The National Catholic Register portal reports on the latest production of the conciliar sect’s media apparatus: a travelogue series titled The Road Less Traveled: Türkiye, hosted by one Dave Stotts, a Protestant convert to the neo-church, airing on EWTN. The article, penned by Amy Smith, details Stotts’ appearance on EWTN Live with the conciliar “priest” Mitch Pacwa, where the two discuss Stotts’ “journey” to the post-conciliar structure, his visits to early Christian sites in Turkey, and the supposed “beauty and truth of the Catholic tradition” he claims to have discovered. The piece is a masterclass in conciliar propaganda: it substitutes archaeology for theology, sentiment for dogma, and a subjective “road less traveled” for the una via of the true Church. This is not the Catholic Faith; it is a guided tour of the catacombs by those who have abandoned the Catacombs’ Lord.
The Conciliar Sect’s Latest Propaganda Tool
EWTN, the flagship media network of the “Church of the New Advent,” has long served as the primary instrument for anesthetizing the faithful with a simulacrum of Catholicism. The Register article functions as a press release for this apparatus, uncritically amplifying the narrative of a “Christian Indiana Jones” who brings “history and the Catholic faith to life.” The very phrase “Catholic Indiana Jones” — repeated by both the author and the conciliar “priest” Pacwa — reveals the naturalistic core of this enterprise. The Faith is reduced to an adventure serial; the Mysterium Fidei becomes a backdrop for vehicular stunts and culinary asides about Turkish coffee. Quas Primas teaches that “the hope of lasting peace will not yet shine upon nations as long as individuals and states renounce and do not wish to recognize the reign of our Savior” (Pius XI, Quas Primas). EWTN’s travelogue recognizes no such reign; it offers only a scenic route through the ruins of Christendom, led by a convert who has mistaken the conciliar sect for the Kingdom of Christ.
A Convert’s Subjective Journey into the Neo-Church
The article centers on Stotts’ conversion narrative, a textbook example of the subjectivist ecclesiology condemned by the Syllabus of Errors. Stotts recounts: “If it’s just me and my Bible … it’s my interpretation that gets the final vote,” he recalled thinking of the ‘buffet of options’ in ‘free-market ecclesiology,’ hallmarked by ’39 flavors … churches specifically for you.'” Having recognized the chaos of Protestantism, he leaps from the frying pan into the fire of the conciliar sect. He states: “I said: I want to recenter my gravity to the very beginning… I discovered the beauty and truth of the Catholic tradition.” But which “Catholic tradition”? The tradition of the Tridentine Mass, the Syllabus, Pascendi, and the Oath Against Modernism? Or the tradition of Vatican II, the Novus Ordo, religious liberty, and ecumenism? Stotts’ “road less traveled” has led him not to the Porta Caeli but to the porta inferi of the post-conciliar abomination. His “wrestling through some existential problems … to get it right” is the language of Modernism, condemned by St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu: “Christ did not proclaim any specific, all-encompassing doctrine suitable for all times and peoples, but rather initiated a certain religious movement, applied or applicable to different times and places” (Prop. 59). Stotts treats the Church as a personal discovery, a consumer choice validated by feeling, not as the Societas Perfecta instituted by Christ, outside of which there is no salvation.
Reduction of the Church’s Mission to Naturalistic Tourism
The entire series is framed as historical tourism. Stotts visits the Cave Church of St. Peter, the “Dark Church” of Cappadocia, the underground city of Derinkuyu, Patmos, and Myra. He describes frescoes, mosaics, escape tunnels, and “the oldest icons of Jesus in the world.” This is archaeology, not apostolate. The article notes: “It conjures the imagination of what it was like to be an early Christian, candles flickering, a priest in tattered robes holding the Eucharist, celebrating the Mass.” Stotts hopes viewers will be “moved.” But movere is not credere. The Syllabus condemns the error that “The teaching of the Catholic Church is hostile to the well-being and interests of society” (Prop. 40); the conciliar sect inverts this, making the Church subservient to cultural interest. The early Church is presented as a museum exhibit. The Social Reign of Christ the King, so eloquently defended in Quas Primas — “His reign extends not only to Catholic nations… but His reign encompasses also all non-Christians, so that most truly the entire human race is subject to the authority of Jesus Christ” — is entirely absent. There is no call for the conversion of Turkey, no denunciation of Islam, no proclamation of Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus. Only a “history hunter” savoring Turkish coffee.
The Absence of the True Mass and Sacraments
The most damning omission is the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Stotts waxes poetic about a “priest in tattered robes holding the Eucharist, celebrating the Mass” in the depths of Derinkuyu. But does he attend the True Mass? The article says he is a host on EWTN, the network of the “pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost), the latest usurper in the line of antipopes beginning with John XXIII. The “Mass” Stotts attends is the Novus Ordo Missae, a Protestantized meal service fabricated by the Freemason Bugnini, which violates the theology of the propitiatory sacrifice defined by the Council of Trent. The “Eucharist” he imagines in the underground church is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ; the “Communion” he receives in the neo-church is, at best, a piece of invalid bread, at worst, idolatry. The Defense of Sedevacantism demonstrates that a manifest heretic cannot be Pope (Bellarmine, De Romano Pontifice); the line of claimants since 1958 are manifest heretics by their adherence to Vatican II. Therefore, the hierarchy Stotts submits to possesses no jurisdiction. His “conversion” is a conversion to a paramasonic structure, not to the Ecclesia Catholica.
Fr. Pacwa and the Invalid Clergy of the New Rite
The article features “Father Mitch Pacwa,” a “priest” of the conciliar sect, ordained in the invalid Paul VI Rite of Ordination (1968), which removed the essential form for the sacerdotium. He is not a priest; he is a layman in vestments, simulating the Holy Sacrifice. The Register treats him as an authority. He jokes about Turkish coffee and the North Pole. This is the clericalism of the neo-church: men who possess character indelebile only in the imagination of the faithful, exercising a “ministry” of entertainment. The Syllabus condemns the proposition that “The sacred ministers of the Church and the Roman pontiff are to be absolutely excluded from every charge and dominion over temporal affairs” (Prop. 27); the conciliar “clergy” have excluded themselves from the spiritual affair of the True Mass. Pacwa’s presence validates Stotts’ delusion. Two blind men leading each other into the ditch (Matt. 15:14).
Historical Sites Without the Living Tradition
Stotts visits Antioch, where “Sts. Paul and Barnabas ministered… as did St. Peter.” He sees the cave church. He discusses St. Ignatius, his letters, the Eucharist, hierarchy. “St. Ignatius’ seven letters offer ‘fascinating windows into the life and belief of the earliest Christians,'” he says. Fascinating windows — but he does not enter the house. The faith of Ignatius — “I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ… I desire the drink of God, namely His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life” — demands the True Mass. The faith of the Cappadocian Fathers — Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus — who fought Arianism with the word homoousios (consubstantial), demands the Credo of Nicea, not the credo of the “pastoral” council. Stotts says: “Whenever I go to Mass… when we get to that part — consubstantial… my mind and my heart goes back to these men.” Blasphemy. He utters the word “consubstantial” in a rite that has emptied it of its dogmatic force, in a church that teaches religious liberty (condemned by the Syllabus, Prop. 15, 77, 79), collegiality (denying papal monarchy), and ecumenism (denying Unam Sanctam). The Arians denied the Divinity of Christ; the Modernists deny the Divinity of the Church. Stotts stands with the latter.
The Arian Heresy Reference: Irony Lost on the Conciliarists
The article mentions the Arian heresy and the Cappadocian Fathers who “used Scripture and rhetoric to articulate Church doctrine.” The irony is staggering. The conciliar sect is the Arianism of our time — not denying the Divinity of Christ explicitly, but denying the Divinity of His Church, Her infallibility, Her exclusivity, Her liturgical integrity. Lamentabili Sane Exitu condemns the Modernist proposition: “The dogmas which the Church proposes as revealed are not truths of divine origin but are a certain interpretation of religious facts, which the human mind has worked out with great effort” (Prop. 22). This is the operating principle of the neo-church. Stotts admires the Fathers who fought for homoousios; he belongs to a sect that has replaced homoousios with homoiousios — a “similar” church, a “sister” church, a “pilgrim” church. The “road less traveled” is the broad road of the novus ordo.
The Masonic Imprint on the Conciliar Narrative
The False Fatima Apparitions document details the Masonic strategy of “implantation of the message and ‘negative credentialing’ through skepticism from authorities” (Stage 1) and “globalization of the cult and control of the narrative” (Stage 2). EWTN is Stage 3: “Takeover of the narrative by modernists, concealment of the Third Secret, ecumenical reinterpretation.” Stotts’ show is a perfect Masonic product: it directs eyes to stones (Turkey, tunnels, frescoes) and away from the Living Stone (1 Pet. 2:4). It promotes a “Catholicism” compatible with the world — Turkish coffee, jokes, travel, “job security.” The Syllabus condemns: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Prop. 80). This is precisely what the conciliar sect has done, and what Stotts’ conversion ratifies. He has not “recentered his gravity to the very beginning”; he has aligned himself with the spirit of the age.
Conclusion: A Broad Road to Destruction
The article concludes with Stotts’ Land Rover not breaking down and a pro tip about not cooking meat in a ’60s Land Rover engine. Risum teneatis, amici? This is the gravity of the conciliar “faith”: automotive reliability and culinary experiments. The true Road Less Traveled is the Via Crucis, the narrow way of the Traditio, the Sedes Vacans, the rejection of the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (Matt. 24:15). Stotts has traveled the broad, well-paved highway of the neo-church, cheered on by the Register, EWTN, and the usurpers in the Vatican. He has found a “buffet” that suits his palate. But the Gate is narrow, and the Way is hard, and few there are that find it (Matt. 7:14). The early Christians in Derinkuyu died for the True Mass. Stotts produces TV shows for the false one. Non est hic Deus.
Source:
Catholic ‘Indiana Jones’ Dave Stotts Takes ‘Road Less Traveled’ on EWTN (ncregister.com)
Date: 11.09.2026