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.
Last night, I came across a live YouTube discussion of the prayer service that took place in October 2019. Michael Lofton invited Father Deacon Anthony Dragani, an Eastern Catholic deacon and professor of Religious Studies at Mount Aloysius College in...
Crisis editor Eric Sammons recently wrote an article in which he claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic is God’s way of punishing the world for the “idolatry” of “Pachamama.” WPI has published many articles refuting the idea that Pope Francis promoted,...
The second episode of Field Hospital is released! In this episode of Field Hospital, Jeannie Gaffigan and I speak to journalist Kathryn Joyce about the rise of extremism within the US Catholic Church. Kathryn began reporting on the increasing visibility and...
If you own one of those Our Lady barometer statuettes, you will know to expect rain when she turns pink. One of the best-selling souvenirs in Lourdes, in those stores piled high with mass-produced pastel-colored delights of popular piety, is...
Today marks exactly two years since a young Austrian convert to the Catholic faith, Alexander Tschugguel, stole five wooden figures of pregnant indigenous women from the Amazon from Santa Maria in Traspontina church in Rome in the early morning hours....
“At the Synod on Amazonia in Rome in October 2019 some groups in the Church and their media reported the presence of indigenous people through a continuously distorted lens. What was beautiful in that synod—the deep respect for indigenous culture...
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...
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