Scranton, Marywood refuse to host Catholic speaker (Michael Voris)

[markomalley]

Note: reposting this so that any discussion can continue.

From the Hazelton PA Standard-Speaker:

The Diocese of Scranton and Marywood University both refused to host a conservative Catholic speaker after the organizations determined he had expressed views at odds with the school’s and church’s values, they said Thursday.

(snip)

In a two-sentence statement, the Catholic university said Voris “was initially invited to speak at Marywood University as a conservative Catholic commentator” and the school “later became aware of views expressed by Mr. Voris that are inconsistent with our mission and core values.”

A school spokeswoman would not elaborate on what views were at issue, but the diocese described its objections to comments made by Voris in Internet videos that “certainly can be interpreted as being insensitive to people of other faiths.”
Mr. Voris’ response can be viewed here (video). A transcript of the video (PDF) is here.

Hopefully this article (from a “real” news site, not a blog) will pass muster. If not, please accept, in advance, my sincere apologies.

 

[ANNE_2]

Here is the RESPONSE by
Michael Voris

youtube.com/user/RealCatholicTV?feature=mhum#p/u/0/UDJx49A5D-4

 

[Barbkw]

Knew I’d heard that city’s name before.

Joe Biden is a true Scrantonian; he was born and raised in Scranton–only two blocks away from Marywood University. Biden was born on November 20th, 1942 and from there, he began a political legacy.

thewoodword.org/2008/10/joe-biden-from-scranton-to-the-white-house/

 

[dmorgan]

One might argue that Mr. Voris has a rather blunt delivery, but you cannot find much to argue about within his commentary as it pertains to the Catechism and Church Teachings. I find this decision by the Diocese of Scranton to be troubling. Have some of our Bishops become so ingrained in a PC type of politics that the Truth as taught for centuries in our Church are no longer acceptable?
I pray daily for More Bishops who will lead by example and Teach the Truth.

 

[pollycarp]

Their loss.

 

[Adeodatus]

Mr. Voris should have been a pro-abortion lesbian or perhaps a communist. Then he would have had no trouble.

 

[Raskolnikov]

After watching a number of his videos on youtube, I don’t think I would want this Voris fellow speaking at my university (which actually is not a Catholic one), and I wouldn’t attend if he did. I don’t see why they would forbid him from coming to talk, but I think they could find someone better. It also of course would depend on what he intended to talk about. If one of his more, let’s say controversial opinions is the subject of the speech, then it would not likely be well recieved by the students.

 

[ANNE_2]

The videos that I have seen by Mr. Voris are in line with the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition”, and always faithful to the Pope.
Sometimes it’s the controversial statements that we need to hear most.
Charity must include truth.

Interesting reading is “Catholicism for Dummies” by Frs. Trigilio and Brighenti. It has a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur.
It covers many interesting topics including the need for reform and coruption in the Church starting in 1517 (pg 366).
Did you know that reformers “within” the Church were: St. Francis of Assisi, St, Vincent Ferrer, St. John of the Cross, St. Theresa of Avila, St…Bernadine of Siena, and St. John Capistran (pg 367)?

Sometimes there is a need for renewal and reform within the Church. - Renewal that stays withiin the Doctrine of the Faith (contained in the “CCC 2nd Ed”).

 

[Raskolnikov]

ANNE 2The videos that I have seen by Mr. Voris are in line with the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition”, and always faithful to the Pope.
Sometimes it’s the controversial statements that we need to hear most.
Charity must include truth.

Many of his videos veer far far away from issues of the Church, and are more about politics and whatnot; some of his statements are not merely controversial, but are outright objectionable, IMO. Truth must also include charity

 

[ishii]

Mr. Voris should have been a pro-abortion lesbian or perhaps a communist. Then he would have had no trouble.

Had he been infanticide rights senator from California then he would have been welcomed to speak on the grounds of the L.A. archdiocese. Had he been a pro-abortion rights governor of Washington he would have been welcomed by the archdiocese of Seattle.

Ishii

 

[jam070406]

Many of his videos veer far far away from issues of the Church, and are more about politics and whatnot; some of his statements are not merely controversial, but are outright objectionable, IMO. Truth must also include charity

I find nothing controversial, outright objectionable or uncharitable. Some people need tough love. And some can’t handle having the light of Truth being shined on them, or preaching that doesn’t bend to political correctness.

If you were to read some of St. John Vianney’s sermons you’d probably be offended by them too. There has been such a lack of fiery, spirited Catholic preaching in the last 40 years or so that people are now shocked when they hear it.

 

[Birdpreacher]

This guy is the Catholic Glenn Beck, moreover he dresses atrocious.

He symbolizes the dsconnect staunch conservatives in the church have with the majority of individuals born catholic. Maryknoll made the right choice, last thing they need is a guy coming over to recite the definition of theological terms on a power point while telling them that the worlds going to hell in a hand basket while speaking in a smug, holier than thou tone of voice. Tough Love? This man would not know love, the radical forgiving love of Jesus Christ which requires humility and compassion. That is the toughest kind of love I know. Merely going off on tirades about how unpure someone’s church service is or how only the virtuous deserve to vote in elections is not the best use of the talents God has given you.
I take one look at this joke and remember what St. Francis once said:
“Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words”

 

[Raskolnikov]

jam070406:

I find nothing controversial, outright objectionable or uncharitable. Some people need tough love. And some can’t handle having the light of Truth being shined on them, or preaching that doesn’t bend to political correctness.

To give some examples of outright objectionable material (the controversial list would be too long for me to want to put the time into it): he advocated dictatorship in one video; he regularly accuses bishops in good standing of being rebels or heretics he dismissed global warming out of hand as an obvious lie without a single scientific reason (disagree with it if you will, but his way of doing shows a profound disrespect for the many respectable scientists who disagree with him); he alludes to the medieval crusaders as paragons of what Christian men should emulate, saying nonsense about a crusader killing an infidel one second then rescuing an infant the next (though many crusaders slaughtered thousands of innocent Jews in Europe out of misguided furor even before they reached the Holy Land); And, all in all, his views often seem to border on conspiracy theories, about “operatives” working from inside the church to dismantle it. Again, division there is, but to call those one disagrees with “operatives” is a questionable tactic IMO. Just a few things.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see a trace of love in his videos, tough or otherwise.

Birdpreacher:

This guy is the Catholic Glenn Beck, moreover he dresses atrocious.

He symbolizes the dsconnect staunch conservatives in the church have with the majority of individuals born catholic. Maryknoll made the right choice, last thing they need is a guy coming over to recite the definition of theological terms on a power point while telling them that the worlds going to hell in a hand basket while speaking in a smug, holier than thou tone of voice. Tough Love? This man would not know love, the radical forgiving love of Jesus Christ which requires humility and compassion. That is the toughest kind of love I know. Merely going off on tirades about how unpure someone’s church service is or how only the virtuous deserve to vote in elections is not the best use of the talents God has given you.
I take one look at this joke and remember what St. Francis once said:
“Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words”

Even Beck is pleasant to listen to compared to Voris in my opinion.

 

[_L]

To give some examples of outright objectionable material (the controversial list would be too long for me to want to put the time into it): he advocated dictatorship in one video; he regularly accuses bishops in good standing of being rebels or heretics he dismissed global warming out of hand as an obvious lie without a single scientific reason (disagree with it if you will, but his way of doing shows a profound disrespect for the many respectable scientists who disagree with him); he alludes to the medieval crusaders as paragons of what Christian men should emulate, saying nonsense about a crusader killing an infidel one second then rescuing an infant the next (though many crusaders slaughtered thousands of innocent Jews in Europe out of misguided furor even before they reached the Holy Land); And, all in all, his views often seem to border on conspiracy theories, about “operatives” working from inside the church to dismantle it. Again, division there is, but to call those one disagrees with “operatives” is a questionable tactic IMO. Just a few things.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see a trace of love in his videos, tough or otherwise.

Even Beck is pleasant to listen to compared to Voris in my opinion.

I think you are being truly unfair to Mr. Voris and the work he does. His apostolate has guided many back to the faith, and I am one of those people. Voris is truly living the gospel by giving up a career as secular news broadcaster and throwing everything he has into evangelization. You are highlighting a few controversial opinions of his while ignoring the hours upon hours of his sound explanation and promotion of the Catholic faith. You say you don’t see any trace of love in his videos, but I certainly do. I see his love for God and the Church by the fervor he has in defending both.

obviously there are private opinions of his that many people will disagree with including myself on many points he makes. But as a whole what he is doing is good; encouraging Catholics to get more involved in their parish and not just attend mass once a week, spreading the faith to anyone who will listen, building up the body of Christ by having all sorts of informative materials for people to learn more about their faith in order to defend it. People get upset with his very militaristic style in defending the faith, but I think its more important to know that the enemies of the Church are filled with a lot more venom than they perceive Mr. Voris as having. And if people don’t like his style, I won’t try to persuade them to like it, but I would only ask that they look at the substance of what is said and not just looking at his vortex or news videos, I mean really go and watch the videos that are about the faith.

 

[Raskolnikov]

I think you are being truly unfair to Mr. Voris and the work he does. His apostolate has guided many back to the faith, and I am one of those people. Voris is truly living the gospel by giving up a career as secular news broadcaster and throwing everything he has into evangelization. You are highlighting a few controversial opinions of his while ignoring the hours upon hours of his sound explanation and promotion of the Catholic faith. You say you don’t see any trace of love in his videos, but I certainly do. I see his love for God and the Church by the fervor he has in defending both.

I’ve watch maybe a dozen or so videos on youtube of his “vortex.” There may be a couple videos in which I may agree with some of what he says, but overall, I don’t like his tone at all. He’s often insulting to anyone who disagrees with his own politics (even when they have nothing to do with Church teaching), and he implies that somehow these political positions are implied by church teaching.

Maybe he’s done some other series that I don’t know about, but from watching his vortex videos, I can’t get over the constant tone of indignation, conspiracy, and antipathy. I know his videos made pretty much solely for politically far right Catholics, but I imagine that pretty much anyone else would only be driven away by his attitude. Even as a Catholic, I was quite displeased at much of what he said. I imagine a Protestant or non-believer would be as apoplectic as Voris is after watching most of his videos. That sort of seige mentality, that ‘we elect are content to have heaven to ourselves, and everyone else can and should go to the devil’ attitude just bothers me. Again, maybe there’s something else he did that showed a different side of him, but I haven’t seen it, so I can only judge from what I have seen.

 

[_L]

Fair enough, I can’t blame you for not liking his style, but I can assure there is another side of him that the vortex videos do not show. Prior to starting real Catholic tv he had a radio show which I listened to frequently, and various non Catholic callers would buzz in every week and he was over the top with charity and kindness when actually speaking with them about disagreements over the faith, and If you watched the hours upon hours of other videos on the website you would see that the vortex seems to merely function as a pep talk for Catholics who check the site daily.

 

[thomasf]

He used to have a tv show here on a local detroit network. If I remember right, he’s from this area. It was called One True Faith. His website has podcasts of these shows for free download. When I first came back to the church I came upon this show and listened/watched to a lot of these and they were great! Most of them were basic talks about the faith, and didn’t really get into politics that people mention here. I credit a lot of these talks for helping me to understand parts of the faith I didn’t know about, and these talks helped to bring me back into the faith. I dig those podcasts and highly recommend them.

 

[Nec5]

People that dislike the Voris approach are often the same folks who want a non-judgmental Jesus or a messiah that more resembles Barney the dinosaur.

 

[ANNE_2]

Many of his videos veer far far away from issues of the Church, and are more about politics and whatnot; some of his statements are not merely controversial, but are outright objectionable, IMO. Truth must also include charity

Please provide a link to what you are referring.
I have seen most of his videos. There is no doubt that he speaks with candor.

CCC - “2468 Truth as uprightness in human action and speech is called truthfulness, sincerity, or candor.
Truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and in guarding against duplicity, dissimulation, and hypocrisy.”

CCC - “2505 Truth or truthfulness is the virtue which consists in showing oneself true in deeds and truthful in words, and guarding against duplicity, dissimulation, and hypocrisy.”

CCC - “2467 Man tends by nature toward the truth. He is obliged to honor and bear witness to it:
It is in accordance with their dignity that all men, because they are persons . . . are both impelled by their nature and bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth once they come to know it and direct their whole lives in accordance with the demands of truth.”

CCC - “1822 Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God.”

CCC - “1829 The fruits of charity are joy, peace, and mercy;
charity demands beneficence and fraternal correction;
it is benevolence; it fosters reciprocity and remains disinterested and generous; it is friendship and communion: Love is itself the fulfillment of all our works. There is the goal; that is why we run: we run toward it, and once we reach it, in it we shall find rest.”

From what I have seen, Voris loves the Church and our Pope.

 

[jam070406]

This guy is the Catholic Glenn Beck, moreover he dresses atrocious.

He symbolizes the dsconnect staunch conservatives in the church have with the majority of individuals born catholic. Maryknoll made the right choice, last thing they need is a guy coming over to recite the definition of theological terms on a power point while telling them that the worlds going to hell in a hand basket while speaking in a smug, holier than thou tone of voice. Tough Love? This man would not know love, the radical forgiving love of Jesus Christ which requires humility and compassion. That is the toughest kind of love I know. Merely going off on tirades about how unpure someone’s church service is or how only the virtuous deserve to vote in elections is not the best use of the talents God has given you.
I take one look at this joke and remember what St. Francis once said:
“Preach the Gospel at all times, and if necessary, use words”

Touched a nerve has he? I know he doesn’t resort to personal insults like you do. But has mentioned his decadent past and repentance. I guess humility is something easier preached then practiced eh? And so is taking up your cross or fighting the good fight.