NZ Skeptics Articles

SoulCore - Catholic Yoga

Mark Honeychurch - 28 April 2025

Not all things connected to religion are bad - it’s good to help the poor, feed the homeless, and strive for non-violence. But what if there’s something that another religion has, but yours doesn’t? Often when this happens to Christians, they’ll simply label it as occult or demonic:

But what if the thing your religion is missing is something positive and useful? You can’t just co-opt it, or you may be accused of opening the door to these demonic influences. One thing you could do is try to steal the good bits, while throwing out the spiritual aspects.

This seems to be how the world was blessed with SoulCore - the Catholics church’s attempt to have their cake and eat it when it comes to yoga. The SoulCore website makes it clear that, although this exercise may look like yoga, it’s much more wholesome and Godly - they’ve integrated the Rosary, and somehow managed to connect it to the Virgin Mary:

SoulCore intentionally engages the whole person in the sacred experience of the rosary. Integrating the prayers of the rosary with core strengthening, stretching and functional movements to nourish body & soul and encourage deeper reflection on the virtues. A gentle path to steward your body, grow in virtue and cultivate interior peace.

SoulCore began from a little “yes” to an inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Founded in monotheism, one true God, SoulCore is based in Christian meditation and encourages “filling” the mind & soul specifically with the life, virtues and Word of Christ.

A movement all its own, SoulCore is not affiliated with any other fitness disciplines. More specifically, it is not yoga, nor are yoga poses or Sanskrit referenced at any time.

Our Lady’s desire is always to lead us closer to her son Jesus. As a Marian apostolate, SoulCore imitates her in striving to draw others closer to Christ through deeper reflection on His life and virtues in the rosary. Anything that could potentially lead us away from Christ is counter to our mission.

In the website’s FAQ, you can learn that the church hasn’t officially approved SoulCore - yet - but several lower-level organisations have given it their seal of approval:

Is SoulCore approved by the Church?

Thank you for thoughtful discernment regarding SoulCore’s approval by the Church. SoulCore is an ecumenical apostolate rooted in the richness and beauty of the Holy Rosary. At this time SoulCore does not yet have an imprimatur. However, SoulCore is based in the Diocese of Lafayette Indiana and has the full support of our Bishop Timothy Doherty as well as many priests and religious around the country. Additionally, SoulCore has partnered with several Catholic media outlets including, EWTN radio, Hallow, Sirius XM The Catholic Channel, Ave Maria Radio, Relevant Radio, National Catholic Register, Ignatius Press and more. SoulCore is also offered in collaboration with various Catholic conferences including FOCUS SLS and SEEK, and Walking with Purpose.

But the FAQ also tries to claim that this isn’t related to yoga, nope it’s a totally different thing:

What are the distinguishing aspects of SoulCore?

SoulCore is a movement all its own. It was not created as a response to any other practice, but began as a little “yes” to an inspiration of the Holy Spirit. While distinction between movements is important, of greater importance are the theological and philosophical foundations of SoulCore.

Supporting this denial, their shop (of course they’re trying to profit from this!) doesn’t sell yoga mats, it sells Exercise mats. They’re not yoga bracelets, they’re St Therese bracelets. And the SoulCore website appears to have entirely dodged the myriad issues with tight-fitting yoga pants by just not selling them - although they do have a “Movement for Mary” T-shirt:

A SoulCore session consists of a series of stretching exercises that look a lot like yoga poses (at least to my untrained eyes, as someone who’s never done yoga in their life), along with some calisthenics exercises. During these exercises, there’s a lot of praying - the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and Hail Marys are recited constantly. Participants are also guided through meditations or contemplations on topics such as the Stations of the Cross, the Wounds of Christ, the Sorrowful Mysteries and Divine Mercy, and weights that are shaped like rosary beads are lifted. How did I find this out? Partially through videos on YouTube like these ones:

But I also learned about what’s in the workouts because I was stupid enough to sign up for the SoulCore newsletter, which rewarded me with a link to a video workout:

And, so you don’t have to sign up as well, here’s the link I received to the video (warning, it’s an ~800MB download):

Thankfully, if you want to know more, Reddit has you covered. I found both a thread in the /r/Catholicism subreddit, where some Catholics seem to have been surprised by the idea that yoga’s not kosher (or whatever the Catholic version of kosher might be), and SoulCore is recommended as a Godly alternative:

And another thread from the flipside, where non-Catholics choke on the idea that Catholicism is trying to steal yoga:

Personally, I think it might have been easier to have just made a copy of yoga with more modest clothing and no references to spirituality, without cramming the square peg of Jesus into this round hole. If they’d just made it secular, they might even have found a much larger audience - although I guess Catholics do make up a sizable portion of the world’s population, nearly 20% of us. The accusations of cultural appropriation seem somewhat merited, but then again I suppose this hasn’t really stopped the church from stealing from other religions in the past, so why should it this time round?