The Church Militant is an independent Catholic online media group led by Michael Voris, and since 2015, they have sponsored an annual conference for Catholic men called “Strength and Honor.” Last week, an “antifa” (anti-fascist) group calling itself Michigan Peoples Defense Network (MPDN) announced their plans to “shut down” the conference at a hotel in the Detroit suburb of Sterling Heights:

A local “antifascist” group is trying to crush free speech and silence dissent by protesting Church Militant’s upcoming men’s conference. The group is also smearing Church Militant as “anti-woman” and “hateful.” . . .

“As the radical Christian right rises in America, having supported Donald Trump’s campaign of hatred against the most marginalized,” MPDN’s announcement reads, “it is more vital than ever that the community stands against hate draped in a cross.”

MPDN falsely characterizes Church Militant’s Strength and Honor Conference as a “men’s rights” event, condemning the alleged “hateful messages” spread at this “anti-woman” event.

“[T]he claim that the conference is about ‘men’s rights’ is a deliberate distortion,” stated Church Militant’s official press release Monday. “The conference is about men’s obligations, not ‘rights.'” . . .

MPDN, only formed in December, employs a logo that includes two crossed baseball bats, as well as fists raised in defiance, and claims it’s necessary “to respond with more than messages of unity and solidarity” to what it calls the rise of the far right. MPDN goes on to state it is “prepared to physically defend” victims of alleged racist attacks.

MPDN calls The Church Militant “a radical religious hate group working to suppress women’s rights and promote a theocratic Christian agenda.” It would be more accurate to describe MPDN as a radical anti-religious hate group promoting an anarchist anti-Christian agenda. And the possibility of “antifa” violence cannot be ignored:

Christine Niles, a Vietnamese immigrant who helps run a parachurch organization in Michigan that promotes Roman Catholic teaching, expected to spend this week preparing theological materials and getting ready for the group’s annual conference for men.

Instead, Niles, who is editor-in-chief of Church Militant, has been in consultations with local law enforcement after learning that a left-wing group is drumming up support to shut down the conference, which will take place on Aug. 4-6 at locations in Ferndale and Sterling Heights, Mich.

“Police have reached out to both sides and will have patrol cars observing,” Niles told Fox News. “But we don’t know who the activists are associated with and we don’t know what will happen.” . . .

Niles, who has degrees from Notre Dame University and Oxford University, and her colleagues at Church Militant contend that this could not be further from the truth.

“The real bone of contention that MPDN has with Church Militant is not the spurious claims and lies it’s telling, but the positions we take on morality and decency,” the Catholic group said in a statement. “Church Militant is not a hate group; MPDN is the real hate group, trying to intimidate religious organizations into silence and shut down a conference meant to help men by fostering the virtues of humility, charity and sacrifice.” . . .

Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture at the Media Research Center, concurred that the religious outfit is hardly the “radical” one in this matter.

“The radical left is following the lead of the liberal media and attacking Church Militant. Now, even having a men’s conference on how to be good husbands and fathers generates liberal protests,” he said.

The Left is against marriage, against fatherhood, against Christianity. Everything good and decent in life, the Left is determined to destroy.

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