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...
“This sanctity is what protects and has always shielded the Church from every positivist and manipulative ideological reductionism (…) The synodal perspective does not cancel out antagonism or surprises, and neither do conflicts get solved by syncretic solutions of ‘consensus,’...
The pope’s official response to the Amazon Synod was released on Wednesday. Entitled Querida Amazonia (“Beloved Amazon”), it is said to complement rather than supercede the synod’s own Final Document (my analysis of which you can read here) (QA 2)....
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...
1. The title “Querida Amazonia” is Portuguese / Spanish for “Dear Amazon”–as in somebody’s female beloved, or the salutation of a letter. Oftentimes (not always), a papal document with a title in a vernacular language is meant to speak to...
It appears we have reached a stalemate. Cardinal Sarah has given his version of events of how the book, From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church, came to be written. Archbishop Georg...
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...
[Note: this article has been updated with a new section entitled “The Pope weighs in”] This Monday, October 20th, some people barged into the Church of Santa Maria in Transpontina, where the controversial statues were kept and displayed, stole them,...
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