The Return of the Pachamama

[00:00:01] It was recently discovered that Father Robert Prevost, the Future Pope Leo XIV, likely participated in a Pachamama ritual in 1995 when he was a South American missionary priest. [00:00:14] What are Catholics to do with this information? [00:00:16] Hello, Eric Sams, and welcome to Crisis. [00:00:35] Okay, so we finally get to talk about something other than politics this week. So that's good. Unfortunately, it's not something very uplifting. I don't think so. Last week, LifeSite News published an article in which they basically said that Pope Leo XIV, back in 1995, when his father, Robert Prevost, a missionary priest in South America, participated in a Pachamama ritual. Now, that's a pretty bold claim. That's a pretty outlandish claim. Scandalous claim. You better be able back it up. Well, they kind of did. So here's the picture they posted. I need to get that bigger here. Let me put up on the screen a little bit bigger here. Okay. [00:01:17] So what you see in this picture is. [00:01:21] Looks like a prayer service. [00:01:23] And if you look in the back third to the left, that's pretty obviously Father Robert Prevost. [00:01:31] Now, there's a caption. This is from a book. I think it's on a ecology conference or something from back then. And this is from a book published back then. And there's. There's a caption in Spanish. The book is Spanish. Now that I had the. The caption. I don't speak Spanish. [00:01:48] I had the caption translated by Google Gemini, an AI program. [00:01:53] And basically what it says is celebration of the rite of the Pachamama parenthesis Mother Earth, which is an agricultural rite offered by the cultures of the South Indian region in Peru and Bolivia. [00:02:08] So a celebration of the rite of Pachamama. So to say that this is a Pachamama ritual isn't exactly stretching the truth any. Or going beyond what's obviously. I mean, literally, the caption in the book says it's a right of the Pachamama Mother Earth. [00:02:30] And Father Robert Prevost seems to be clearly in that photo and celebrate. He's kneeling in that photo. There's another photo that came out soon after that, which. In which it looks like they're. They're bowing down. And he's starting to bow down, it looks like. I mean, I will say it's hard to kind of explain it away. That didn't really happen. [00:02:56] And so I want to talk about that today, particularly kind of, what does that mean for us as Catholics, having a pope that potentially participated, likely participate in an idolatrous ritual 30 years ago? [00:03:15] I want to do one, I want to do a couple things. First. The first thing I want to say is simply we shouldn't downplay or gaslight what Pachamama is. [00:03:30] It's not the Virgin Mary. It's not the Virgin Mary. [00:03:36] And I know since the 2019 Pachamama service at the Vatican, soon after that, there was a, there's been a whole, like, push to try to explain away. That's not really a, it's not really an idol. It's really just the Virgin Mary. [00:03:54] That's just not the case. In fact, it's funny, when I had Google Gemini translate that under that, that caption, it added a couple notes, and one of them was, it was defining what Pachamama was. [00:04:09] It said, pachamama, in Inca mythology, she is a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting. [00:04:16] So this is just the AI program saying, you know, it has no skin in this game. [00:04:21] It doesn't care about, like, our, our gaslighting or how we might be scandalized. It just simply describes Pachamama as in Inca mythology, she's a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting. And that's exactly what it is. [00:04:34] It's a pagan goddess. That's what Pachamama is. To act like it's anything other than that is simply, it's just simply gas. Lying. Lying. It might be ignorant. Some people, I mean, I, I, there's useful idiots who might be ignorant about it, but honestly, the people who are really pushing that narrative that the Pachamama never was an idol or something pagan, it just, you know, try somewhere else. [00:05:01] And so it's pretty clear that if you participate in a Pachamama ritual, anybody who knowingly, knowingly venerates or worships Pachamama, they commit the mortal sin of idolatry. Period. End of story. You're violating the first commandment. [00:05:23] I mean, that just simply. There's no other way around it than to say that it simply is a idolatrous act to knowingly venerate Pachamam or worship Pachamam because it's a pagan goddess. I mean, the problem, of course, is our modern mind has a hard time with that. Our modern mind doesn't like terms like idolatry or it makes things like idolatry something that was done long ago, and we don't really have that anymore. Maybe we have idolatry of money or power or sex or something like that. [00:06:03] But the fact is, for all of Christian history and all of Jewish history for that matter, so dating back to the beginning of time. [00:06:15] God's people, whether it was the Jews before Christ or the Christians after Christ, God's people have always rejected wholeheartedly any suggestion of idolatry. In fact, if you look at the Old Testament, there's no question that idolatry is the sin that God seems to be the most concerned about among his people. I mean, like I said, he made literally the first commandment. [00:06:42] God is called a jealous God in the Old Testament, which makes it very clear. [00:06:48] He demands. [00:06:50] He demands. Remember my podcast last week, if you saw it, about remaking Jesus? [00:06:56] We find that Jesus is very demanding. The actual Jesus is very demanding, not the, the fake Jesus that's, that's often worshiped today. [00:07:06] God is very demanding. He demands that we worship nobody other than Him, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So any suggestion, even of worshiping something other than God is to be rejected by any Catholic, any faithful Catholic. Even the appearance, even the appearance of worshiping or venerating some pagan goddess is to be condemned as scandalous at the very least. So I want to make that clear right out of the chute. [00:07:39] And the other thing I want to say is what happened in 2019 at the Vatican in October 2019, that Pachamama service was evil. It was awful. I was one of the most vociferous voices against it. I'm not backing down from that. I'm not changing my opinion of what I thought back then. [00:08:00] And in fact, the most controversial article I probably have ever written for Crisis, I would guess would be the one in which I said Pachamama caused Covid. [00:08:13] Now, of course, people, the title I think was something like, you know, something like that Pachamama caused Covid or Pachama caused this or something like that. [00:08:23] Now, of course, I explained it a little bit more in detail in the article. [00:08:28] I did not mean that the Pachamama goddess created some, you know, the COVID virus or the demon or something like that. That's not what I said. What I, what I meant by it was, and I'm very clear in the article, if you, you read in good faith, was that the idolatrous actions that happened at the Vatican in October 2019, I believe it's very possible that God lifted his protection in some level because of that idolatry. If you look at how the Old Testament plays out over and over again, this is not some crazy talk out of me. It's something that we saw, we see over and over again, the Old Testament when that the people engaged in idolatry, God lifts his protection from them and bad Things happen. And I think that's what happened. [00:09:15] Now, to be clear, I did not have a vision from the Almighty that told me this. [00:09:21] This is simply my speculation of cause and effect here. That, yes, opening up the, the, the. The world engaging in idolatry opened up some demonic forces in the world, which led to Covid and all. And really, when I say Covid, I mean the COVID event. [00:09:43] I'm not saying the actual virus itself, but just the fact that we have a. [00:09:51] Everything that followed from COVID the lockdowns, the vaccine mandates, the vaccines themselves, the masking mandates, the craziness of the churches being closed, all the pain and suffering that was caused by that virus. [00:10:08] And yes, there were deaths from COVID as well, particularly those who had comorbidities. [00:10:14] They also. [00:10:17] That was also one of the evils. But there's so many evils that were associated with COVID And I do think that still, I still believe that Pachamama. [00:10:24] And like I said, that's my opinion. I can't, like, prove it. I don't try to prove it. I'm just simply saying I think that's what happens. So, all that being said, let's now move to the. To the present day. We find out that the current Pope has almost definitely. I mean, I, I never like to make definite statements based upon photographs or videos. It's like the whole problem you have when videos come out of, like, something happens and it goes viral and everybody's making their hot takes and saying, this is what happened. And then you find out, okay, the whole video didn't. They didn't show the whole video. [00:10:58] And so I always hesitate to make absolute statements. But I'm going to presume for the purposes of this podcast that, yes, Father Robert p. Vost, in 1995, was participating in a Pachamama ritual. [00:11:14] If it comes out later that somehow these photos were doctored or it wasn't a Pachamama ritual or whatever, then great, that's awesome. [00:11:24] And everything I say from here forward you can just ignore. [00:11:28] But let's just presume for the sake of argument and frankly, because there's some pretty significant evidence that suggests it's true that he participated in this. So everything I've said coming up to this is I don't take back. It's awful. So here are some possibilities, though. I do think this is different. I don't think this is the exact same thing as what happened back in 2019. In fact, I would say the fact that you had a Pachamama ritual at the Vatican 2019 is almost proof that this type of stuff was going on in Catholic circles in South America for a long time. [00:12:07] It's not like all of a sudden in 2019, somebody just had the idea, hey, I know what we'll do. [00:12:16] I will decide to have a Pachamama service that nobody's ever heard of, nobody knows anything about, and I will put that up, you know, and we'll do that at the Vatican. That's just simply not. [00:12:32] That's not what happened. The reality is, is that there are likely been these Pachamama rituals practiced by Catholics, including Catholics priests, for decades in South America. And this is just one example of that. [00:12:47] So. But the point is, is that certain possibilities that we. That that are, that could be true about Father Robert Prevost, Now Pope Leo XIII, engaging in this 14th. I'm sorry, engaging this in this ritual. [00:13:02] First is, the first possibility is he knew it was an idol at the time and he worshiped and venerated it. [00:13:10] So he, he engaged knowingly in idolatry, mortal sin, obviously. [00:13:17] And then if that's true, then one or two possibilities are also true from that he later repented of that and went to confession and he's forgiven, or he did not repent of it and he thinks it's still fine. He's like, yeah, I know it's an idol. I venerated as an idol. I worship idol, whatever. And I still think it's great. [00:13:38] That's kind of one family possibilities. [00:13:41] Another possibility is he didn't know it was an idol and still doesn't. [00:13:46] Maybe he thinks it was the, the Blessed Mother and he still thinks it was. You know, he still, to this day, kind of, maybe he, you know, when this whole Pachamama thing happened, 2019, he's like, why is everybody calling this Mother Earth? This is like the representation of the Blessed Mother. It's possible. [00:14:01] Not saying this, by the way, these possibly. I'm not saying which one's more likely than the other. I'm just saying it's possible. Now, that's still grave scandal and he should come out and say, here's what I thought and here's why I still think, or whatever. But the point is that's one possibility. Another possibility is he didn't know it was an idol at the time. But then he later learned it was like, maybe he just was invited to this conference. They do this thing. He's like, he looks at, he's like, oh, that must be like some representation of the Blessed Mother, whatever. [00:14:29] But then he found out later, oh, shoot, that was actually Pachamama, Mother Earth and Inca, you know, goddess or something like that. [00:14:38] In which case, again, he then repented of it, or he didn't repent, said, I don't care. It's not that big a deal. I mean, these are kind of the different possibilities of what happened back in 1995. [00:14:53] And here's the truth. Unless Pope Leo himself comes out and says something, we can't know for sure exactly what happened as far as his knowledge at the time and what he's done since then. [00:15:08] Now, again, if he at that time knew it was an idol and then later repented, or he didn't know it was an idol, found out later, and then he repented, if that, if one of those is true, then, yes, he should publicly come out and say, hey, he, by the way, you should say, hey, I. This was wrong. I've repented of gone to confession. Don't do this, people. [00:15:32] Now, it's also very likely, let's be honest, he has no idea about this story coming out. [00:15:40] This is a very, you know, I even hesitate whether or not I was going to talk about it because I decided it was important enough. But it's not like it's some major story that, like, major media is covering, because major media doesn't care, including major Catholic media. [00:15:57] And so, you know, LifeSite News broke it. LifeSite News, you know, it's not, it's bigger than Crisis magazine, I think, in its reach. I'm assuming that. I don't know that as a fact, but I know they have a bigger staff and they produce a lot more articles than we do. So I'm assuming they're bigger than us, but we're pretty tiny. [00:16:13] You know, Novus Ordo Watch, I know, posted some stuff, too, but I guarantee nobody at the Vatican cares about Novus Ordo Watch. [00:16:22] But the, the point is, let's say he finds out that this came out and he says, oh, yeah, he should say, I shouldn't have done that or something like that. [00:16:32] But the fact is we cannot know. Anybody who's claiming we can know as a fact Pope Leo, what he thinks now about this, just simply can't state that. [00:16:44] And in fact, this is one of the, this is the reason we have authority in the Church, is so that when things like this happen, we can have a process, a legal process to figure out guilt. We can figure out if the person needs to repent and things like that. [00:17:01] And so let's say Father Robert Prevost had not become pope even before he became Pope, what should have happened? Here's what should have happened. When that came out, if it got back to the local bishop, and let's say it did, he should have then brought in Father Previos, any other Catholics who were at that ceremony, and said, this is. This is terrible what you did. You need to publicly repent. You need to go to confession. You need to tell people, you know, I shouldn't have done that. And maybe they would even should have been suspended. I mean, he should have. The point is there should have been a process where the bishop would find out, okay, what were you thinking when you did this? Give them a chance to defend themselves and say, okay, I thought I was worshiping a pagan idol, your Excellency, what's the problem? Or they would have said, what are you talking about? I thought this was the Blessed Mother, Virgin Mary. Whatever the case may be, the bishop would have gone through a process and taken care of that. End of story then. Because either the priest, like Father previous or whoever would have been excommunicated for not repenting, engaged in idolatry, or he would have been given some type of punishment, maybe a suspension, something like that, would have gone to confession, repented, and then the problem solved that way either. The point is, is that's how things should work. But we all know in the modern church, that's not how they work. It just simply isn't. [00:18:23] You know, a priest can do something like come out against a Democrat presidential candidate and get. Get their hand slapped and punished and things like that, but doing something like this, like I said, I'm willing to bet it was probably pretty prevalent down there, stuff like this, and that's what should happen even now. [00:18:44] So, for example, let's say a priest here in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, it comes out that a priest engaged in something like this back in the 90s, and they're still alive, they're still, you know, a active priest in the archdiocese. What should happen is the archbishop should call them in, talk to them about it again, ask them, figure out what went on, determine from there the steps to take. That's how the Church's hierarchy works. That's how canon law works. It's a legal process where a human institution as well as a divine institution, these things is how it should happen. [00:19:17] Now, the problem, though, is that the man who engaged in this, likely back in the 1990s, is now the Pope. [00:19:25] And so who calls him in? [00:19:28] This is really. This has always been an issue in Catholic ecclesiology, is that the first C is judged by no one. [00:19:36] And so what is the process? I don't think it's. In fact, I know it's not clear in Catholic ecclesiology and Catholic canon law what you would do in this situation. [00:19:49] There is no, there is no means in which you could put, for example, Pope Leo under trial for this. [00:19:57] There's been speculated, there's been speculations about how you could potentially do something like this, but none of that is actually in place, so to speak. [00:20:08] And so I do want to say this, though. One thing I know for sure, even though it's not clear exactly how you could go about putting a Pope on trial, for example, I know this for sure. [00:20:22] Lifesite News. Finding this photo does not mean he's not the Pope. It does not mean that all of a sudden Robert Prevost is no longer the Pope or he never was the Pope or anything like that. That's simply not how it works. [00:20:32] I know the city of A contest are like doing a victory dance right now because they're like, see, I told you so. [00:20:39] I told you that he's not the Pope. And neither was Francis and neither was Benedict and JP2 and anybody else. I don't like. They're not popes because I say so. That's just simply not how it works. [00:20:51] The fact is, if you think, if you think no pope in history, no legitimate pope that's been recognized by the church in. In history has ever engaged in idolatry, if you think that's never happened because it just couldn't, you know, I got a bridge to sell you. [00:21:10] You're just simply naive or ignorant or purposely being obtuse. One of those is basically the options. [00:21:19] I mean, I pulled up this. This is a quote from Robert Mateo. I think it is a book he wrote about. [00:21:30] I think it was from a book somewhere. But he's talking about Pope John xii. [00:21:34] Pope John xii, who was pope during the first ponocrisy of the papacy in the 10th century. It says all of them, clerics and laity alike, declared that, quote, Pope John XII had turned the Holy palace into an actual bordello, a brothel. [00:21:51] He had blinded Benedict, his spiritual father, who died shortly afterwards. He had killed John Cardinal Subdeacon by cutting off his, let's say, privates, it's family podcast. He had set fires. He girded himself with a sword and armed himself with helmet and shield. He testified. They testified to all of this. All of them, both clerics and lady, cried out, listen to this part. Cry out that he would toast to the health of the devil. [00:22:17] They said that in games of dice, he would invoke the help of Jupiter and Venus and other demons, that he would not celebrate matins in canonical hours, and he wouldn't make the sign of the cross. [00:22:30] So are you telling me Pope John XII wasn't an idolater? I mean, he was probably a demon worshiper. If anything, he was at least an idolater. [00:22:41] Yet nobody is taking John XII off the list of legitimate popes. He was a legitimate pope, and nobody's saying otherwise. Or if they are, they're making it up. Now, the Church has never claimed that. [00:22:56] Likewise, St. Boniface VIII said he denied the immortality of the soul and the afterlife. [00:23:05] So he was a heretic. Nobody says Boniface VIII wasn't a pope. [00:23:11] Further, popes have literally bought and sold the papacy. [00:23:15] Alexander VI bought the papacy. [00:23:18] Pope Benedict IX sold the papacy, I think, twice. He might have even bought it back. [00:23:25] And you'll hear Seti Vakantes today say, oh, my gosh, look what happened in the. The Papal conclave of 2013. There was a conspiracy, and that led to the. The. And that violates canon law. Therefore, Francis isn't the Pope. Now, I know I'm making fun, and I probably shouldn't do that, but it just. It's too easy, I admit. Maybe I shouldn't do that. But the point is, I'm not saying it's not scandalous if there was people violating canon law during the conclave and having this conspiracy, but that simply does not invalidate the results of the election. [00:24:01] Just like Pope Alexander VI buying the papacy, Pope Benedict the 9th selling the Papacy did not invalidate those. Those popes ended up becoming legitimate popes. [00:24:13] And likewise with Francis. [00:24:16] And so if all this is true, and it is, and I'm sure the Sevacantes have, like, some. Some explanations. I mean, I've actually read them, and they're just not. They're not compelling at all. They basically whitewash history or they deny history in order to act like, okay, these people, you know, they didn't really do these things. The fact is, if Father Robert Prevost had engaged in this Pachamama activity back in 1995, and he knowingly did not repent of, or something like that, it doesn't mean he's not the pope. [00:24:53] What it does mean is that obviously that's very bad. That's scandalous, that's awful. [00:25:00] But lots of things are scandalous in the Church today. Lots of things are scandalous in church history particularly. [00:25:07] And so what I care about more, to be honest, not that I don't care about the fact whether or not Pope Leo, again, we cannot know what his current views are on this unless he comes out and says something. [00:25:22] Assuming the worst about him is a sin. [00:25:27] And being a Pollyanna and acting like there's no possibility he could do something like this is also, I don't know if that's a sin as much as just being willfully blind and not using your reason. [00:25:38] So that's not something good either. [00:25:41] We don't want to fall into either extreme where we just immediately jump onto, okay, my gosh, he's an apostate, he's an idolater, all this stuff, or, oh, come on, he's a saint. I mean, I saw, like, I think some Catholic publication published something very interesting timing just today or yesterday, saying how some, like, fluff piece about how saintly he was invoking some saint or something like that. [00:26:07] Let's not act like, you know, here's the reality. [00:26:11] Most popes aren't saints. Most people aren't saints. So let's not act like Pope Lee all of a sudden is a saint either. [00:26:18] But what I care about the most, honestly, is, and this is something I've always cared about the most when it comes to stuff like this is what are we as Catholics supposed to do with this information? How are we supposed to react to it? It. [00:26:30] So we see scandals in the church today. [00:26:33] What are we supposed to do about it? I mean, what am I supposed to do? I mean, you know, I will say I'm not very. I'm not supportive of how certain people have reacted. I know that, and I'll say it right here. I, I'm. I don't like how LifeSite News has handled it. [00:26:49] I mean, John Henry Weston, whom I consider a friend, and I think he's a good guy. [00:26:55] I mean, clearly the article was written in a way where it was like, okay, let's lean into the scandal. [00:27:02] And then, you know, they run a petition. [00:27:05] Sign this petition to ask to tell the Vatican they need to do whatever. And we all know these petitions are simply email gathering things. They're not. Nobody thinks this petition is actually going to do anything at the Vatican. It's not. Oh, my gosh, we got, you know, a thousand people sign this petition. We better not do it or whatever. Change your mind? No, It's a way to e. Gather email. And then I did see even Lifestyle News had, like, a fundraising article about tying into this. Let's raise money off of this. We were the ones who broke this story. [00:27:37] I just think that's, that is not a very good way to deal with it. And then I saw my friend Chris Jackson. I actually say that ironically because I'm not friends with him. I'm not like any, I don't consider him an enemy. I, I mean, I was friendly with him for a number of years when I guess he approved of how I acted. Now he doesn't. And so he likes focusing on me. [00:28:00] I saw where he said, and by the way, I decided to do this podcast episode before I saw any of this. [00:28:06] Believe that or not. [00:28:07] When I saw the story last week, I was like, I probably should do a podcast. I do my podcast on Tuesdays. And so I decided a couple days afterwards last week to do this. But he was saying, like, it's been four days since this came out and the trad media has not said anything from Michael Matter, Peter Kwasneski, or 1 Pier 5, or crazy or Eric Salmons. And then he mocked me because I posted something, a thing about a race I ran 5K. I ran this weekend, this past weekend, for it was sponsored by a great Catholic organization, the Angelico Project here in Cincinnati. [00:28:39] And I was proud of it, to be honest. I, I, I thought I'd share it because I was happy with how I did. But he's mocking me because, like, instead of getting upset and doing something about this Pachamama scandal, he's talking, he's riding a race. I want, I'll make a full confession this weekend. [00:28:57] Yes, it's true I ran a 5K. [00:29:01] It's also true I play Wiffle Ball with my kids. [00:29:04] It's also true I read a number of books. I read a book about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD which is very good, by the way. [00:29:11] I also went to mass. [00:29:13] I also watched an old movie with my kids. [00:29:17] All these things. Yes, it's true. I did. [00:29:19] And I did not say anything this past weekend about the Pachamama scandal. So I guess I'm not a good enough Catholic. I mean, honestly, Chris's whole shtick anymore is being mad all the time about the fact that not everybody's mad all the time. [00:29:34] I just don't think the reaction we're supposed to have is to be completely consumed by these things. And we're just like, immediately go online and type, here's. Here's what I think about this. Here's what I think is how terrible is every. The sky is falling, the church is falling apart. Oh, my gosh, this is awful. [00:29:51] I just won't do that. I don't Think I've ever done that. But I will admit here publicly, I've said this actually before, that perhaps I was a little bit more into stuff like that in years past. That was a little. I got a little bit more obsessed with some of this stuff. And I was more like, okay, I have to have a quick reaction to it and make sure I post my views online. [00:30:16] And I'll be honest, for me, I'm not saying this for everybody. For me, X was a big part of that. [00:30:21] Being more. I'm not on X as much anymore. Being, like, made me feel like I got to make a comment about everything going on in the church. It's almost like my job, but I don't. It is my job to comment on things going on at church. It doesn't mean I have to comment immediately, nor does it mean I have to get upset every time. [00:30:39] Being obsessed with this stuff and, and being like anything, anytime something like this happens, that we go crazy online is unhealthy, spiritually, mentally, and physically. [00:30:53] It's just unhealthy. [00:30:55] I know some of these people picture themselves as crusaders for truth, that they are the crusaders for truth. The reality is, if this is your life that you're super obsessed with, you're probably just a loser with no life. And I'll just say that bluntly. [00:31:12] I'd rather have a life where I spend time with my kids. Yes. I run a 5K. [00:31:18] I, you know, spend time with my family. I read good books and things like that. That's not being Pollyannish. That's not putting my head in the sand. Because again, here I am commenting on it, not like, I refuse to comment on it. I mean, here's the balance. I think we have to have. [00:31:34] I think we have to be very clear about church teaching. [00:31:38] We have to be very clear about what is acceptable, not acceptable for Catholics. Those of us. I'm talking now, most of those who are in the kind of the commentary space, don't whitewash it. Don't, don't gaslight and say, oh, Pachamama's not. Is really the Blessed Virgin Mary. Let's not, you know, we don't lie. This is anybody who, like I said already, anybody who knowingly venerates or worships Pachamama has committed a mortal sin and needs to go to confession. [00:32:06] If you did unknowingly, now you find out, then you still need to go to confession. [00:32:12] We should not go to the extremes where one is like the, the kind of the, the corporate Catholic media that, like, wants to treat every Pope like they're a saint, refused to ever criticize him whatsoever or the other extreme of oh my gosh, let's find every single thing we can to make the Pope look bad and, or he's not the Pope or something like that. [00:32:36] We should not obsess about these things like it's the end of the Church as we know it every single time something like this happens. None of that helps. It just doesn't help. That's the reality. [00:32:46] So, yeah, so just before I get to live chat, by the way, I appreciate everybody in the live chat jumping in before I get to that just kind of, here's the thing, don't engage. Don't ever participate in a Pachamama ritual. It's idolatrous, it's sinful. [00:33:04] Don't excuse it if Father Robert Prevost in 1995 engaged in it and he has not repented. I hope and pray he repents, but it does not fundamentally change the Church today. We are in a crisis. We've been in a crisis. This does not change the way things are in the church today. We know already that many priests and bishops are not faithful Catholics. [00:33:35] And so if it's true that Pope Leo now is still thinks, hey, I worship a pagan God, whatever, like that. If he ever thought that, that's awful. [00:33:46] But we don't know that. And so we should not judge him and act like it's definitely true. [00:33:51] And we should not act like, okay, now I gotta pack up my bags and go to the latest set of Akonta's Chapel and hang out with them or something like that. That's just ridiculous. [00:34:02] Okay, so let me put these things up here. Okay. [00:34:06] Mack 2192 says, how can the leadership of the church not see this breaks the number one commandment. Yeah, I mean it is amazing the mental gymnastics people go through to explain this stuff away when for 4,000 plus years it was obvious to every believer that this stuff breaks the first commandment. And trying to explain it away just simply doesn't work. It just shows a real lack of faith, lack of catechesis, desire to be like the world. I mean, lots of different things. Things. [00:34:40] Oh, my buddy Anthony, thanks for coming on. I can't believe you have to say he's pressure you in discussing this. That's such an Anthony comment as I mentioned. Believe it or not, believe it. I already decided to discuss this last week before I saw I. In fact I saw the comments after I decided to discuss this guy. I thought, well, I better get online a little bit at least and see what people are saying before I come, before I make my video. And that's where I saw that. So, okay, Mac 2192 says he is a White Sox fan. So they're there. Yeah. I mean, come on. [00:35:11] Something's wrong with you. If you're a White Sox fan, we should all know that Phoenix XP says Trad Inc. Paid you to do this. Yes, that is true. [00:35:19] I got some serious bitcoin. That's the great thing about Trad Inc. Is they started paying in bitcoin. And so I got like serious bitcoin for doing this. That is true. Okay. Romulus says active participation in non Catholic right is still mortal sin regardless of interior disposition, communicator and soccers. Okay. [00:35:39] No mortal sin. [00:35:42] It's a grave matter. [00:35:47] I dispute most of the things you say here. [00:35:51] It is a grave matter to participate in a Pachama ritual. However, mortal sin requires knowledge of what you are doing. [00:36:01] You have to understand what it is you're doing. Now, again, I'm not saying father Robert Previs, 1911. I didn't understand. I'm just simply saying let's make sure our definitions are properly defined here. And that is mortal sin is not the same thing as grave matter. You have to have grave matter in order for a mortal sin to happen, but you also have to have knowledge of what you're doing and a full intention of doing what you're doing. I mean, in this case, it wouldn't really apply, but for example, a teenage girl who is basically forced into an abortion, the abortion is a grave matter, but it could potentially not be a mortal sin for her because she did not intend to do it. She was basically forced into it, even if she knew that she was, that it was the killing of her unborn baby. So I do, I, I, I would just say, Rob, you're going further than what the church says here. So again, I'm not saying you do it. I'm not saying it's not a sin. Potentially, just knowledge does matter. [00:37:01] Okay, next one. Mac, again, who's the bobblehead on the desk? Oh, my bobblehead. Here, let me pull this up. [00:37:07] I was hoping somebody would ask. Here's my bobblehead. [00:37:10] That is actually me. [00:37:13] My son bought this for me. He got this for me. A bobblehead of me for my birthday one year. And yes, I know it's a little bit egotistical to have it, but I just love liked it so much that I put it on my desk for the podcast. So yes, that is a bobblehead of me. So. Okay. PhoenixXBL says I don't always agree with Eric's takes, but like how balanced he is. No crazy vibes. Well, I will say I was explaining to somebody recently the mission of Crisis magazine and in it I talked to him about, I said one of the things about us is, yes, we will criticize church leaders, we will criticize things going on in the church, we will be very direct and honest about it, but we won't jump on the crazy train. [00:38:00] That's. I just won't jump on the crazy train. I will go and you know, like I said, I will criticize people in the church, high ranking if I feel like it's necessary, but I'm not going to jump on the crazy train. And so I appreciate that that you said that I wasn't, you know, on, on, on the crazy vibes or anything like that. So. Okay, I'm gonna leave with that. I would just say my, my final thing is again, be at peace. No matter what's going on around us, don't act like it's not going on. [00:38:28] That's not what I'm saying. But at the same time, live a life of, of holy holiness. Live a life of cath. Practicing the Catholic faith and don't let these things bother. If you were, if you read that article Lifesite News and, and you were like your whole piece was disturbed last week, then I really do think you need to look at yourself in how you, how you interpret and how you process church news. [00:38:59] Yes. You should be thinking, that's awful. That's scandalous. I wish that happened, happened. I prayed for his repentance. If he, if he did this knowingly or whatever, all these things. Yes. [00:39:10] And if anybody asks me about it or if I'm a public commentator, I'm going to make sure it's clear this is not acceptable. But if it's something that really bothered, like disturbed your peace, then that I would say is, is a you problem, not more than it is a church problem in that case. So. Okay, I'm gonna leave it there. I appreciate everybody jumping in the live chat and joining us with that. Like I said, usually Tuesday afternoons I try to have these live podcasts. So. Okay, until next time, everybody. God love you. And remember the poor sa.