A supporter recently brought to our attention a curious Earth Week entry in the Catholic Family Center newsletter “Salt and Light.” The Catholic Family Center is a division of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Rochester. The newsletter entry directed readers to check out several resources to help celebrate Earth Week including checking out the educational programs of an organization called the Pachamama Alliance.
Further investigation shows that the Pachamama Alliance is a frequent go to organization for environmentally concerned Catholics. The Sisters of Mercy even have a more formal tie to the organization and run the Pachamama Alliance’s “Awakening the Dreamer” conferences at parishes around the country.
Another Catholic organization promoting the “Awakening the Dreamer” conference is the Catholic Climate Project. On a page listing ways to “get involved,” the Catholic Climate Project posted an announcement indicating that the “Awakening the Dreamer” event had been postponed.
The Catholic Climate Project (CCP), while claiming to be an independent organization, is clearly a puppet or spin-off organization from the Catholic Climate Covenant, which we spotlighted in a previous report. The Catholic Climate Project’s “About Us” page indicates that the Associate Director for the Catholic Climate Covenant, Jose Aguto” is the co-chair for the Catholic Climate Project. Another member of the CCP’s leadership team is Paz Artaza-Regan. Considering that the Sisters of Mercy were involved in setting up the Pachamama Alliance’s “Awakening the Dreamer” conferences, it isn’t surprising to see a member of the Sisters on the leadership team of the CCP. Another group we’ve previously profiled which is involved with the CCP is the Ignatian Solidarity Network.
Given the degree to which various Catholic organizations, are promoting the Pachamama Alliance, we thought it a good idea to see what this is all about. The bottom line is that the Pachamama Alliance an NOT an organization Catholics should be promoting or having anything to do with at all! Our research shows that the Pachamama Alliance is a thoroughly pro-abortion and pro contraception organization, and even worse, it introduces and indoctrinates its trainees into occult and pagan practices.
Support for Abortion and Contraception
The Pachamama Alliance has shown support for both abortion and contraception on its website and in its activities.
In 2015 the Pachamama Alliance invited Rebecca Griffin of NARAL Pro-Choice California to speak at its May monthly gathering to discuss abortion rights and holding crisis pregnancy centers accountable for blocking women from access to abortion and contraception.
The Pachamama Alliance has a project called Ikiama Nukuri (formerly Jungle Mamas) which works among the Amazonian Achuar population providing safe birth kits and other maternal needs. Unfortunately, part of the education is introducing the Achuar people to family planning / contraception, though it must be noted that this program does not directly provide contraceptives. Robin Fink, former director of the program stated:
“The discussion of HIV/AIDS has enabled Jungle Mamas to talk about the use of the condom as a means of STD prevention and family planning, a subject that was previously forbidden to talk about due to cultural taboos.”
Fink also discussed these workshops on the Pachamama Alliance website:
In this workshop, the various methods and their effectiveness of family planning were discussed. When we address family planning, we address it from the perspective that by spacing children further apart, families can work to improve the quality of health for Achuar women, as it is very common for women to have children one after the other, thus increasing risk of health problems such as anemia, malnutrition, and post-partum hemorrhage. By providing the information about the various methods of contraception available to women in Ecuador, Jungle Mamas places the tools of knowledge and empowerment into the hands of the maternal health promoters and families to dialogue and discuss among themselves how they want to plan their families. Out of respect for the autonomy of the Achuar people and their culture, Jungle Mamas does not distribute contraceptives.
Indoctrination into Occult and Pagan Practices
The Pachamama Alliance places a heavy emphasis on shamanism and training in pagan occultism. Much of this emphasis stems from the influence of Pachamama’s co-founder and board member John Perkins.
Perkins claims to have had training in many forms of shamanism and has written several books on occult techniques such as pshychonavigation.
Multiple blog entries on the Pachamama Alliance site detail shamanistic practices, communication with “animal” spirits and downplaying the “myth” of biblical creation while stressing shamanistic cosmology.
This pagan occultism is not just in Pachamama’s blog entries. Supporters who travel with the Pachamama Alliance to the amazon region are given shamanistic “experiences” as part of their travel package. Furthermore, the “Awakening the Dreamer” training being brought to parishes by the Sisters of Mercy invites the participants to “connect to the spirit of the Pachamama” and “Invite in the spirit of Pachamama or any other spirit-guide that we connect with, to help us find the right words and actions for our meeting.”
Needless to say, the invocation of spirits is expressly condemned by the both Scripture and Tradition and is an absolute hazard to the souls of those partaking in such practices!
Please contact the Diocese of Rochester, the Sisters of Mercy and any parish you find that promotes the Pachamama Alliance and inform them of the dangers of working with such a pro-abortion pro-occult organization.
Contact Info:
Diocese of Rochester
Pastoral Center
1150 Buffalo Road
Rochester, New York 14624
Letters may be sent to:
[Person or Department]
Diocese of Rochester
1150 Buffalo Road
Rochester, New York 14624
Switchboard: 585-328-3210
Sisters of Mercy
Institute Office
8403 Colesville Road, Suite 400
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910
The earth is not my mother. It is a rock floating in space, a rock I poop and pee on. Mary, Mother of God, is my spiritual mother.
The devil will infiltrate everywhere there is a little crack to get in. Thank you Lepanto Institute for your vigilance. God bless you.
All of this nonsense started with the eco-freaks and has morphed into a secular religion. It is most unfortunate that some of our clergy have even bought into it. Such nonsense also calls into question their competence in the area of religion. No wonder church attendance is dropping.
“The essence of all pantheism, evolutionism, and modern cosmic religion is really in this proposition: that Nature is our mother. Unfortunately, if you regard Nature as a mother, you discover that she is a step-mother. The main point of Christianity was this: that Nature is not our mother: Nature is our sister. We can be proud of her beauty, since we have the same father; but she has no authority over us; we have to admire, but not to imitate. This gives to the typically Christian pleasure in this earth a strange touch of lightness that is almost frivolity. Nature was a solemn mother to the worshippers of Isis and Cybele. Nature was a solemn mother to Wordsworth or to Emerson. But Nature is not solemn to Francis of Assisi or to George Herbert. To St. Francis, Nature is a sister, and even a younger sister: a little, dancing sister, to be laughed at as well as loved.”-GK Chesterton
I am Catholic, but the amount of hatred I see from fellow Catholics astounds me. We should care about the earth, but we should also stop caring about abortion. Especially since many of these same so-called Catholics who oppose abortion live and breathe for the police and military.
Opposition to killing babies isn’t hatred. And many Catholics who oppose killing babies also oppose warmongering.