Maybe he doesn’t know what he believes. Maybe he’s ashamed to admit what he believes.

Moreover, Mr. Voris couldn’t write a theological argument to support his position on salvation theology, or any other topic for that matter, if his job depended on it. (It doesn’t. His supporters don’t want theology. They want rants against the Church leaders whom they hate, and that’s what they get.)

Proof positive is found in his recent “Vortex” videos on the Saint Benedict Center of Richmond, NH, run by the so-called Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. That fake religious order has never been approved by the Catholic Church. They are a group of non-Catholics playing dress-up, pretending to be a Catholic religious order. But without approval from the one true Church, they are nothing of the kind.

This pretend-Catholic pretend-religious order was founded by none other than Fr. Leonard Feeney. Fr. Feeney is also the founder of a malicious heresy, one that rejects the teaching of Christ and His Church on salvation, and substitutes his own foolish ideas. (Ah, that’s why Voris is attracted to Feeney. They are two of a kind. They each substitute their own ideas in place of Church teaching.) In any case, Feeneyism, as the heresy is called, holds that, since the time of Christ, only those persons who receive the formal Sacrament of Baptism with water and who hold the Catholic faith have salvation.

Ironically, since the Feeneyites at the SBC do not hold the Catholic faith, they would not be saved if their own ideas about salvation were true. (But since their understanding is false, they might be saved despite their grave errors, heresy, and schism.)

I’ve been reading articles at the Feeneyite website, Catholicism.org. And their theology makes some pretty bizarre claims. One such claim is that a non-Catholic who enters the state of grace by a baptism of desire does receive justification and the state of grace, but he is still not saved unless he subsequently enters the Catholic Church by formal Baptism with water!

Heresy: “In Conclusion, Justification can be attained by a person with the Catholic Faith together with at least a desire for the Sacraments. He cannot attain Salvation unless he receives the Sacraments. As the foregoing discussion from the Council of Trent points out, justification and salvation are two different things.” [Catholicism.org]

I explain their position on that error and why it is so very wrong at length here: Heresies on Salvation at the Saint Benedict Center (Richmond NH). But the basic idea is that dying in the state of grace is not sufficient for salvation. And of course, if you are well instructed in Catholic doctrine, that idea is heresy.

Michael Voris claims the opposite: that the SBC teaches dogma, and that the opposition to their views by the local diocese is heresy here. And yet he himself says: “Only those who die in a state of grace are admitted to the Beatific Vision.” [Source] Which is it, Mr. Voris? Does everyone who has the state of grace at death have eternal life (perhaps after a temporary stay in Purgatory)? Or is baptism with water and adherence to the Catholic Faith necessary, as the Feeneyites claim?

Think carefully. If you say the SBC and Fr. Feeney are right, that a person with a baptism of desire, and the state of grace, and justification, and belief in the Catholic Faith is still NOT saved without a water baptism, you join them in heresy and are automatically excommunicated. (You are already automatically excommunicated for schism and other heresies, but that is beside the point.) And if you disagree and say that a person who dies in the state of grace, by baptism of desire, does not need a water baptism also, then you are a hypocrite. For you have repeatedly defended Fr. Feeney and the SBC as if they were faithful Catholics teaching dogma. Heresy or Hypocrisy. Make your choice.

Michael Voris is a teacher of heresy. And like all heretics, he doesn’t know what he believes. A heretic is like quicksilver. Press your thumb down and it scatters in a dozen different directions. The Feeneyites at the SBC believe that all Protestants, despite receiving water baptism, are not saved because they lack the Catholic Faith. They believe that a Catholic catechumenate, who dies without water baptism goes to Hell, even though he had justification, belief in the Catholic faith, a baptism of desire, and the state of grace.

I’ll say this for them, though. At least they are not ashamed to proclaim their beliefs from the rooftops. Michael Voris has for many years refused to state his own views on salvation. He makes vague assertion, and sometimes seems to contradict himself, so that even his most ardent supporters have NO IDEA what Michael Voris believes or teaches on who is saved. He has been avoiding stating his position clearly for many years now.

For example, what does Voris believe about Protestant salvation? Two contradictory things, apparently.

In his video, The Truth of the Church, he claims that his father, who was raised Protestant, would not have been saved as a baptized Protestant. But fortunately he converted to Catholicism before he passed. As for Voris’ paternal grandmother, she was a Protestant who never converted. Yet Voris claims — contrary to the teaching of the Feeneyites at the SBC — that she may have been saved by the mercy of God. So are Protestants saved or not?

Michael Voris is like all heretics. They don’t answer theological questions because they either have such a poor understanding of theology that they can’t answer coherently, or because they know that the answers will expose them as heretics.

Either Mr. Voris is ASHAMED to say that he agrees with Fr. Feeney and the SBC that water baptism is absolutely necessary for salvation (Nulla Aqua, Nulla Salus), or he disagrees with them, and hides that fact so that he can use the SBC to oppose the main object of his daily hatred, the one true Catholic Church.

It is one thing to criticize a particular teaching or decision of a Church leader. It is one thing to criticize particular Judas’ in Church leadership. But it is quite another to do as Voris has done: condemn the very soul of Pope Francis to Hell, condemn most of the Bishops as if they had no supernatural faith, and therefore no state of grace, stand in judgment over every Church leader, to condemn almost all of them, and also to state that the Church is almost entirely corrupt. Here’s the quote on that last claim: “There is not one corner of the Church which has not been swarmed by the homosexual hive and been corrupted.” That claim contradicts the dogma of the indefectibility of the Church, and so it is heresy.

So it reaches a point, in spewing hatred toward one Church leader after another, one successor of Peter and of the other Apostles after another, where there are few leaders left that you have not rejected, so much so that you have essentially rejected the Church herself. For if you hate the successors to the Apostles, you hate the Church. There is no Church without Apostolic Succession. Spend some time at ChurchMilitant.com and you will find that it is a website that attacks the Catholic Church, while pretending to be Catholic. Just like the SBC!

Also, please note that Michael Voris is LYING when he says that the conflict is between the SBC and the local diocese. As a matter of fact, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith sent the local diocese their decision and their restrictions on the SBC, to be carried out by the diocese on behalf of the Holy See. So in claiming that the SBC teaches dogma and the diocese teaches heresy, Voris is really accusing the Holy See of heresy. Here is the proof of that. And that accusation is schismatic.

I think I should do a video series, mocking the “Vortex” videos. I’ll call it “Context”.

So by siding with the Saint Benedict Center AND Fr. Feeney against the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Michael Voris has committed formal schism.

Questions

Michael Voris, are you ashamed to say what you believe on salvation theology? Or do you have no idea how to write a coherent theological argument on the topic? Or maybe you just don’t know what you believe? Why don’t you clarify your teachings on salvation for your followers?

1. Do you believe that, since the time of Christ, no one is saved without a water baptism, not even a catechumenate preparing for Catholic baptism or a Catholic catechumenate martyr?
Yes: heretic.
No: hypocrite. Fr. Feeney and the SBC teach that heresy, yet you claim they teach dogma, not heresy.

2. Does a Protestant, who dies with water baptism and in the state of grace, have eternal life?
Yes: hypocrite. The SBC rejects salvation for Protestants, even if they die in the state of grace.
No: heretic.

3. Is dying in the state of grace sufficient for salvation?
Yes: hypocrite. The SBC, whom you defend as faithful Catholics, reject this dogma.
No: heretic.

4. Can Jews and Muslims enter the state of grace by an implicit baptism of desire?
Yes: hypocrite. You yourself claimed, in the video “Muslims and Jews“, that they lack supernatural faith, something they would have by an implicit baptism of desire.
No: heretic.

5. Can an atheist enter the state of grace by an implicit baptism of desire?

6. What happens to prenatals and unbaptized infants who die at that young age?

7. Are Catholics the only ones who can be saved, or is salvation available to non-Catholic Christians?

8. Are Christians the only ones who can be saved, or is salvation available to non-Christian believers?

9. Are believers the only ones who can be saved, or is salvation available to non-believers as well?

10. If you don’t believe what Fr. Feeney and the SBC teach on salvation, why are you defending them, as if they were faithful Catholics teaching dogma and as if Fr. Feeney were a “loyal son”?

Michael Voris won’t answer these questions for two reasons. First, the answers would expose him for the hypocrite and heretic that he is. And second, he has such a poor understanding of Catholic theology, especially salvation theology, that he can’t give a coherent explanation or defense of his own ideas. I wonder whether he even has a position on salvation theology.

He is defending the Saint Benedict Center and Fr. Feeney because the Church rejected them, and Michael Voris sees the Catholic Church as his enemy. Read ChurchMilitant.com. It’s full of rants and hatred directed against leaders of the Catholic Church, from Pope Benedict and Pope Francis to Cardinals and Bishops. ChurchMilitant.com stands in judgment over every Church leader, every teaching, every judgment, as if that organization had the role to judge and correct the Church Herself. And that is a role only held by God.

Michael Voris judges Popes, Synods, Cardinals, and Bishops, pretending to know that they teach grave errors. And yet he has no written theology at all. His books are not works of theology, and neither are his video rants. He has a baccalaureate degree in theology, yet somehow he never learned how to write theology.

What do you believe on salvation, Mr. Voris? If you understand the teaching of the Catholic Faith on salvation so well that you have the gall to accuse the CDF of heresy, and to side with a schismatic group against the Church, why don’t you write down what you think Catholics should believe on this subject? And if you cannot, how is it you make yourself judge of this topic, above and against the Holy See?

by
Ronald L. Conte Jr.
Roman Catholic theologian
* My books of theology
* My translation of the Bible
* Please support my work