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In May 2019, Dr. Taylor Marshall of Texas published Infiltration: The Plot to Destroy the Church from Within (Manchester, New Hampshire: Sophia Institute Press, 2019). Marshall firmly maintains that the Catholic Church has been literally infiltrated by her enemies, thereby experiencing a massive campaign of disruption and distortion. This topic, however, has not received much attention from “mainstream” Catholicism until more recently, especially with the attention drawn to it by Taylor Marshall. Does Infiltration live up to its hype though?

Infiltration—Some Historical Background

Treated for far too long as a taboo subject, the notion of the Catholic Church’s “infiltration” by enemies from within has received increasing mainstream attention in recent years. Two reasons for this development readily come to mind: first, various decisions taken by Pope Francis, and second, the emergence of new and many revelations of sex-abuse within the Church dating back at least to the 1950s and 1960s.

Many Catholics have become dismayed at various actions and pronouncements of Pope Francis. The publication of Francis’ 2016 Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia has prompted much debate over the moral question of divorced-and-remarried persons receiving Holy Communion.[1] In October, 2019, during the Amazon Synod the Holy Father was alleged to have promoted pagan worship through the Pachamama statues that turned up not just in the Synod hall, but also in St. Peter’s Basilica and even in a nearby church (S. Maria in Traspontina on the via della Conciliazione).[2] Such behavior on the part of the successor of St. Peter has many Catholics puzzled.

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