A Catholic priest has outraged Indigenous parishioners in New Mexico by removing a revered religious icon that depicts Jesus as a Mescalero Apache medicine man.
The 8-foot "Apache Christ" painting hung behind the altar at the St. Joseph Apache Mission church in Mescalero for 35 years until June 26, when the Rev. Peter Chudy Sixtus Simeon-Aguinam took it down, the Associated Press reported Saturday.
Simeon-Aguinam also removed a smaller painting of a sacred Indigenous dancer, as well as ceramic chalices and baskets given by the Pueblo community for use during the Eucharist, AP said.
A member of the mission's parish council, Anne Marie Brilliante, said that the move came as the region was reeling from wildfires that killed two people and destroyed 1,000 homes, and that the revered statute had been authorized by Bishop Peter Baldacchino and overseen by an official from the local diocese.
Parishioners initially thought the items had been stolen and they've since beeen returned by the dicocese, AP said.
Baldacchino also replaced Simeon-Aguinam with another priest who's reportedly more familiar with the Apache community.
But some chuch members remain unsatisfied, with Brilliante accusing Simeon-Aguinam of claiming to wipe out their "pagan" culture and force them to choose between being Apache or Catholic, despite a reconciliation effort launched in 2022 by Pope Francis.
"Hearing we had to choose, that was a shock," she said tearfully.
Brilliante also said that during a two-hour parish council meeting with Baldacchino after the items were returned, the bishop seemed most concerned about "Apache Christ" being reinstalled too "hastily."
A spokesperson for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops declined to comment.
But last month, the conference overwhelmingly approved a pastoral framework that dismissed the "false choice" between adhering to "traditional Indigenous culture" or Catholicism.
"For Native Catholics who feel this tension, we assure you, as the Catholic bishops of the United States, that you do not have to be one or the other. You are both," according to the 56-page document.
Church elders Glenda and Larry Brusuelas told AP that Baldacchino would have to offer a public apology if he wanted to repair the rift caused by the removal of "Apache Christ," which was created in 1989 by Franciscan friar Robert Lentz with the approval of 15 Mescalero leaders.
"You don't call or send a letter," Larry Brusuelas said. "You face the people you have offended and offer some guarantee that this is not going to happen again. That's the Apache way."
