Michael Voris and the Perils of Celebrity
This article was published at Crisis Magazine. You can read it freely there. The introduction follows:
Michael Voris and the work of Church Militant helped me on my path toward joining the Catholic Church. I found their work to be fascinating. Voris seemed to rail against the scandals of the Church with unrivaled indignation. He was rightfully outraged at the mishandled abuse cases and cover-ups. What I did not understand was why he continued to be Catholic.
Protestants who were scandalized by their denominations simply left and sought different churches. Voris stayed Catholic, even in his outrage. That demonstrated to me that the Catholic Faith was different. I came to understand that faithful Catholics are not Catholics because they like being Catholic, or because it’s the easiest choice, or because they like the Vatican. They are Catholic because they believe that to be so is to serve Christ in the best way possible because it is to join the Church that He founded and that the Holy Spirit guides. It is to practice the Christian Faith as it was supposed to be practiced and has been since the Apostolic Age.
Thus, I can’t help but find Voris’s recent resignation and his own public scandal to be somewhat painful. This is despite the fact that his resignation seems appropriate and probably should have happened much earlier, for he was not in a position to lead.
Continue reading at Crisis Magazine.
Sarah - I have only listened to Church Militant a couple of times in the past and found that I wished to devote my prayer time elsewhere. But I loved what you said here: "They are Catholic because they believe that to be so is to serve Christ in the best way possible because it is to join the Church that He founded and that the Holy Spirit guides. It is to practice the Christian Faith as it was supposed to be practiced and has been since the Apostolic Age." There have been times in the past 30 years when we (my wife and I) have talked about leaving the church over the abuse scandal and other issues..... but knew deep down in our hearts that we had nowhere else to go.... and your quote sums up our feelings perfectly. Thank you again for another well written article.
Voris was a homosexual and most likely still is although perhaps not practicing. He promoted himself as a conservative Christian who was very concerned about the Vatican and the liberal influence on Christianity. I believe he was making an effort to be sincere but past behavior will continue to haunt him. Redemption is a Christian belief and should be applied to Voris in his private life but he did the right thing by resigning.