{"id":219,"date":"2013-07-03T11:39:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T11:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2013\/07\/critique-of-three-highly-questionable-statements-from-michael-voris-about-the-state-of-the-church.html"},"modified":"2017-05-27T16:31:23","modified_gmt":"2017-05-27T20:31:23","slug":"critique-of-three-highly-questionable-statements-from-michael-voris-about-the-state-of-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/2013\/07\/critique-of-three-highly-questionable-statements-from-michael-voris-about-the-state-of-the-church.html","title":{"rendered":"Critique of Three Michael Voris Statements on the State of the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\"Hiroshima4\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Hiroshima after the nuclear bombing of August 1945<\/span> [public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a>]<\/div>\n
\n***<\/div>\n
\n

(7-3-13)<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Note: all italicized emphases in the original (verbal emphasis). Voris\u2019 words, transcribed from the videos, will be in<\/span> blue<\/span>. My comments and critiques will be in black<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Whole Rotten Mess <\/i><\/a>(21 June 2013)\n

***<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/div>\n

4:20<\/b> The Catholic Church in the West: the establishment <\/i>Catholic Church, no longer operates with the same set of first principles that we once did [sic]<\/span>. The entire<\/i> self-understanding, our own self-conception has been jettisoned, and been replaced by an entirely new and rotten sense: rotten to the proverbial core. Leaders have traded away the notions of truth and goodness and beauty in exchange for accommodation and indifferentism and political correctness. <\/span>
\n
\n<\/span>Truth, beauty, and goodness inspire zeal and apostolic fervor. There\u2019s almost none of that left, because those core constituents; those first principles are gone. What is left is a type of Church within <\/i>a Church; a small remnant of those who still cling tenaciously<\/i> to those first principles, and all<\/i> that they necessarily admit<\/i> of: all<\/i> of it. This small remnant of a Church <\/i>within <\/i>a Church finds itself surrounded by an obese, overinflated bureaucracy of engineers, who keep the wheels spinning, and run from one fire to another, . . . those who sit atop this decaying structure and their allies are either fools, naive, or ill-intentioned. . . . When the Church is in such a calamitous state \u2014 which it is \u2014 it means the culture has succeeded in converting the Church: at least large<\/i> portions of it. . . . <\/span><\/p>\n

This exhibits an alarming lack of faith and hope, which is highly characteristic of the modernists within the Church and also Protestants who attack the Church.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Voris, only a tiny bit of the Catholic Church (\u201csmall remnant\u201d) is even left. Extreme language abounds. Truth and goodness in the Church? \u201cAlmost none\u201d is left, so he informs us, because \u201cthose first principles are gone.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

See a paper of mine on indefectibility.\u00a0 I deal most directly with this topic in chapters 7 and 8 of my book, Biblical Proofs for an Infallible Church and Papacy <\/i>(about 18 pages). Also, see my posting of most of the chapter on indefectibility from my book, <\/i>Reflections on Radical Catholic Reactionaries<\/i> (2002). Voris is not asserting defectibility, but at some point, the more pessimistic we are about the Church and her state, it can become<\/i>, in some respects, a sort of \u201cquasi-defectibility\u201d outlook.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Voris <\/span><\/span><\/span>must be held accountable for his words. He says a lot of true stuff, mixed in with extreme statements such as these. He goes far beyond simply attacking nominalism and liberalism in the Church, among however many members fall into those. He goes after the Church herself<\/i> at times, it seems to me.\u00a0 <\/span>That\u2019s what distinguishes the RadCathR <\/i>(and some mainstream \u201ctraditionalists\u201d) from the plain old orthodox Catholic like myself, who detests modernism every bit as much as Voris does (I can assure all).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>So Voris and his many thousands of followers don\u2019t see anything positive around them to highlight? All they can do is moan and groan and complain about the Church, and if anyone points that out, they have their head in the sand and are pretending that everything is perfect (as if that\u2019s ever been the case at any time in the history of the Church)?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Voris is not just pointing out failings. He seems to think there is barely any Church left. It\u2019s the same as always: if we don\u2019t learn from history, we\u2019re doomed to repeat it: the same old dangerous errors recycled again for our time. People love the gloom-and-doom message. For the life of me, I don\u2019t know why<\/i>, but something in human nature resonates with that.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t claimed that Voris is leading people into schism (someone on my Facebook page thought that I did). He\u2019s <\/i>the one who talks about a<\/span> \u201cChurch within a Church,\u201d <\/span>etc. I think he\u2019ll lead many people to despair<\/i>, however, if he keeps this up, especially if he attacks the New Mass, as he did in at least one video (which directly contradicted Pope Benedict). This is not without ill effect.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Welcome, Angel of Death<\/i><\/a> (25 June 2013)\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

1:38<\/b> Here seems to be the root of the issue. There are many leaders in the Church today who seem to have simply traded out the authentic gospel for a fake gospel and in so doing have erected a kind of false church<\/i>: one that has many trappings of the Church of Rome, but only a shadow <\/i>of her teachings. There has been a substitution <\/i>of the one true faith for a more comfortable<\/i>, all-embracing faith: the focus of which is more tied to the things of earth than the things of heaven. This pseudo<\/i>-catholic church has some hallmarks which distinguish it greatly from the authentic faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

I understand that Voris has liberal dissidents in mind when he states this. I have stated many times (on my blog or in my books) that I agreed with Fr. John A. Hardon\u2019s statement that modernism was the greatest crisis in the history of the Church. Thus, I\u2019m not denying the reality of the liberal \/ modernist \/ dissident corruption or rebellion that exists on the ground. I can\u2019t possibly be subject to the standard RadCathR polemic: \u201cyou have your head in the sand and think everything is perfect\u201d canard. But I don\u2019t believe that things are nearly as<\/i> bleak and hopeless as Voris thinks they are.<\/span><\/p>\n

This reflects my following of the thought of the ultra-orthodox and saintly Fr. Hardon, who was my mentor (he received me into the Church and endorsed my first book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism<\/i> in the Foreword), and an advisor to Venerable Pope Paul VI and Blessed Mother Teresa. When asked if things were as bad as Malachi Martin (another RadCathR<\/span><\/span><\/span> given to great exaggeration) made them out to be, he quickly replied, \u201cno.\u201d I agree with him on both scores, and I submit that he had far more \u201cinside information\u201d about the Church than layman Voris thinks he does.<\/span><\/p>\n

I had a discussion with two supporters of Voris, in which I pressed the point of lack of specificity in Voris\u2019 claims, and wondered what good it does to make such grandiose, pessimistic, \u201coh woe is us\u201d claims without providing detailed, particular information, so that the layperson can avoid the \u201cfalse church\u201d and the \u201cpseudo catholic church.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Gay Clergy and The Catholic Media <\/i><\/a>(18 June 2013)<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

1:16<\/b> The establishment Catholic media is not composed of journalists, strictly speaking, but of lapdog careerists . . . these people are not concerned with bringing you one shred of news about the troubles inside <\/i>the Church, but<\/i>, protecting their own financial interests by painting a dubious<\/i> picture of things being kind of okay in<\/i> the Church. See, it\u2019s actually very simple. When you tune into big-name Catholic TV outlets or radio shows with big-name professional Catholics . . . you hear all kinds of great things and solid talks about the teachings of the Church, and let me underscore, they are very solid talks. But you won\u2019t hear a word<\/i> . . . about the real<\/i> problems in the Church. That\u2019s because if they open their mouths about these other problems, they will be disinvited, their books won\u2019t be published, their articles will be pulled from official Catholic papers and websites, or they will be off the air . . . In short, they won\u2019t tell you the truth, because they\u2019re too cowardly to pay the personal financial cost.<\/span><\/p>\n

U-huh: like Voris is not <\/i>now a \u201cbig name\u201d: with (by his own reckoning in the last few weeks) 16 million views of his videos? Like, uh, he\u2019s not making any money<\/i> doing what he does, or is not \u201cprofessional\u201d himself in almost the same sense that he trashes when others<\/i> do it?<\/span><\/p>\n

I could just as easily say (if I wanted to be as cynical as Voris often is), that there is no reason for Voris to mess with his own formula of relentless gloom-and-doom \/ \u201coh woe is us\u201d fare. It\u2019s not likely he\u2019ll<\/i> change anytime soon, either. I don\u2019t mind someone thriving at what they do; I do<\/i> mind a great deal that he\u2019s thriving on exaggerating the extent of the problems we face (both it\u2019s real and imagined problems), in public.<\/span><\/p>\n

Folks who \u201ctell the real truth\u201d like Voris says he does are off the air at EWTN [Voris named it in the video, along with Ave Maria Radio, Immaculate Heart Radio, Catholic Answers, and National Catholic Register<\/i>]? Well, let\u2019s take an example of that. That happened to Robert Sungenis. Was it because he told God\u2019s honest truth and all the sissy Frisbee-tossing \u201cneo-Catholics\u201d couldn\u2019t take <\/i>it?<\/span><\/p>\n

Well, not quite<\/i>. It\u2019s because Robert has chosen to pursue wacko, extremist views of geocentrism (the sun goes around the earth and the 10,000-year-old earth doesn\u2019t rotate), anti-Semitism, the silly notion that God can change His mind (which is rank heresy, in violation of the de fide<\/i> doctrines of divine immutability and simplicity), faked moon landings, trashing of the canonization of Blessed Pope John Paul II the Great; even going after Pope Benedict XVI (usually the darling of RadCathR<\/span><\/span><\/span>s and \u201ctraditionalists\u201d alike) because he beatified him. Recently Bob claimed on his site that Ven. Pope Paul VI was a practicing sodomite. All par for the course . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

Nothing here in the least <\/i>objectionable, is there? Was it only that the big boys at EWTN couldn\u2019t handle Bob\u2019s relentless truth-telling and the profundities of his scientific wisdom and heresies concerning the very doctrine of God? Bob specializes in talking about the \u201creal problems\u201d in the Church: you know, stuff like Pope Paul VI being a sodomite and Pope John Paul the Great being one of the worst popes in history . . .<\/span><\/p>\n

Granted, he is a rather extreme example, but he is<\/i> an example, nevertheless, of someone who was \u201crun off of\u201d EWTN: one that doesn\u2019t fit into the sweeping picture that Voris creates about who is and isn\u2019t allowed in these major Catholic venues.<\/span><\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hiroshima after the nuclear bombing of August 1945 [public domain \/ Wikimedia Commons] *** (7-3-13) *** Note: all italicized emphases in the original (verbal emphasis). Voris\u2019 words, transcribed from the videos, will be in blue. My comments and critiques will be in black. *** The Whole Rotten Mess (21 June 2013) *** 4:20 The Catholic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2331,"featured_media":4019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,130],"tags":[1152],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-ecclesiology","category-traditionalism-vs-radical-catholic-reactionaries","tag-michael-voris"],"yoast_head":"\nCritique of Three Michael Voris Statements on the State of the Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For Michael Voris, only a tiny bit of the Catholic Church is even left. 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Formerly a campus missionary, as a Protestant, Dave was received into the Catholic Church in February 1991, by the late, well-known catechist and theologian, Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave\u2019s articles have appeared in many influential Catholic periodicals, including \"This Rock\" (now called \"Catholic Answers Magazine\"), \"Envoy Magazine\" (Patrick Madrid), \"The Catholic Answer,\" \"The Coming Home Journal,\" \"Gilbert Magazine\" (American Chesterton Society), and \"The Latin Mass.\" He also writes a featured column for every issue of \"The Michigan Catholic\": published by the archdiocese of Detroit, and was editor for most of the apologetics tracts published by the St. Paul Street Evangelization apostolate. Dave\u2019s apologetics and writing apostolate was the subject of a feature article in the May 2002 issue of \"Envoy Magazine.\" He served as the staff moderator at the Internet discussion forum for The Coming Home Network, from 2007-2010. Dave has been interviewed on many nationally syndicated Catholic radio shows, including \"Catholic Answers Live\" (twice), \"Faith and Family Live\" (Steve Wood), \"Kresta in the Afternoon,\" \"Son Rise Morning Show,\" \"Catholic Connection\" (Teresa Tomeo), and \"The Catholics Next Door.\" His large and popular website, \"Biblical Evidence for Catholicism,\" was online from March 1997 to March 2007, and received the 1998 Catholic Website of the Year award from \"Envoy Magazine.\" His blog of the same name (now transferred to Patheos), begun in February 2004, contains more than 1,500 papers, at least 500 debates or dialogues, and over 50 distinct \"index\" web pages. Unsolicited correspondence has indicated many hundreds of conversions (or returns) to the Catholic faith as a result, by God's grace, of these writings. Dave's conversion story was published in the bestselling book \"Surprised by Truth\" (edited by Patrick Madrid; San Diego: Basilica Press, 1994). Sophia Institute Press has published six of his books: \"A Biblical Defense of Catholicism\" (Foreword by Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J., 1996 \/ 2003), \"The Catholic Verses\" (2004), \"The One-Minute Apologist\" (2007), \"Bible Proofs for Catholic Truths\" (2009), \"The Quotable Newman\" (editor: 2012), and \"Proving the Catholic Faith is Biblical\" (2015). He is co-author (with Dr. Paul Thigpen) of the inserts for \"The New Catholic Answer Bible\" (Our Sunday Visitor: 2005), and editor for \"The Wisdom of Mr. Chesterton: The Very Best Quotes, Quips, and Cracks from the Pen of G. K. Chesterton\" (Saint Benedict Press \/ TAN Books: 2009). \"100 Biblical Arguments Against Sola Scriptura\" was published by Catholic Answers in May 2012. His \"Quotable Wesley\" compilation was published by (Protestant \/ Wesleyan publisher) Beacon Hill Press in April 2014. Several of his 49 books are bestsellers in their field. Dave maintains a popular personal Facebook page, a Facebook author page, and has a Twitter account as well. He offers almost all of his books in e-book form on his own Biblical Catholicism site (http:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/), at a permanent deep discount: only $2.99 for ePub, mobi, and AZW, and $1.99 for PDF. His writing has been enthusiastically endorsed or recommended by many leading Catholic apologists, authors, and priests, including Dr. Scott Hahn, Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Marcus Grodi, Patrick Madrid, Steve Ray, Tim Staples, Devin Rose, Mike Aquilina, Al Kresta, Karl Keating, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Brandon Vogt, Marcellino D'Ambrosio, and Fr. John A. Hardon, S. J. Dave has been happily married to his wife Judy since October 1984. They have three sons and a daughter, and reside in southeast Michigan (metro Detroit).","sameAs":["https:\/\/biblicalcatholicism.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dave.armstrong.798","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@LuxVeritatisApologetics"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/author\/davearmstrong"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/davearmstrong\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}