These essays and articles address and respond to the false claims that a pagan ritual took place in the Vatican Gardens on October 4, 2019, that the wooden figure at the center of the ritual was a pagan idol that represented Pachamama, and that Amazonian Catholic spirituality is incompatible with Catholic Tradition.
This is one of the most important—if not the most important—podcasts we have done to date. Pedro Gabriel and I talk about the work he did to unravel and respond to the controversy surrounding the Vatican prayer service before October’s...
“The Synod for the Amazon was historic; no previous synod was as synodal and reform-oriented as this one.” — Cardinal Claudio Hummes, OFM A year and a half ago, I could hardly have dreamed of giving heed to an “Apostolic...
I think it’s completely natural for believers to look at this pandemic and the profound suffering it is causing and ask themselves “why?” The Catechism calls the experience of suffering and evil a “scandal” before going on to say, “If...
In a recent interview with the National Catholic Register, Cardinal Raymond Burke once again criticizes an apostolic exhortation from Pope Francis. Querida Amazonia, the result of the most recent synod on the Amazon, summarizes Pope Francis’s vision of the Amazonian...
Narratives are powerful. Narratives help frame issues and events, making them accessible and more easily understood. Within a world full of confusion and “information overload,” narratives can provide meaning and clarity on complicated issues and controversies. But it is also...
Vatican City — In his latest apostolic exhortation, Querida Amazonia, Pope Francis calls for “authentic” inculturation in the Amazon, so as to allow for the creation of a Church which truly bears the features of the region and the culture of...
The final document of October’s synod of bishops on the Amazon has finally received an official English translation (here). Among its themes and proposals stands out its emphasis on caring for creation (ecology). News coverage of the synod was dominated...
Saint Maximilian Kolbe is world-renowned as the Catholic priest who asked to take the place of another man, a man with a family, who had been condemned to death, as an example to the other prisoners in the deathcamp at...
Today, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, writing from an undisclosed location, issued yet another statement against Pope Francis, summarized by Lifesite News, (another translation is provided by Robert Moynihan of Inside the Vatican) employing the type of language once reserved for...
“Equally worrying is the ecological question (…) At the root of the senseless destruction of the natural environment lies an anthropological error, which unfortunately is widespread in our day. Man, who discovers his capacity to transform and in a certain...
Over the last couple of months, the Brazilian-born group Tradition, Family and Property (TFP) has landed in the public eye, drawing attention for its hostility to Pope Francis and rejection of the Church’s stance towards those marginalized in society. Despite...
I would like to end my series on the controversy around the Amazon Synod carved figure by making a brief commentary on a recent video by Fr. Mitch Pacwa. This video is the source of the “do you think we’re...
Ellie follows me on social media. She doesn’t like Pope Francis and is always looking for clues that she correlates with her daily overdose injections of LifeSiteNews, Remnant, 1P5, NovusOrdoWatch, Rorate, and Arroyo to prove beyond a shadow of a...
In my past articles covering the controversy around the carved figure from the Amazon Synod, I arrived at the conclusion that–contrary to the accusations from the usual suspects–there is no evidence that a pagan ritual took place in the Vatican....
Over the past two months, we’ve witnessed papal detractors create and exploit a controversy based upon actions done during a prayer service led by indigenous Catholics from the Amazon region on the eve of the Synod of Bishops. They’ve used...
In my spiritual formation as a young adult, the idea of a future schism–refusing to submit to the teaching of the pope–was presented as a “liberal” concept. The idea was that in the name of progress, some Catholics rejected papal...
In my last article about the Our Lady of the Amazon / Pachamama controversy, I tried to reconcile the apparent contradictions between the various claims about the identity of the enigmatic wooden carved figure. I reached the conclusion, supported by...
Now that the dust has settled after the Vatican’s summit on the Amazon, one unlikely result has been the surfacing of the connection between Pope Francis’ most avid traditionalist opposers and a broader organized network that has the aim of...
Throughout October, I wrote a number of posts addressing the controversy involving the indigenous statues displayed in the Vatican Garden’s ceremony at the beginning of the Synod on the Amazon. This controversy was based on the notion that it is...
I know that papal documents are not easy reading. I also know we all have lots on the go, and it is hard to find the time to sit down and read and think for a couple hours. But this...
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