rather the soul of the earth. Therefore, we can speak to it just as we speak to the saints. We can kneel before it, just as we do before the saints, so long as we see it as a creature and not a goddess."
For Nann, it is the intention that matters: "A gesture of prayer is not automatically an act of worship, nor is kneeling."
He also dismisses the accusation that Pope Francis worshipped Pachamama during the Amazon Synod as "ridiculous". "I know people who participated. In the centre of the circle, there was a cloth with many decorative objects—plants, fruits, and also stylised wooden images of a pregnant woman. Some saw the Virgin Mary in it, while others saw Pachamama. These objects were neither worshipped nor treated as idols; they were simply decorations."
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