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The Salvation Army's Regent Hall was packed last night for Michael Voris' talk on "Living the Catholic faith radically!" It was good to see so many young people in the crowd, as well as a fair number of what a friend of mine would call "the usual suspects". Not only did I meet a few members of the Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma, as well as other Catholic bloggers, at the event, but was also introduced to many new faces. More to the point, it was actually good to be present in person to see and hear Michael Voris in...

Official Response to CNA Article: http://www.realcatholictv.com/response/

I am very happy that we have a chance to have this conversation about what makes for a faithful Catholic media organization. I think this is a crucial question for the Church in North America in this time of unprecedented changes in media and telecommunications. It seems every month there is a new website or technology that appears. No one can keep up with everything. Not even we bishops, known as we are for our technical expertise! All joking aside, I want to say very clearly that we bishops do not approach this conversation as if we have "the answer"...

You know who you are out there. Vatican's social communications office, Archbishop Claudio Celli, according to AP reports said it was right "to direct the pope's exhortation to some conservative Catholic blogs, YouTube channels and sites which, with some vehemence, criticize bishops, public officials and policies they consider not Catholic enough." From America Magazine"Taliban Catholicism" is John Allen's description of web-based McCarthyism on the rise in the Catholic blogosphere and undoubtedly this is what the Vatican was referring to. Pressure is on to radically change the Roman Catholic Church in America, but it's not coming from the usual liberal suspects....

Do you have a blog on which you write about Catholic stuff? Do you read Catholic blogs? Do you comment on Catholic blogs? Are you planning on going to Rome for the Beatification of John Paul II? Are you pretty sure you're not going to get invited to the Vatican's blognic?Do you suspect that they found your work just a leeetle too ... err... forthcoming about the bishops, the Church, the state of things? Do you suspect that you'd probably be regarded as a "Taliban Catholic" blogger in certain circles? Or just don't think you can face hours of talks...

Rome, Italy, May 3, 2011 / 04:12 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Many a revolution is said to have started from the backroom of a bar. The bloggers who gathered May 3 in Scholar’s Lounge Irish Pub in central Rome are hoping for a very similar outcome. “The real mission of the blogs is to evangelize a world that’s sorely in need of our Blessed Lord, the Truth and the Faith,” says keynote speaker Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV.com. Around 30 bloggers from all round the globe had gathered for today’s event. Some had been invited to attend yesterday’s Vatican-sponsored blogging conference. Others...

Yes, there should: but let’s knock this ‘Taliban’ stuff on the headTwo website pieces on “Catholic must-reads” caught my attention yesterday: they are not entirely unconnected, I think. The first was the suggestion by “a reluctant sinner” (I couldn’t find the author’s name on his blog) that there should be a guild of Catholic bloggers. The first question that occurs to me is this: what would be such a blog’s general complexion? There have been, from “liberal” quarters (note the inverted commas) dark grumblings about the “Catholic blogosphere” as being irredeemably reactionary (incidentally, there’s a word that could do with...

Well, sort of—if by "Catholics" you mean those who publicly dissent from Church teaching. From the AP article, "Catholic bloggers aim to purge dissenters" (Oct. 25, 2010): Pressure is on to change the Roman Catholic Church in America, but it's not coming from the usual liberal suspects. A new breed of theological conservatives has taken to blogs and YouTube to say the church isn't Catholic enough.Enraged by dissent that they believe has gone unchecked for decades, and unafraid to say so in the starkest language, these activists are naming names and unsettling the church. Oooh...how chilling! The mere mention of...

The full text of Anna Arco’s speech at the World Press Congress in Rome last weekThe blogosphere is as old as the internet. There are well over 100 million blogs, according to a 2008 Technorati estimate. Once the domain of computer geeks and tech nerds, the blogosphere is now respectably populated by soccer moms, fashion conscious teen-agers, political dissenters, pyjama-clad college students and the Cardinal Archbishop of Boston among others. Most mainstream newspapers use blogs now, and I imagine most people in this room have a blog or at least a Twitter account. As more and more people have flocked...

November 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The internet has provided a means for orthodox Catholics to skirt or otherwise defeat the blockading of an orthodox voice in Western media, said Michael Voris, creator and public face of RealCatholicTV, an internet-based apologetics organization, in an interview with the Associated Press this week. AP’s Rachel Zoll quoted John Allen, the Vatican correspondent for the liberal National Catholic Reporter, who has coined the term “Taliban Catholic” to describe orthodox Catholics who insist that the Catholic Church’s hierarchy and administration toe the line of authentic Catholic teaching, especially on life and family issues. Liberal critics...

I think the first time I ever heard of “Catholic Taliban”, it was years ago in an editorial by Al Matt, editor of The Wanderer.  He was referring to a brand of traditionalist who is, as I sometimes identify them, “happy only when they are unhappy”… and they share it all too willingly.Then a while back my friend John Allen, sadly still writing for the National Catholic Fishwrap, took up the epithet, applying it to those who practice “a distorted, angry form of the faith that knows only how to excoriate, condemn, and smash the TV sets of the modern...

“Fr James Martin SJ,” the editor reported yesterday in his Morning Catholic must-reads, “says that ‘web-based McCarthyism’ is on the rise in the Catholic blogosphere.” What he means by web-based McCarthyism is what John L Allen (of the National Catholic Reporter) calls the “Catholic Taliban”. Allen’s explanation of this term was recently spelled out to an audience at the University of Texas. It was necessary, Allen said, to strike “a balance between two extremes”. This is how he described these extremes: “On the one extreme lies what my friend and colleague George Weigel correctly terms ‘Catholicism Lite’, meaning a watered-down,...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The month after a New Orleans summit between bishops and Catholic media professionals, a Webinar examined the role of Catholic media outlets and the links between them and the bishops, who are quite often the publishers of locally produced Catholic newspapers and broadcast programming. The July 28 Webinar, "Faithful Catholic Media: Continuing the Conversation," jointly sponsored by the Catholic Press Association and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was intended as a follow-up to the summit, held as part of the Catholic Media Convention in New Orleans in early June. "The bishops don't have all the answers,"...

Folks, I think John Allen crossed over the line when he called conservative Catholic bloggers "the Catholic Taliban." I used to think he was pretty fair when it came to his reporting. But now, I'm having a change of heart. What do faithful Catholics on here think?

Thursday November 4, 2010 Alternative Catholic Media Holding Hierarchy’s Feet to the Fire of Orthodoxy: Michael Voris of RealCatholicTV By Hilary WhiteNovember 3, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The internet has provided a means for orthodox Catholics to skirt or otherwise defeat the blockading of an orthodox voice in the media, said Michael Voris, creator and public face of RealCatholicTV, an internet-based apologetics organization, in an interview with the Associated Press this week.AP’s Rachel Zoll quoted John Allen, the Vatican correspondent for the liberal National Catholic Reporter, who has coined the term “Taliban Catholic” to describe orthodox Catholics who insist that the...

Denver, Colo., Aug 17, 2011 / 06:12 pm (CNA).- Michael Voris, the founder and host of RealCatholicTV, says he was completely unaware of recently discovered troubles within his organization, involving a staff apologist's sexually explicit writings, and his nonprofit corporation's loss of legal status two years ago. “I don't know what the issue is on any of this stuff,” said Voris, who is currently in Spain promoting his unofficial “No Bull in Madrid” meetings during World Youth Day.