Gary Michael Voris is an American Catholic author, speaker, and apologist. He was the president and founder of St. Michael's Media, a Christian right-wing outlet that produced catechetical and news videos and articles through the website Church Militant.
Education and Early Career
Voris graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1983 with a degree in communications, focusing on history and politics. From 1983 to 1986, he worked as a television anchor, producer, and reporter for various CBS affiliates in New York, Albany, Duluth, and Cheyenne, Wyoming. In 1989, he became a news reporter and producer for a Fox affiliate in Detroit, where he won four Regional Emmy Awards for production between 1992 and 1996. In 1997, he co-founded an independent television production company called Concept Communications, LLC. In 2009, Voris received an STB degree (magna cum laude) from the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome via Sacred Heart Major Seminary.
St. Michael's Media and Church Militant
In 2006, Voris founded the digital television studio St. Michael's Media in Ferndale, Michigan. Initially operating under the name RealCatholicTV.com, the outlet changed its name to ChurchMilitant.tv in 2012 and later to ChurchMilitant.com. The organization produced videos and articles promoting conservative Catholic perspectives.
In 2011, the Archdiocese of Detroit published a notice stating that it did not regard Voris and RealCatholicTV as authorized to use the word "Catholic" to identify or promote their public activities, citing canon 216 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Church Militant rejected the archdiocese's claims, stating that no specific programming had been identified as heterodox or problematic.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) classified Church Militant/St. Michael's Media as an anti-LGBTQ hate group, a designation it has held since 2018.
Controversies
In April 2011, Voris was banned from speaking at Marywood University or any facilities owned by the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, after complaints about his statements, including comments questioning the validity of Rabbinical Judaism. The diocese stated that his "extreme positions on other faiths are not appropriate." The talk was moved to a hotel in Wilkes-Barre.
Voris has publicly stated that during his thirties, he lived in relationships with homosexual men and had sexual liaisons with both men and women, describing this as part of his life before his reversion to the Catholic faith.
Resignation
In November 2023, Voris was asked to resign as president of Church Militant/St. Michael's Media by the board of directors for "breaching the Church Militant morality clause." Voris confirmed his resignation on his personal X (formerly Twitter) account. In February 2024, The Washington Post reported that the violations consisted of sending unsolicited shirtless selfies to male staffers.
Defamation Lawsuit and Closure
Church Militant faced a federal defamation lawsuit brought by Reverend Georges de Laire of New Hampshire. In 2024, Voris settled the lawsuit, and Church Militant subsequently shut down as part of the settlement.
