Pachamama Before the Amazon Synod?

The 1995 Augustinian Symposium and the Ecotheological Roots of a Contemporary Crisis

An Investigative Analysis of the Prevost Photographs, Ecotheology, and the Limits of Inculturation
The recent circulation of photographs allegedly depicting Pope Leo XIV—then Fr Robert Prevost—at a 1995 Augustinian symposium in Brazil has provoked immediate controversy. Initial debate centred on authenticity. That question, however, now appears largely resolved. The images are said to derive from a published volume, Ecoteología: Una Perspectiva desde San Agustín (Mexico, 1996), containing the proceedings of the IV Simposio-Taller “Lectura de San Agustín desde América Latina”, held in January 1995.¹

The issue has therefore shifted. It is no longer whether the images exist, but what they represent—and, more significantly, what theological framework produced them.

The Symposium and Its Intellectual Milieu
The symposium was not an informal pastoral encounter but an official Augustinian theological workshop, gathering clergy and scholars to interpret Augustine of Hippo within a Latin American context. This detail is decisive. It situates the material within structured ecclesial reflection rather than incidental missionary exposure.

The 1990s in Latin America marked a transitional theological moment. Following Roman interventions against certain forms of liberation theology, the movement did not disappear but evolved. Socio-economic analysis gave way to cultural, anthropological, and ecological frameworks.² What emerged was not abandonment, but mutation—a reconfiguration of theological method rather than its cessation.

Within this environment, ecotheology developed as a field seeking to integrate the doctrine of creation, the lived experience of indigenous cultures, and a renewed symbolic reading of nature. The very title of the proceedings confirms that this was not peripheral to the symposium but central to its purpose.

Reconstructing the Ecotheological Framework
The theological method underlying such a symposium can be reconstructed with reasonable precision. Drawing upon Augustine’s doctrine of signa, creation is understood as a network of signa—signs which point beyond themselves to the res they signify, namely divine reality itself.³ This permits a symbolic reading of the natural world—one that recognises created things as mediations of truth rather than ends in themselves.

Yet in the Latin American development of this approach, the symbolic register is frequently intensified. Creation becomes not merely indicative but relational; human beings are understood as embedded within a network of ecological and cultural meanings. Indigenous cosmologies, in turn, are often interpreted as pre-theological intuitions—anticipations, however imperfect, of Christian truth.

Alongside this stands the principle of inculturation. As articulated by John Paul II, the Gospel must be expressed within the symbolic and cultural forms of each people.⁴ In practice, this has often entailed the incorporation of indigenous imagery, gestures, and symbolic language into theological reflection. The intention is not syncretism but translation—yet the boundary between the two is not always clearly maintained.

The Ecological Turn and Its Trajectory
By the mid-1990s, ecological concern had become a theological category in its own right. Creation was no longer treated merely as a backdrop to salvation history but as a locus of moral and spiritual meaning. This development would later receive global articulation in the teaching of Francis, particularly in Laudato Si’, but its roots are clearly present in earlier Latin American discourse.⁵

The symposium, therefore, must be understood not as an anomaly, but as part of a broader movement—one that sought to integrate ecology, culture, and theology into a unified vision.

The Pachamama Caption and Its Significance
Central to the present controversy is the claim that one photograph in the proceedings is captioned as depicting a “Rite of Pachamama (Mother Earth),” described as an agricultural ceremony. If accurately reported—and this wording is now consistently repeated across multiple sources—then a crucial point must be conceded: the identification of the rite would originate within the publication itself, not from later polemical interpretation.

This represents a significant evidentiary development. It shifts the argument from projection to internal designation. Yet it does not resolve the theological question. A caption, however explicit, does not determine whether what is present is treated as signum—a sign pointing beyond itself—or as something approaching res, an object invested with its own quasi-sacral significance.

The distinction is not secondary. It is determinative.

Augustine and the Boundary of Worship
The invocation of Augustine introduces a tension that cannot be ignored. Augustine affirms that creation is filled with signa, but he insists with equal force upon the absolute distinction between Creator and creature. Any confusion between signum and res—between that which signifies and that which is signified—constitutes a disorder of love (ordo amoris).⁶

Here lies the fault line. Indigenous symbolism may be integrated insofar as it remains within the order of signa, pointing beyond itself to God. But if the symbol is treated as though it were res—as though it possessed intrinsic sacred agency—the boundary is crossed. The question, therefore, is not whether such symbolism appears, but whether it remains ordered toward God or is allowed to terminate in itself.

From 1995 to the Amazon Synod
The significance of the 1995 symposium is not that it proves later controversies, but that it reveals their preconditions. The categories present—inculturation, ecological theology, engagement with indigenous cosmology—are the same categories that would later surface at the Amazon Synod.

The Pachamama controversy did not emerge ex nihilo. It arose within a framework already decades in development. The symposium therefore serves as an early instance of a theological trajectory that would later become visible at the level of the universal Church.

The Prevost Question
What, then, may be said of Fr Robert Prevost? The available evidence establishes that he was present at a 1995 Augustinian symposium concerned with ecotheological themes, within which indigenous symbolic elements appear to have been incorporated.

It does not establish that he personally performed or endorsed a Pachamama rite. It does not demonstrate adherence to syncretistic theology. Nor does it determine the theological orientation of his later pontificate.

The material is historically grounded, but its interpretation remains contested.

Conclusion: Inculturation or Confusion?
The foregoing analysis has proceeded with necessary caution: distinguishing between what is documented, what is probable, and what remains interpretative. Yet there comes a point at which caution must give way to clarity. That point is reached not in speculation about the 1995 symposium, but in the public and verifiable actions which took place during the Amazon Synod under Francis.

The relevant facts are not in dispute. A carved female figure—widely identified as “Pachamama”—was carried in procession, incorporated into prayer gatherings, associated with a Stations of the Cross context, brought into the precincts of St Peter’s Basilica, and placed within spaces ordinarily reserved for sacred use. These actions were not private, nor incidental. They were public, ritualised, and ecclesial. In several instances, participants were observed engaging in bodily gestures—bowing and prostration—traditionally associated with acts of reverence.

At this point, the question ceases to be whether such a symbol can be defended in theory. It becomes whether such actions can be reconciled in fact with the principles governing Catholic worship.

Catholic theology has never treated ritual gestures as neutral. Procession signifies honour. Placement within the sanctuary signifies sacred relevance. Incorporation into devotional acts signifies participation—however implicitly—in the object of that devotion. To introduce a symbol into such contexts is to risk elevating what should remain signum into the position of res.

It is here that the defence of “neutral symbol” collapses. Even if one grants the most charitable intention—that the figure represented life or creation—the mode of its treatment communicates something more. The gestures employed—carrying, displaying, positioning within sacred space—are gestures historically and theologically associated with reverence. In Catholic worship, what is done is not secondary to what is intended; it is the very means by which intention is expressed.

This principle is not a matter of opinion but of doctrine. In Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae (1899), Leo XIII explicitly warned against adapting the faith in ways that obscure its doctrinal clarity under the pretext of accommodation.⁷ In Mortalium Animos (1928), Pius XI rejected any approach that places Christian truth alongside non-Christian religious expressions as though they were commensurable.⁸ The Church may engage cultures, but she may not blur the distinction between revealed truth and non-Christian religion.

The same principle governs missionary practice: cultural elements may be adopted only insofar as they are purified and clearly subordinated to the worship of the true God. Where ambiguity remains, the risk is not merely confusion but doctrinal distortion.

Here the teaching of Augustine again proves decisive. Signs must lead beyond themselves to God; they must not become objects of misplaced reverence. When signa are treated as though they were res, the order of signification collapses, and with it the clarity of worship.

In light of this, the events of the Amazon Synod must be judged by their objective meaning. A symbol identified as “Pachamama,” rooted in a non-Christian cosmology, and treated within liturgical and devotional contexts in a manner resembling honour, cannot be reconciled without collapsing the distinction between signum and res.

The problem, therefore, is not that the Church engaged with culture. She has always done so. The problem is that this engagement appears to have failed to maintain the necessary clarity of categories. A symbol rooted in a non-Christian cosmology was introduced into contexts reserved for Christian worship and treated in ways closely resembling reverence. This is not merely inculturation. It is a confusion of signification.

And it is precisely this confusion that gives retrospective weight to the 1995 material. The symposium does not prove a scandal; it reveals a trajectory. It shows that the theological categories were already present. The Amazon Synod did not invent them. It enacted them.

A Church that permits ambiguity in her signa does not merely risk confusion—she risks obscuring the very res those signs exist to reveal.

¹ Ecoteología: Una Perspectiva desde San Agustín (Mexico, 1996).
² Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Libertatis Nuntius (1984); Libertatis Conscientia (1986).
³ Augustine of Hippo, De Doctrina Christiana, I–II.
⁴ John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio (1990), §§52–54.
⁵ Francis, Laudato Si’ (2015).
⁶ Augustine of Hippo, De Civitate Dei, XV.
⁷ Leo XIII, Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae (1899).
⁸ Pius XI, Mortalium Animos (1928).

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