Bishop José Luis Azcona Hermoso had led the prelature of Marajo for almost 30 years: from 1987 until his retirement in 2016 at the age of 76.
But after he stepped down, the apostolic nuncio in Brazil asked him to leave the Marajo region before his successor was installed.
During the Amazon Synod of 2019, Bishop Azcona sounded the alarm about the decline of Catholic practice.
“The Amazon, at least the Brazilian Amazon, is no longer Catholic,” he reported. He charged that the Synod’s discussion were based on “a distorted vision of the so-called Amazonian face.”
Bishop Azcona was outraged by the ceremonial exaltation of the “Pachamama” figure at the Vatican during the Synod, calling it a “scandalous, demonic sacrilege.”