A woman stands over an arrangement on the floor in Cusco. Coca leaves have been passed around. The participants close their eyes and breathe as instructed. August, she tells them, is the special month of Mother Earth, who loves them, feeds them, and must be thanked. Each person is to breathe three times over the leaves and place them in the offering. Later, “Grandmother Fire” will carry their messages and return wisdom.
Then the clergy take their turns.
Bishop Lizardo Estrada Herrera, auxiliary bishop of Cusco and secretary general of CELAM, walks forward with the leaves cupped in his hands and deposits them in the vessel. Immediately behind him comes Monsignor Jordi Bertomeu, an official of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and a pontifical commissioner entrusted with some of Rome’s most sensitive investigations in Latin America. He makes the same offering. Bishop Miguel Ángel Cadenas of Iquitos was also present at the gathering.
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The footage records neither Catholic prayer nor blessing nor invocation of the Trinity. Christ is absent from its words and gestures. The gathering’s spiritual opening belongs to Mother Earth and Grandmother Fire. InfoVaticana published the video. It is ugly, plain, and hard to explain away.
This happened on August 13 and 14 at the Southern Macro-Regional Meeting in Cusco, called “Weaving Voices for Dignity: For Human Rights and the Common Good.” The meeting formed part of the preparations for Leo XIV’s November visit to Peru.
So the path was opened for Leo with an offering to Pachamama.
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