Head of conservative religious media outlet Church Militant resigns

Michael Voris, the founder and president of a religious media outlet in Ferndale led by conservative Catholics, has resigned, according to a statement from Church Militant.

In an email Tuesday afternoon, Church Militant said "Voris has been asked to resign for breaching the Church Militant morality clause. The board has accepted his resignation."

The statement from Church Militant added that Voris is "stepping aside and focusing on his personal health." Church Militant did not specify what the media outlet's morality clause is or how Voris may have violated it. Church Militant did not return an email and voicemail seeking further comment. Voris did not return a voicemail Tuesday from the Free Press seeking comment.

In a 14-minute video posted on X Tuesday evening, Voris did not explain why exactly he resigned, but alluded to some personal problems he's facing, referring to them as a "spiritual terror." He said he's going on a retreat.

"There are things I have to go away and address and work on," Voris said. "They are again, horrible, ugly things, not going to share them. Nobody else's business except mine."

Voris said "sometimes it takes very horrible events, even at your own hand, in your life to surface certain things that need to be faced. There are some very, very ugly truths from my past that I for essentially 62 years have avoided facing."

Voris added that he continued to believe that the Catholic faith is "the one true faith," asking people to pray for him and the media outlet he founded.

Church Militant has drawn national and international attention over the past decade for its aggressive and outspoken views and reporting that often drew critics, but also supporters on the right. The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Church Militant as a hate group, a claim the media outlet strongly denies, accusing the center of unfairly targeting Christian groups.

Voris, 62, a former TV news reporter, founded St. Michael's Media in 2006 with the financial help of Marc Brammer, a member of Opus Dei, a conservative Catholic group. St. Michael's media created Real Catholic TV in 2008 as a way to reach Catholics through television and then the internet, the Free Press reported in 2008. After complaints from the Archdiocese of Detroit, which said the media outlet had no right to use the word "Catholic" in its name, Real Catholic TV changed its name in 2012 to Church Militant.

Voris and the media outlet have drawn controversy for right-wing views that often criticized groups whom they believe deviated from Catholic teachings, such as LGBTQ+ people. Voris, who has said he used to sleep with both men and women, often blamed the problem of abusive Catholic priests on public acceptance of gay people and liberals in Catholic Church leadership. He told the Free Press in 2012 he worked up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, on a mission to help the faithful.

In 2016, Voris opened up about his past as an actively gay man, saying he was "confused about my own sexuality, I lived a life of live-in relationships with homosexual men."

Voris has said the Catholic Church needs to become more masculine and outspoken to reach men turned off by the church.

"People respond to the truth, not pablum" Voris said in 2008. "And for decades, that's all young adults have been given. They've been fed gallons of innocuous, ethereal, kumbaya, arts-and-craft making, God is a rainbow, let's hold hands, spiritually vacuous nonsense. Don't believe me? Start counting young adults at Mass the next time you're there. ... Why do young adults stay from Mass in droves? What's missing is bold preaching that challenges young adults."

In one of his more controversial comments, Voris once said: "The only way to prevent a democracy from committing suicide is to limit the vote to faithful Catholics."

In his Tuesday video, Voris said "there have been failings ... with regard to me, my own personal behavior, not just the most recent stuff here."

Voris added, his voice overcome with emotion at times: "In one sense, I'm kind of relieved. I need to conquer these demons. ... It's horrible. It's awful. It's sinful. I'm not downplaying it at all. All I'm saying is the underlying cause of it has been too ugly for me to look at. ... like spiritual terror."

More: Catholic population in southeastern Michigan dips below 1 million

Voris was a frequent critic of the Archdiocese of Detroit's leadership, saying it had become too liberal.

In its statement announcing his resignation, Church Militant said its board of directors "has chosen not to disclose Michael’s private matters to the public. The apostolate will be praying for him, and we kindly ask you to do the same."

The outlet added that Church Militant and St. Michael's Media have more than 40 full-time employees.

"The apostolate will remain unwavering in its reporting and its commentary — defending Holy Mother Church from errors both inside and out," Church Militant said.

Voris graduated from Notre Dame in 1983 and was a TV reporter for two decades, working as a national political correspondent during the 1984 presidential race.

He moved in 1990 to Detroit, where he worked for the local CBS and Fox affiliates, earning a few Emmys. But over the years, Voris has said he became increasingly disenchanted with what he saw as the mainstream media's immoral values.

His brother died suddenly of heart failure in 2003 and his mother of stomach cancer in 2004. He has said their deaths added to his spiritual angst, leading him to create St. Michael's Media a couple of years later.

In his video posted Tuesday, Voris said "I have had deep issues with trusting God," but still believes in him.

He added that if you're someone facing personal struggles, "stay strong as you can. ... If you got some ugliness from your past, don't let it control you."

Contact Niraj Warikoo: nwarikoo@freepress.com, X @nwarikoo, Facebook.com/nwarikoo

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michael Voris, founder and president of Church Militant, resigns