Jordan Pilgrimage: Naturalistic tourism masquerading as Catholic devotion

[Vatican News] reports on a pilgrimage to Jordan led by “Father” Francesco Giosuè Voltaggio, a professor of Sacred Scripture within the post-conciliar structures, which produced a podcast series. The article describes the journey through biblical landscapes like Wadi Rum, Mount Nebo, the Jabbok stream, and the Jordan River baptism site, emphasizing archaeological, historical, and catechetical insights. Participants and modern clerics, including the Apostolic Nuncio to Jordan and Cyprus, Archbishop Giovanni Pietro dal Toso, testify to the spiritual benefits of connecting Scripture to place. The common thread, according to Voltaggio, is “Christian initiation,” shaped on the stages of Israel in the desert, framing the whole of Christian life as a “paschal itinerary.” The narrative celebrates the discovery of Byzantine churches at the baptism site and the 2025 consecration of a new church there, entrusted to the Institute of the Incarnate Word. The pilgrimage concludes with visits to Hellenistic cities of the Decapolis, highlighting the peaceful conquest of the Empire through apostolic preaching.

This presentation of a pilgrimage is not a Catholic endeavor but a meticulously crafted naturalistic and modernist spectacle. It replaces the supernatural end of man—the vision of God in Heaven—with an immanent focus on historical-geographical experience, psychological renewal, and ecumenical sentiment. The entire account is a symptom of the “abomination of desolation” standing in the holy place, where the language of faith is emptied of its dogmatic content and repackaged as a feel-good, experience-based tourism product. The omission of any reference to the necessity of the Catholic Church for salvation, the reality of mortal sin, the sacramental system instituted by Christ, or the absolute primacy of the Incarnate Word’s reign over all nations is not accidental; it is the very essence of the conciliar revolution’s project to reduce Catholicism to a vague theism compatible with modernist errors.