Our Lady of the Amazon | On Theft and the Very Badly Done

Two days ago, on Oct. 21, two men stole four statues of Our Lady of the Amazon from the Santa Maria in Traspontina Church in Rome and knocked them into the Tiber River. One of the statues had been presented to Pope Francis by the indigenous Catholic woman who lead the tree planting ceremony in the Vatican Gardens on Oct. 4, and he had blessed it. 

I found out about the theft Monday morning, when I happened upon Taylor Marshall's YouTube video on the event. He was up in the middle of the night, sitting in the dark, with only his computer screen illuminating his face, and whispering his joy to the world. (Certainly that doesn't seem like the behavior of a conspiracy theorist...)  I didn't spend any time watching his video once I ascertained what had happened. Highly disturbed, I clicked on the link he provided to the video footage of the crime. Then I went back and left a comment shaming the deed and Taylor's celebration of it. Of course, yesterday he and Timothy Gordon were arguing that stealing property from a church was not theft in this case. I didn't watch this video either. The verdict was contained in the headline. 

I took all the hyper conservative, Pope Francis-bashing YouTube channels off my subscriptions and favorites list, and I'm thoroughly detoxing now from all of it. In addition to Marshall, this includes Michael Voris/Church Militant, The Remnant, Patrick Coffin, Lifesite News, and any of the other junk that kept coming up on my YouTube recommendations. I'm sure these guys all mean well, but as Mr. Knightley scolded, "Badly done, Emma! Very badly done!"
This admonishment goes for the cowardly men who stole the statues, anonymously, as well. 

This stuff can become addictive, like a train wreck you can't take your eyes off. It can cause extreme anxiety and interfere with sleep. People's faith is being ruined by irresponsible, biased reporting and commentary. This cannot be of Our Lord. I strongly encourage anyone who has been likewise disturbed by the hysteria to put your gaze on something uplifting. Seek out Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Trust in God's sovereignty and his Vicar on Earth. As I've been saying, pray without ceasing. Offer up your suffering. Then it will not be wasted.

I do want to discuss Our Lady of the Amazon, and how she is not the goddess Pachamama, and the deeper implications of folks celebrating the yellow-bellied stunt of the thieves. But I'm going to do that in a separate post. All I wanted to say to all of these men, now notorious in my eyes, is "Badly done. Very badly done."