The wooden statues have a name, and it isn’t Mary. It’s Pachamama. Pachamama isn’t ambiguous like so many things have been the past few years. Pachamama has been a pagan deity for a while. It is one of the few things now about the synod that we don’t have to wonder about.
So while there has been a lot of spin about representation of Mary all of a sudden, Pachamama isn’t Mary. Yes we do have statues and we have to explain it to the Protestants and that’s ok, but they are OUR representations, they are in OUR churches.
They cant expect to bring Pachamama in on a canoe at the center of the heart of Christianity, and then expect everyone to GET IT. There is a long history in the OT about what happened when people began building alters to somebody else. Is the deposit of faith on vacation?
So. While I wont guess what the Holy Father, the vicar of Christ has in mind with regard to Pachamama, [above my pay grade] nobody should be surprised at what Catholics think when people dance around her in the Vatican Gardens. Seriously?