The Deacon's Bench
After his appearance at a Catholic university in Scranton was scrapped last weekend, the popular speaker and media personality will be coming to a secular site nearby this Saturday:
Michael Voris is scheduled to speak at the Best Western Genetti Hotel and Conference Center in Wilkes-Barre at 6:30 p.m.
His talk, “Living Catholicism Radically,” was canceled after the university and diocese determined that he had expressed views at odds with their values in Internet television shows he produces about Catholic issues.
In a letter to the talk’s organizers, Paul and Kristen Ciaccia of Harveys Lake, the diocese further explained that it learned from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Mr. Voris’ home Archdiocese of Detroit that Mr. Voris’ presentations have caused “a number of controversies” and that his programs are not endorsed by his home archdiocese.
The Ciaccias said in a news release that they chose to reschedule Mr. Voris at a secular site and invited Bishop Joseph Bambera to attend the event “to evaluate Mr. Voris’ knowledge of the faith, free from opinions formed by others.”
The Ciaccias called the banning of Mr. Voris from diocesan property “insensitive” and said it “belies deeper inconsistencies in diocesan policy.”
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