Francis Phillips relates Michael Voris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s take no prisoners approach to faith.<\/p>\n
By Francis Phillips on Thursday, 25 August 2011<\/p>\n
I was at Regent Hall, Oxford Street last night to hear Michael Voris speak about what it means to be Catholic. For those who did not see my last blog post about him, Michael founded St Michael\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Media, a Catholic TV station, in 2006 and RealCatholicTV.com, an on-line Catholic TV station, in 2008. All credit to Paul Smeaton, son of John Smeaton and a recent graduate, for arranging this talk.<\/p>\n
It was very well attended; the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stalls\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were packed, if not the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gallery\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. But this was no theatrical event. It was a dedicated Catholic addressing his fellow believers and it was electrifying. Voris is no slouch when it comes to straight talking. He has been criticised for this in the past, for speaking as if he \u00e2\u20ac\u0153has authority\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. After all, he is only a layman, sounding off as if he were a bishop.<\/p>\n
This is precisely Voris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 point: as a confirmed Catholic and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153soldier of Christ\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (remember that quaint phrase?) he sees it as his duty \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and ours \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to be an evangelist for the Faith. It is our responsibility and not to be sloughed off on the hierarchy \u00e2\u20ac\u201c who may or may not be fulfilling their responsibilities. He told us in no uncertain terms, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You have a vital role to play: to work out your own salvation and to do everything possible for the salvation of others.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
He has no truck with the description \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am a Catholic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, said in the same way as one might say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am an Irishman.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d To be Catholic is who we are; the correct description should be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I am Catholic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and chuck away the indefinite article. This was heady stuff and several times he got loud applause. Voris is sometimes accused of being too full of himself \u00e2\u20ac\u201c but I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think he cared a toss about the clapping. He was too on fire with his message; it is very simple: to be Catholic means to pay any price in order to love Christ with every fibre of one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s being and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to look at the world as a theatre of redemption.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
As if we didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hear it all around us, he reminded us that the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153accommodation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tolerance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and being \u00e2\u20ac\u0153non-judgmental\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are simply not stances that a Catholic can take. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Faith is about salvation, not accommodation\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, he reminded us. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not enough to have a private devotional life and leave the world to go hang; quoting the late great American Jesuit, Fr John Hardon, Voris told us, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If we are not about saving the world, then why are we Catholic?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
In one memorable anecdote, he related that, aged 14, he had served at a Mass in San Francisco celebrated by the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen. In the sacristy afterwards a young man had come up to him, telling him that he had written a book synthesising Eastern mysticism with the Western Church. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Get out!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d roared the Archbishop. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Catholic Faith is a gift from Almighty God and I will not have you polluting it! Get out!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
As I said, it was heady stuff. I left with the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When you hear the truth you must either reject it or change your life\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ringing in my ears. Why not check out Voris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 website?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Francis Phillips relates Michael Voris\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s take no prisoners approach to faith. By Francis Phillips on Thursday, 25 August 2011 I was at Regent Hall, Oxford Street last night to hear Michael Voris speak about what it means to be Catholic. For those who did not see my last blog post about him, Michael founded St […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}