The LifeSiteNews portal has published for the first time a series of photographs in which the current Pope Leo XIV, then the Augustinian Robert Francis Prevost, appears on his knees participating in a Pachamama rite during a symposium held in São Paulo in January 1995. The images come from the official proceedings of the event, edited in 1996 under the title Ecotheology: A Perspective from Saint Augustine.
The report is supported by the work of priest Charles Murr, who is preparing a book on the current Pontiff and claims to have gathered documentation on the case for months. According to Murr, three Augustinian priests have unequivocally identified Prevost in the main photograph, in which he is seen kneeling alongside other participants in the context of the rite.
The volume itself where the images appear leaves no room for interpretations about the nature of the act. The caption describes the scene as a “Celebration of the Pachamama Rite (mother earth)”, defined as an agricultural rite typical of Andean cultures, especially in Peru and Bolivia. The photograph shows several attendees on their knees around an altar, in an unequivocally religious attitude.
The proceedings also include other images that confirm Prevost’s presence at the symposium, such as a group photograph of all participants and another corresponding to a Eucharistic celebration in the same place. LifeSiteNews also maintains that the identification of the then Augustinian religious has been reinforced through comparison with images from the era published in the order’s internal magazines.
The context of the event refers to Latin American theological currents linked to so-called ecotheology, in which dialogue with indigenous worldviews was promoted. However, what the images show goes beyond a cultural or academic exchange: it is participation in a rite directed toward a divinity foreign to the Christian faith.
The episode is particularly painful due to Prevost’s personal circumstances at that time. Around forty years old and with a already consolidated career within the Augustinian order, his presence on his knees in a ceremony of this type cannot be attributed to lack of formation or immaturity. The scene documents an objectively scandalous gesture in one who today occupies the chair of Peter.
The publication of these images can generate deep confusion among many faithful. The reference to Pachamama is not merely decorative or symbolic, but refers to religious practices that still exist today and in whose name human sacrifices continue to be performed. That is why the gravity of the fact is not exhausted in the past, but projects its effects onto the present of the Church.
Nevertheless, the episode can and should be clarified. The situation demands a public explanation about the context of that participation and, if necessary, a clear rectification. Asking for forgiveness and marking a path of correction would not weaken the Pontiff, but would help dispel the astonishment and repair, at least in part, the damage caused by images that are difficult to assimilate for any Catholic.
In the meantime, the information disseminated by LifeSiteNews and the prior work of Charles Murr place on the table a fact of enormous gravity: Robert Prevost, today Pope Leo XIV, was photographed on his knees in a Pachamama rite in full adulthood and in an explicitly religious context.