In official remarks made at the Vatican today, Pope Francis referred to the controversial wooden carvings of a naked, pregnant female that first appeared at a pre-synod ceremony in the Vatican gardens on October 4 as “statues of pachamama.” Pachamama is a pagan goddess worshiped by the people of the Andes. According to Wikipedia: In…
At the presser for the Amazon Synod today, Vaticanista Sandro Magister said the video of the ceremony in the Vatican gardens before the synod has now gone viral among evangelicals and Pentecostals. “This video is used as a weapon to accuse the Catholics of being idolaters.” Magister explained to the panel. “What is your judgment about…
Editor’s note: Today we are publishing a translation of the first part of the following essay from the website of our friend and colleague, Marco Tosatti. The essay itself is written by the pseudonymous “Super Ex” — a figure Tosatti refers to regularly on his blog — a figure who previously worked within the Church,…
People on various internet platforms are still expressing their dismay and confusion over the pope’s alleged denial of the divinity of Christ, as conveyed by the Italian journalist and former politician, Eugenio Scalfari. We are certainly at a disadvantage when trying to suss out what the pope “means” by the often strange things he says.…
At a ceremony in the Vatican gardens leading up to the Amazon Synod, a very strange ritual unfolded. In addition to more ecological symbolism than you could shake a shrinking polar ice cap at, we saw some disturbing scenes, including a pair of naked pregnant statues carved from wood and a group of people, some…
We’ve heard it before: universities have changed. Professors no longer teach “Shakespeare 101,” but “Shakespeare and Gender in Multimedia” or “Elizabethan Bard Culture.” And poets like Milton and Crashaw have been “canceled.” The classics aren’t just too dead, too white, and too male — they’re too elitist now, too. To delight in the grandeur of…
Since the news broke early this week that the nonegenarian atheist socialist editor of Italy’s La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, claimed that Pope Francis told him during one of their many conversations that he did not believe Jesus was God, the Catholic commentariat has been engaged in a rhetorical battle to the death over who to believe,…
It was once the sort of question that was shared in hushed tones after a few drinks, back in the early days of the pontificate when only a few people seemed to be aware just how bad things were. “What if Benedict is somehow still the pope?” “I think Francis may have lost the office…
Amidst the raging debate over what was at best a syncretistic (and at worst an overtly pagan) opening ceremony for the Amazon Synod, an early push for ending clerical celibacy from Cardinal Hummes, cringe-inducing virtue-signaling from members of the Catholic media, and the jaw-dropping brazenness of a key synod organizer — Bishop Erwin Kräutler — openly supporting women’s…
On Monday, September 30, Pope Francis — the first Jesuit pope — sat down in the library of the Apostolic Palace with fellow Jesuit Fr. James Martin for a half-hour private audience. Gerard O’Connell, writing for the Jesuit-run America magazine, says, “It was their third meeting but their first substantial conversation.” Be that as it may, Martin is hardly an…
The Spanish language online portal Religión Digital has a new interview this week with Cardinal Walter Kasper, who always seems to show up in the media right before Pope Francis makes another major move in the advancement of his “reform” agenda. This time, he’s talking about the possibility of schism, the German church’s synchronicity with Rome,…
