Pope Leo XIV has named Bishop Pedro Luis Fuentes Valencia, C.P., as Military Ordinary for Bolivia, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from conservative Catholic commentators who see it as further evidence of a Church tilting away from traditional teaching. According to Life Site News, as cited by American Thinker columnist Eric Utter, the appointment places a bishop known for progressive positions in a sensitive pastoral role overseeing Bolivia’s military chaplaincy.
The objections raised in the September 19 opinion piece center on two positions attributed to Valencia: openness to admitting active homosexuals to Holy Communion and support for the “ordination” of women to the diaconate. The column also recalls that in 2023, the Bolivian bishops’ conference quoted Valencia urging attendees to have “the courage to make a different Church” — a phrase the columnist seizes on as evidence of an intent to “fundamentally transform” the institution.
Utter’s argument is that Valencia is not an isolated case but one thread in a broader pattern. The same column points to a recent Vatican document on interreligious dialogue and “fraternity,” in which the Holy See — again, in the writer’s framing, Pope Leo — formally asked Catholics to “esteem” other faiths. Quoting the document’s language about the limits of defensive entrenchment and the inadequacy of treating proselytism as the only way to engage others, Utter offers a pointed paraphrase: that in an interconnected “global village,” the old insistence on truth claims and evangelization is being sidelined in favor of getting along.
The debate over dialogue
The Vatican document, as described in the column, encourages “constant dialogue with cultures, religions, and consciences” in pursuit of “universal fraternity.” The piece also cites its line that the poor, in all their vulnerability, serve as a compass for determining whether the Church is moving in the right direction.
Utter’s response is skeptical. He asks whether universal fraternity is a realistic goal when the world includes terrorists, abusers, and fraudsters, and he characterizes the emphasis on dialogue as a retreat from evangelism. For a Christian, he writes, the approach seems odd, even self-defeating — a sentiment that will resonate with a segment of Catholic opinion that has spent years watching synodal reforms with unease.
To be clear about the sourcing: these are the claims and characterizations of one opinion writer, summarizing a Life Site News report. The column does not quote the Vatican document at length or provide its full context, and it does not include any response from Bishop Valencia, the Vatican, or the Bolivian bishops’ conference. Whether Valencia’s views are as described — and whether the Pope’s appointment signals a deliberate policy direction — remains a matter of interpretation contested among Catholics.
A wider pattern, or a familiar complaint?
What gives the column its broader purchase is the claim that this is not really about Bolivia. Utter situates the appointment within what he describes as the “feminization, infantilization, and transing” of mainline Christian churches, arguing that these institutions are mirroring secular society as they become, in his words, “gayer and more Marxist” and drift from Biblical teaching. The jab — “Apostle Paul is out and RuPaul is in” — is the kind of rhetorical flourish that signals the piece’s intended audience: readers already convinced that mainline Protestantism and, increasingly, parts of Catholicism have capitulated to contemporary culture.
That framing is not new. Conservative Catholic outlets have spent the past several years litigating every papal appointment, synodal document, and liturgical decision as evidence of a rupture with tradition. What is notable here is the specific target: a military ordinariate in Bolivia, a posting that would normally attract little attention outside church circles. The fact that it generated an American Thinker column says less about Bolivia than about the appetite among conservative readers for confirmation that their fears about Rome are justified.
There is also a geopolitical subtext in the column’s closing aside, a sarcastic suggestion that the progressive faction will eventually find Sharia law to its liking. It is a line that gestures at the writer’s larger argument — that a Church unwilling to assert its own truth claims cannot effectively resist other religions that are less shy about asserting theirs. Whether that logic holds is precisely the dispute. Defenders of the Vatican’s dialogue push would argue that esteem for other faiths is not the same as abandoning one’s own, and that fraternity is not relativism. The column does not engage that distinction; it treats the document’s language as self-evidently capitulation.
For American readers, the piece lands in a familiar culture-war frame: a Pope making appointments that please progressives, a Vatican document that softens boundaries, and a writer who sees both as symptoms of decline. The specifics are Bolivian and Roman, but the emotion is domestic. Utter ends by appealing directly to his audience, framing the ability to speak one’s mind as essential to the republic and asking readers to support American Thinker financially so its staff can keep publishing.
What the column does not offer is any indication that the Vatican sees things this way, or that Bishop Valencia’s appointment was intended as a signal rather than a routine personnel decision. It also does not address the possibility that a military ordinariate requires a pastor with exactly the kind of broad pastoral instincts that critics find objectionable. Those questions remain open. What is clear is that the appointment has become a flashpoint in an argument that shows no sign of cooling — one that will likely resurface with the next Vatican document, the next episcopal appointment, and the next papal gesture toward the wider world.
Source: www.americanthinker.com — https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/09/catholicism-2-0/