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| Mary Magdalene, the Repentant Sinner |
Editor's Note: The comment below from Andrew Dunn was left on yesterday's post about Church Militant and the SSPX. It is so spot on it deserves to be featured. Have you ever noticed that most of Church Militant's non-scandalous content is behind a pay wall for "premium subscribers." Their bread and butter and click bait is salacious scandal. Do great evils need to be exposed? Yes. But take a look at The Remnant, Catholic Family News, LifeSiteNews, and other mature Catholic media and compare the difference in the way things are covered. God bless Andrew for posting this insightful comment.
"Church Militant," and I put their name in quotes because their name is so inappropriate, is basically a porn website when you analyze their content, their go-to-market strategy and the way they stay in business. How?
1. Hooking viewers and subscribers with scandalous content. Does anyone go to their website for inspiration to deepen their Catholic Faith? Or, does one go there for content that will provoke anger and/or desires that violate certain Commandments? The internet is filled with content where one can truly deepen their Faith by reading the Gospels, the writings of the saints, approved Catholic prophecy and apparitions, etc. None of that is commonly associated with the Voris and Niles show. Nope. Stories that show (alleged) corruption in the Church, sex scandals, gotcha exposes are what they're known for.
2. A disturbing rise in seedy content. Right before his execution, serial killer Ted Bundy was interviewed by the protestant Dr. James Dobson. Bundy said to Dobson: "I would keep looking for more potent, more explicit, more graphic kinds of material. Like an addiction, you keep craving something which is harder, harder, something which gives you a greater sense of excitement. Until you reach the point that pornography only goes so far…" I'm not going to compare CM's viewers to Ted Bundy but it is worth pointing out that Bundy started out with porn that was at one level but he had to have an increasingly higher level of porn until he couldn't control himself and became what he became. Look at the coverage that CM has had in recent years and the focus on (alleged) behavior by religious that is too carnally horrific for me to repeat here. We went from Cardinal Dolan welcoming Obama to (alleged) homoerotic behavior in monasteries. Even if some of the accusations CM charges are true, the public does not need ALL the gory details. The demons love it when innocent people are presented with pornographic images and words which cause a distraction from focusing on what is above.
3. Pay up you addict! So now, well-intentioned Catholics are looking now and then at CM's content and they find themselves addicted to the non-stop scandalous coverage. Headlines and snippets come at them via email but in order to get all the "juicy details" they need to $ub$cribe. It's the same business model as pornography. Pornographers aren't in this for free: they need addicts to subscribe to their internet filth in order to traffic victims and produce what they produce. No Catholic should have to pay any allegedly Catholic website. At the utmost local level, you can go to Mass on Sunday and whether you put money in the collection plate or not, you can see Our Lord being consecrated on the altar and hear the Word of God in the Gospel and the Epistle.
4. Don't question what we're doing or we'll sue you! Once upon a time, we had laws on the books that kept pornography underground. But then shyster lawyers and activist judges found each other and now we have the mess we have with our culture. I will simply point out that the SSPX and the Carmelites of Wyoming - to my knowledge - have not rightfully gone after CM with slander lawsuits. The same can't be said for the Voris and Niles show.
5. Consider the source. Those who have had extreme scandal in their personal lives and (sincerely) repent and convert need to be commended and prayed for. But... those same people really need to be, like Magdalene, true penitents and spend the rest of their lives as such. Mary Magdalene did not run around after her conversion calling this woman and that woman a "whore." She stayed close to the Blessed Mother, suffered with her and Our Lord at the foot of the Cross and spent her life after the Ascension in poverty and humility, even living in a cave. Can anyone, anyone imagine St. Mary Magdalene, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Augustin or any saint who went from a life of scandalous sins against the Sixth Commandment acting like Michael Voris and Simon Rafe?
Thank you very much for this great article it is on 100%. I must say, I stopped it with CM a number of years ago. The more I watched CM and listened to both MV, CN I was just a negative and mad person when it came to Holy Mother the Church. Yes, we do have many problems, but I have to believe that the Good within the Church over takes the Bad. As far as I can recall, I don't think that there was ever a Positive article or Vortex on CM. After awhile the constant Negative, negative, negative, beat up, beat up, beat up information became "Toxic." How people can buy that Premium time, I don't know.. they must be addicted to it, like a junkie is addicted to drugs. Have to pray for them! It's good to be informed, but the way CM does it, is not the way.
ReplyDeleteI was a supporter of Voris a decade ago. I withdrew my support when he told us we couldn't criticize the Pope. As a former cult member, I knew this man was going down the wrong path by denouncing people who only wanted to voice their concerns about Francis's words snd actions. He called it "spiritual pornography". Yet, who're the real pornographers?
ReplyDeleteAs Mr Dunn pointed out, Voris & Co. use the business tactics that the porn industries use to hook and keep their consumers. Voris would be familiar with these tactics, because he lived a sodomite lifestyle for years. Porn plays a big role in fostering sexually perverse lifestyles. It feeds the fantasies of the porn addict to keep him in an unreal world of sexual excess. Likewise, CM feeds their viewers this trash to keep their supporters in an unreal world of clerical sexual porn. We know we definitely have problems in this area, but does exposing one's self to the Vortex, and the other scandal items CM puts out really helping CM's supporters and the general public deal with the problems? I think the answer is no!
In closing, in the 19th century, Protestants used to publish extremely salacious literature that would claim to tell the accounts of former Catholic clergy and religious stories of sexual perversity and other outrages. The Protestants ate this stuff up, just like Voris's fanboys and girls devour his videos. This type of literature was given a nickname by judicious people. They called it "puritan pornography". They realized this stuff was garbage that appealed to the base instincts of its readers. And a lot of the stories, like that of Maria Monk, turned out to be pure fiction. From what I see of Voris's operation, it looks like he's producing a Catholic (?) version of this type of filth. Should we call it CM Porn?
Hi Mary Ann,
ReplyDeleteCan I post this piece at The Catholic Monitor? Thanks for your great work.
Fred
Sure Fred. Thanks for the encouragement. I love my readers especially those who leave such interesting, informative and spot-on comments! I'm offering my rosary for all my readers and commenters today!
ReplyDeleteThanks Mary. God bless you.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the above I went to CM and found an interview Oct.18, '22 with Voris and Salza. Excellent interview and questions. I did not see any "porn". So my hope is that an official SSPX rep. will present a rebuttal to the points made by Salza. Keep us posted.
ReplyDeleteHow do so many involved in this conversation know so much about porn sites? Just asking.
ReplyDeleteHi Tom,
ReplyDeleteGotta laugh. I think people are using the term in a slang sense to talk about scandal mongering and sensationalizing the news, as in yellow journalism and tabloid style reporting. Here's the definition of yellow journalism from Britannica:
"the use of lurid features and sensationalized news in newspaper publishing to attract readers and increase circulation. The phrase was coined in the 1890s to describe the tactics employed in the furious competition between two New York City newspapers, the World and the Journal."
I wholeheartedly agree Mary Ann with your assessment of CM being guilty of yellow journalism. I was a premium member of CM for a couple years. As time went by I started noticing the falsity and exaggerations in their reporting I could not help commenting on it to them and they blocked me like I was a pariah! I could not figure out why I was not able to post comments any longer so I called them and the nice young lady said she would look into it and it was probably a mistake and she would let me know but alas I never heard back from them. I looked back at my past comments which were very charitable and just figured they were a troubled, thin skinned group who really cannot take anything less than fawning accolades. I consider it a blessing to realize their spitefulness sooner than later.
DeleteOriginally I supported CM thinking they promoted the faith full stop. Then I realized I had been scammed, essentially. Everything written by Mr. Dunn is exactly right. I could not remove myself fast enough.
ReplyDeleteYour comparison of CM with Ted Bundy is underhanded calumny of the worst sort. You have published a puff piece prominently mentioning pornography which is offensive to me. I am not saying you like pornography but it is strange that it occupies much of your rhetoric. Their business model is to have “premium” content which is certainly ethical and common, it is not evil. If CM focuses on scandal that is a legitimate business model and sorely needed in the Catholic Church today. Comparing today’s website personalities to St. Mary Magdalene, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Augustin is laughable.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious, Chris. Were you offended when Voris compared ALL THE BISHOPS of the United States to Johns looking for their whores over the controversy in Baltimore? If you oppose CM, they will smear (and sue) you with every possible tool. It's okay for them, of course, because they are the authentic voice of the Church.
ReplyDeleteChris Griffin... You must not have noticed the part where I wrote: I'm NOT GOING TO COMPARE CM's viewers to Ted Bundy but it is worth pointing out that Bundy started out with porn that was at one level but he had to have an increasingly higher level of porn until he couldn't control himself and became what he became.
ReplyDeleteThe point being that addictions usually start off at one level but if you can't control yourself, it can lead to bigger and more dangerous levels. Marijuana for example is a gateway drug that often leads to cocaine and heroin addiction. Politics is an even better example - and yes, I think modern-day American politics is pretty close to the porn business model. How many people get enticed by their favorite political candidate saying this and that against their opponent? That person signs up and to get a daily email soundbite from the political candidate and then in no time at all, is sending money to the candidate to get more and more. The candidate goes on to win (or lose) the election, but the subscriber data is still there and the politicians and their puppet-masters in the shadowy, higher political parties keep it up with the theater, thus keeping people hooked on earthly, political emotions and not focused on God and His Church.
And why shouldn't we laypeople aspire to be like Sts. Mary Magdalene, Francis of Assisi, Augustin, etc? All three of these - and there are countless others - were sinful laypeople who became saints. If they could turn their lives around and become saints then there's no reason why we can't either. And yes, that also includes the people working at CM.
Thanks for the comment, Lynne. A number of readers here have said the same thing. I also was an early supporter of CM. As president of the Catholic Media Coalition, a loose affiliation of Catholic bloggers and writers defending the faith in their own dioceses, I had our webmaster put the Vortex on our site. Around 2015 or so, I started to get queasy about their journalistic standards and scandal mongering and we took them off our site. When they started assaulting other Catholic groups and people like John Henry Weston (LifeSiteNews), Michael Matt (The Remnant), Louie Verrecchio (akaCatholic), etc. ad nauseum Susan and I decided we needed to push back. Hence our page with dozens of articles about this organization and their lies and exaggerations and salacious "spin." You know there's something wrong when an attention-seeking same-sex tempted ringmaster leads a "retreat" during the Easter Triduum. At least, thank God, this year's "Retreat at Sea" is before Lent.
ReplyDelete