{"id":114387,"date":"2019-11-27T00:49:43","date_gmt":"2019-11-27T07:49:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=114387"},"modified":"2019-11-16T10:00:23","modified_gmt":"2019-11-16T17:00:23","slug":"hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html","title":{"rendered":"Hard Core Traditionalist Eric Giunta Rebuts the “Pachamama” Nonsense One Last Time"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Giunta is no fan of Pope Francis by any stretch.\u00a0 But he is honest and he recognizes a Right Wing Lie Machine Panic du Jour from the congenitally dishonest Lifesite News when he sees it.\u00a0 He writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Undeterred by historical and anthropological fact, logical reasoning, sound theology, or basic human decency and the demands of Christian charity, the once-noble news outlet LifeSiteNews (for which I wrote a few articles some years ago) has\u00a0doubled down in recent weeks<\/a>\u00a0on its #FakeNews \u201cPachmama idols in the Vatican\u201d narrative.<\/p>\n

Since publishing my essay on the manufactured controversy,\u00a0\u201cNo, \u2018Mother Earth\u2019 Is Not Pagan,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0I have been bombarded by numerous responses, just about evenly split between those who appreciated it and those who continue to insist that the now-infamous images prominently displayed during a prayer service in the Vatican City Gardens, and later in the church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, were pagan idols and were adored as such. I responded to a few of the latter, asking them to document their assertions, but naturally none couldn\u2019t, and I was met with various replies, nearly all to the effect of, \u201cIt\u2019s idolatry until proven otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I noted in my essay, those peddling the fake \u201cPachamama\u201d story are right-wing\u00a0Trostkyites<\/a>; as such, they do not care about what is objectively true; or rather, \u201ctruth\u201d for them is not the correspondence of thought to reality \u2014 as the Christian and classical metaphysical tradition insists. Rather, \u201ctruth\u201d is whatever advances the desired narrative. Pope Francis is a bad man, a terrible pope, and a heretic (all assertions with which I agree); therefore, anything that paints him in the worst possible light must necessarily be \u201ctrue,\u201d since it advances that narrative. These neo-traditionalist critics\u00a0agree with U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez<\/a>\u00a0that it\u2019s okay to be \u201cfactually incorrect\u201d so long as you are \u201cmorally right.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not an unfair characterization. There is no other reasonable explanation for why people of at least average intelligence would continue promoting the \u201cPachamama idol\u201d narrative in the face of:<\/p>\n

(1) No evidence that \u201cPachamama\u201d is an Amazonian deity.<\/strong>\u00a0I do not claim to be an expert on the Amazon and its indigenous, non-Christian religions, but I do know how to conduct a search via Google, Google Scholar, JSTOR, and other resources, and I have probably read every #FakeNews story on the matter published by LifeSiteNews, EWTN, OnePeterFive, and all the other neo-traditionalist outlets, and I cannot find any scholarly or other documentation that \u201cPachamama,\u201d an Andean deity, is commonly worshiped by non-Christians in the Amazon. The neo-trads have had over a month to produce such documentation, and it would bolster their case. Their inability to document this, against their own narrative self-interest, along with what appears to be a dearth of scholarly notice of \u201cPachamama worship\u201d in the Amazon, suggests that the \u201cPachamama\u201d obsession is one born of basic cultural ignorance: Someone read somewhere that some South American pagans worship \u201cPachamama,\u201d the Amazon is located in South America, both the Amazon and the Andes begin with the letter \u201cA,\u201d some modern South American nation states cover parts of the Andes and parts of the Amazon, so the identification of the famous images with \u201cPachamama\u201d was made without any critical reflection. Willfully ignorant journalists at low-brow \u201cnews\u201d outlets like LifeSite ran with that narrative without bothering to do any fact-checking.\u00a0Edit:\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>As I note below in the comments, while it is not impossible that some pagan Amazonians who live near the Andes have adopted the worship of \u201cPachamama,\u201d this still has not been demonstrated by the papal detractors; and even if such Amazonians did exist, the statuettes in question were purchased at a market in Manaus, Brazil, nowhere near the Andes.<\/p>\n

(2) No evidence that \u201cPachamama\u201d is worshiped via idols.\u00a0<\/strong>Though it may be hard for some Western pundits to believe, not all \u201cpaganism\u201d is the same, and not all \u201cpaganism\u201d the world over takes on all the same external forms that paganism in the ancient Near East and Greco-Roman antiquity \u2014 the paganism we\u2019re all familiar with from the Bible \u2014 did. Why has no one bothered to ask whether Amazonian pagans even worship idols, let alone whether they worship idolic representations of \u201cPachamama\u201d? Could it be because those, including \u201cCatholic\u201d \u201cjournalists,\u201d making these accusations, just\u00a0don\u2019t care<\/em>?<\/p>\n

(3) No evidence that \u201cPachamama\u201d is worshiped via idols that look like these images<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

(4) No evidence that pagan Amazonians worship idols.\u00a0<\/strong>See (2).<\/p>\n

(5) No evidence that pagan Amazonians worship idols that look like the above images (3).<\/strong><\/p>\n

(6) No evidence that these images represent \u201cPachamama.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He has more to say<\/a>, along with a rather funny parody of the Lie Machine\u2019s logic applied Southern Baptists \u201cworshipping the earth\u201d that makes the core point pretty effectively.<\/p>\n

Of course, at this point, the Righteously Ignorant have their mind made up and their logic comes down to, \u201cIf the pope is not a pagan idolator and that statue is not an idol, then why did the pope worship that idol?\u00a0 Answer me that!\u201d\u00a0 The Cleverdumbs are secure in their ideological bubble and very few will actually listen, even to Giunta.<\/p>\n

Because it\u2019s not about facts or truth.\u00a0 It\u2019s about destroying Francis and using innocent Amazonian Catholics as cannon fodder to do it.\u00a0 If they are being shot and burned off their land while the smear campaign distracts from their plight and their plea for shepherds, too bad.\u00a0 You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette as the apologists for Stalin used to say.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giunta is no fan of Pope Francis by any stretch.\u00a0 But he is honest and he recognizes a Right Wing Lie Machine Panic du Jour from the congenitally dishonest Lifesite News when he sees it.\u00a0 He writes: Undeterred by historical and anthropological fact, logical reasoning, sound theology, or basic human decency and the demands of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1107,7],"class_list":["post-114387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amazon-synod","tag-doings-on-other-blogs"],"yoast_head":"\nHard Core Traditionalist Eric Giunta Rebuts the "Pachamama" Nonsense One Last Time<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Giunta is no fan of Pope Francis by any stretch.\u00a0 But he is honest and he recognizes a Right Wing Lie Machine Panic du Jour from the congenitally\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hard Core Traditionalist Eric Giunta Rebuts the "Pachamama" Nonsense One Last Time\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Giunta is no fan of Pope Francis by any stretch.\u00a0 But he is honest and he recognizes a Right Wing Lie Machine Panic du Jour from the congenitally\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic and Enjoying It!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-11-27T07:49:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-11-16T17:00:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/assets.lifesitenews.com\/images\/made\/images\/remote\/https_www.lifesitenews.com\/images\/local\/Pachamama_810_500_75_s_c1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Shea\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html\",\"name\":\"Hard Core Traditionalist Eric Giunta Rebuts the \\\"Pachamama\\\" Nonsense One Last Time\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-11-27T07:49:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-11-16T17:00:23+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5\"},\"description\":\"Giunta is no fan of Pope Francis by any stretch.\u00a0 But he is honest and he recognizes a Right Wing Lie Machine Panic du Jour from the congenitally\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Hard Core Traditionalist Eric Giunta Rebuts the “Pachamama” Nonsense One Last Time\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/\",\"name\":\"Catholic and Enjoying It!\",\"description\":\"Mark Shea's Blog: So That No Thought of Mine, No Matter How Stupid, Should Ever Go Unpublished Again!\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5\",\"name\":\"Mark Shea\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mark Shea\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/author\/markshea\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hard Core Traditionalist Eric Giunta Rebuts the \"Pachamama\" Nonsense One Last Time","description":"Giunta is no fan of Pope Francis by any stretch.\u00a0 But he is honest and he recognizes a Right Wing Lie Machine Panic du Jour from the congenitally","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hard Core Traditionalist Eric Giunta Rebuts the \"Pachamama\" Nonsense One Last Time","og_description":"Giunta is no fan of Pope Francis by any stretch.\u00a0 But he is honest and he recognizes a Right Wing Lie Machine Panic du Jour from the congenitally","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html","og_site_name":"Catholic and Enjoying It!","article_published_time":"2019-11-27T07:49:43+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-11-16T17:00:23+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/assets.lifesitenews.com\/images\/made\/images\/remote\/https_www.lifesitenews.com\/images\/local\/Pachamama_810_500_75_s_c1.jpg"}],"author":"Mark Shea","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mark Shea","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html","name":"Hard Core Traditionalist Eric Giunta Rebuts the \"Pachamama\" Nonsense One Last Time","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-11-27T07:49:43+00:00","dateModified":"2019-11-16T17:00:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5"},"description":"Giunta is no fan of Pope Francis by any stretch.\u00a0 But he is honest and he recognizes a Right Wing Lie Machine Panic du Jour from the congenitally","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2019\/11\/hard-core-traditionalist-eric-giunta-rebuts-the-pachamama-nonsense-one-last-time.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hard Core Traditionalist Eric Giunta Rebuts the “Pachamama” Nonsense One Last Time"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/","name":"Catholic and Enjoying It!","description":"Mark Shea's Blog: So That No Thought of Mine, No Matter How Stupid, Should Ever Go Unpublished Again!","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/c1a9ac1e557d3c626974fd6692818ad5","name":"Mark Shea","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f287911f45adc932ad24ddbae3597ed5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Mark Shea"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/author\/markshea"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}