#1232: Michael Voris and Churchmilitant.tv

Michael Voris is a hysterically fanatic, militant religious (Catholic) fundamentalist. He is the president and founder of St. Michael’s Media, which creates short videos and full length programs for the website ChurchMilitant.tv and for youtube, which is apparently “increasingly popular around the world,” though partially, one hopes, for its ridiculous, infantile display of childish, raging lunacy and hatred.

ChurchMilitant.tv (formerly RealCatholicTV.com) generally takes an extreme rightwing and conservative view of Catholicism, and their expressed goal is to wipe out heterodoxy (and leaders in the Catholic hierarchy are, apparently, not unequivocally happy about Voris’s efforts in that direction). Voris himself claims to be an “Emmy-Award winning journalist” (haven’t found any verification) who initiated his efforts after being incensed by what he considered to be the lies told about Catholicism in the book and movie The DaVinci Code. In other words: loon. And he seems blithely unaware that his attempts to correct these misconceptions do not tend to lead to greater sympathy for his theological views. It has been argued that Voris is really the puppet of co-owner and spokesperson Marc Brammer. Be that as it may. They are both serious loons.

To get an idea of where they are coming from, in this episode of “The Vortex” Voris advocates the overthrow of democracy (the problem with democracy being that everyone, even those who disagree with Voris, gets a vote) and the institution of Catholic Dictatorship (not the Pope, but by some unnamed “benevolent Catholic Monarch”). The episode was apparently removed from RCTV’s Youtube channel.

One program they have is the Faith Based Investigation (FBI, formerly the CIA – the Catholic Investigative Agency), which is “devoted to in-depth examination of scandals, betrayals and evil in the Church.” They are not talking about the scandals you think they would be talking about, though, but instead focus on “the dark deeds of evil Catholics-in-name-only, who are hijacking the Church for their own ends, not the ends of Christ!” That is, “Catholics” who support gay marriage, abortion, freedom of religion, gender equality and suchlike.”

Apart from their video on the ideal structuring of government mentioned above, some interesting youtube videos include:

- “Some Clarity”, which clarifies their political stance (democracies always become evil when heathens and heretics are allowed to sway government policies by voting). Voris also provides examples of virtuous Catholic dictators. He does not provide examples of bad ones, which one would think would be sort of relevant when discussing the merits of forms of government.

- “Freedom of Speech”, which Voris denounces since it can lead to heresy.

- “Hate is Good”. Hate is a family value (which may be true).Without hatred of heresy, there could be no faith.

The main programs require registration for access, but fortunately some of their content has been made available elsewhere, including “The Influence of Saul Alinksy on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development”, “Obama’s Counterfeit Catholics”, “Weapons of MASS Destruction” (good grief!), “Global Warming Unmasked, the Hidden Agenda” (ah, yes) and “The Contraception Deception”. According to Voris there is a conspiracy to push contraception for population control (which is also deliberately neglecting to inform people about the dangers of contraception and population control that exist only in Voris’s mind), based on junk science and anti-Catholicism (not that Voris has a particularly sophisticated understanding of science). And global warming is a myth, pushed by certain members of the environmentalist movement for evil and heretical purposes (“global warming is the evolution, the natural evolution, of that early eugenics program,” says Voris: “The elite need global warming in order to pursue their reduction in population goals”). They also have a show on freemasons, if you needed further indication of where these people are located in logical space. Here is Voris claiming that masturbation will destroy Catholicism.

The Archdiocese of Detroit expressed concern that Voris has made comments that “can be interpreted as being insensitive to people of other faiths” after Voris had made some … colorful comments about Judaism. Voris’s views on atheism are predictable, but his complaints that atheists are “angry” indicate some lack of self-awareness.

Diagnosis: An abomination.