Prefect for Communication comments on theft of statues from Rome church

At the conclusion of a press briefing in the Vatican on Monday, the Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, Dr. Paolo Ruffini, says the theft of indigenous statues is a contradiction to the spirit of dialogue.

By Vatican News

Early on Monday morning, unidentified individuals entered the Church of St. Mary in Traspontina, near the Vatican.

They removed a group of statuettes from a side chapel, and threw them in the Tiber River nearby, posting a video of the gesture on social media.

The statuettes, which depict pregnant indigenous women, were used in an October 4^th ceremony in the Vatican at the beginning of the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon Region.

‘Theft that speaks for itself’

Dr. Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication, responded to a journalist’s question at the Monday press briefing for the Synod, in the Holy See Press Office.

“We have already repeated several times here that those statues represented life, fertility, mother earth. It was a gesture – I believe – that contradicts the spirit of dialogue that should always inspire us. I don’t know what else to say except that it was a theft, and perhaps that speaks for itself.”

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