Diocese cancels appearance by Michael Voris — UPDATED

The well-known Catholic media personality and speaker won’t be giving a talk in Pennsylvania this weekend.

Details:

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

Michael Voris, who produces television and radio shows about Catholic issues, was scheduled to speak at two events Saturday arranged by a Harveys Lake couple at Marywood and Our Lady of Victory Catholic church in Harveys Lake.

After Marywood canceled the event, titled “Living Catholicism Radically,” it was to be relocated to the diocese’s St. Clare/St. Paul Elementary School before the diocese also refused to host Voris.

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.”

“The Catholic church teaches us to respect all people, regardless of their faith tradition,” the diocese said in a statement. “Although the diocese shares Mr. Voris’ support of efforts to protect human life, his extreme positions on other faiths are not appropriate and therefore the diocese cannot host him.”

Voris cultivated controversy last year when he said that democracies should “limit the vote to faithful Catholics,” that “the body politic continues to be ravaged by the cancer of ignorant, self-centered voters” and that the “only way to run a country is by benevolent dictatorship” by a “Catholic monarch” during one of his daily “The Vortex” video segments at RealCatholicTV.com.

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UPDATE: Those who are curious can see some of what Michael Voris has to say about other religions on his YouTube page — here are his thoughts on Jews, and here is what he says about who will be in heaven.