LOOK: New photos of future Pope Leo XIV in Pachamama idolatry emerge

(LifeSiteNews) — Independent research has confirmed that Fr. Robert Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, participated in a Pachamama ritual in 1995, with newly uncovered photographic and video evidence corroborating LifeSiteNews’ earlier report.

Following the publication of evidence by Father Charles Murr on a special edition of Faith & Reason, the website Novus Ordo Watch disclosed that it had been independently investigating the same event since 2025, and has now released further material.

Mario Derksen, the properietor of the website, wrote:

[…] Novus Ordo Watch, too, has been working on this story behind the scenes, since last year, but had not yet released the information because not all i’s had been dotted and not all t’s had been crossed yet. We wanted to be absolutely sure that this was going to be an airtight, slam-dunk case against Robert Francis Prevost. […]

Since Life Site has broken this news, we will now go ahead and, in this post, release the first part of our research on this.

Derksen said his investigation initally centred on the same 1996 volume found by Fr Murr, titled Ecoteología: Una Perspectiva desde San Agustín. The book contains photographs of the event and documents the proceedings of the “Fourth Symposium on the Reinterpretation of St. Augustine’s Thought from a Latin American Perspective,” at which the ritual took place.

The book includes images captioned as a “Celebration of the Rite of Pachamama (Mother Earth), which is an agricultural rite offered by the cultures of the South-Andean region in Peru and Bolivia” and depict then-Father Prevost – now Leo XIV – amongst kneeling participants.

In addition to the images published by Father Murr, Derksen identified a 2016 video on the YouTube channel of the Organization of Augustinians in Latin America (OALA), which includes further footage of the same event in color. One image appears to show participants prostrating themselves during the Pachamama rite, while then-Father Prevost is seen leaning forward, apparently preparing to join in the same gesture.

Derksen said he obtained physical copies of the same Spanish edition of the 1996 volume located by Father Murr, as well as the original Portuguese version, Ecoteologia Agostiniana. He indicated that further findings – including textual references to Pachamama from the books – will be published in a subsequent report.

Summarizing his conclusions, Derksen wrote:

For those who are not aware of what this means: It means the current ‘Pope’ engaged in an act of blatant idolatry — a mortal sin against the First Commandment — while attending a conference on ‘eco-theology’ in São Paulo, Brazil, in January of 1995. At the time, Prevost was working as a missionary in Peru for the Augustinians, where he had been on assignment since the 1980s.

LifeSiteNews contacted Derksen for further comment. He said:

Why is this coming to light now? Presumably because it is only since last May that Robert Prevost has been widely known – as Leo XIV. This would not be much of a story if it were ‘only’ a group of relatively unknown clergy participating in this 30 years ago.

Some will raise the objection that since this took place 30 years ago, it may very well be that Robert Prevost repented of his participation in the Pachamama ritual and went to confession. Yes, that’s possible; and if that is what happened, Leo XIV now has an obligation to disclose that because the scandal is now public.

He can use the opportunity to condemn paganism and the worship of idols and remind the world of the divinely-inspired words of St. Paul that “neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God” (1 Cor 6:9-10).

Novus Ordo Watch, founded in 2002 and registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in Ohio, describes itself as “a lay-led internet apostolate whose primary goal is to educate the public about the true Roman Catholic religion and the institution we refer to as the ‘Novus Ordo Sect’ […]”

Pachamama is an Andean “Mother Earth” deity associated with indigenous religious practices.

Recent reporting by InfoVaticana has also highlighted documented links between Pachamama-related rites in Bolivia and cases of human sacrifice. In one such case, two individuals were sentenced to 20 and 30 years in prison following the disappearance of a 24-year-old woman. The investigation found that she had been buried in a mine as an offering to Pachamama.

In the episode of Faith & Reason, LifeSiteNews CEO John-Henry Westen called for the clergymen who had condemned the 2019 Pachamama ceremony at the Vatican to apply their condemnations to Leo XIV:

The question is, do those condemnations now apply to Pope Leo XIV? What Francis scandalously permitted in front of him, Leo actually engaged in.

These clergymen included Cardinals Raymond Burke, Gerhard Müller and Walter Brandmüller, Bishops José Luis Azcona Hermonoso and Athanasius Schneider, and Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

LifeSiteNews has also launched a petition calling for Leo XIV to set the record straight and condemn Pachamama worship. The petition states:

This is therefore the time for you to clarify the situation and condemn all forms of idolatry and religious syncretism, and in particular the worship of the Pachamama goddess.

Such a public condemnation would repair the harm caused by Francis in 2019 and clarify your own position with regard to the worship of this false Mother Earth goddess.

The duty to profess the faith openly and clearly when God’s glory or scandal is at stake is well established in the Catholic Church. Pope Felix III, quoted by Pope Leo XIII in Inimica Vis, wrote:

An error which is not resisted is approved; a truth which is not defended is suppressed…. He who does not oppose an evident crime is open to the suspicion of secret complicity.

During the 2019 Amazon Synod, a Pachamama ceremony was held in the Vatican Gardens before Pope Francis, cardinals. and bishop. A group including Franciscan friars knelt and prostrated themselves,  foreheads to the ground, before two wooden statues of the earth goddess Pachamama. The ritual was led by a woman with a painted face and headdress, who later processed to Pope Francis and placed rings on his fingers. A second woman brought to him a Pachamama statue, and Francis blessed himself before it, blessed it, and took it as a gift from the woman.

Following the ceremony, the Pachamama idols were processed into the Paul VI Hall, where the pope, cardinals, and bishops met for discussions at the Amazonian Synod. Later, the Pachamama idol would be processed into St. Peter’s Basilica, where, again, the pope and cardinals stood around it, praying.

READ: Pachamama idolatry returns: Cardinals who condemned Francis’ scandal now face Leo’s

Several prominent Catholic clerics and thinkers quickly condemned the blatant act of idolatry. In an open letter, Bishop Athanasius Schneider called the Pachamama the new “golden calf”:

In virtue of my ordination as a Catholic bishop… I condemn the veneration of the pagan symbol of Pachamama in the Vatican Gardens, in St. Peter’s basilica… The honest and Christian reaction to the dance around the Pachamama, the new Golden Calf, in the Vatican should consist in a dignified protest…

In an interview with the French independent TV station TVLibertés, Cardinal Raymond Burke called the Pachamama a “demonic force” and called for reparation for the idolatry:

Something very grave happened… An idol was introduced into St Peter’s Basilica – the figure of a demonic force… Therefore reparation is necessary… so that the diabolical forces that entered with this idol are vanquished…

Statues associated with the ritual were later removed from a Roman church by Alexander Tschugguel and thrown into the River Tiber. Pope Francis subsequently apologized for their removal, referring to them as “statues of the Pachamama.”