Pope Francis asked forgiveness Friday from Amazonian bishops and tribal leaders after thieves stole indigenous statues from a Vatican-area church and tossed them into the Tiber River in a bold show of conservative opposition to history’s first Latin American pope. Francis insisted that the carved wooden statues of naked pregnant women were brought to the Vatican for display during his Amazon synod “without any intention of idolatry,” undercutting conservative claims that they were symbols of pagan, idolatrous worship.
