Video evidence released Friday indicates that New York City's Cardinal Timothy Dolan may have ordered the removal of reporters who dared to criticize him during a press rally at the city's famous St. Patrick's Day parade held last Tuesday.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York became persona non grata among faithful Catholics last September when he supported the St. Patrick's Day parade committee's decision to allow openly gay group OUT@NBCUNIVERSAL to march in the parade under their own banner while rejecting pro-life Catholic groups who wished to do the same. Cardinal Dolan called the decision "a wise one" with which he had "no trouble with at all" and gave the committee his "full confidence and support." Despite multiple pleas and petitions from Catholics to the contrary, His Eminence refused to resign as the parade's Grand Marshall and showed up to the parade last Tuesday sporting a wide-eyed smile and a jolly attitude before coming face to face with one of his fiercest critics: Michael Voris of ChurchMilitant.TV (CMTV), a Catholic apostolate dedicated to combating heretical liberalism in the clergy.
Confronting Dolan head-on during the parade's press rally, Voris asked Dolan point-blank, "Do you have anything to say to loyal Catholics who find what you're doing here a great scandal to the faith?" Smiling jovially, Dolan gave his non-answer by saying, "No, come on in, we'd love to have you," before waltzing off while Voris demanded Dolan actually answer the question.
Moments later, Dolan's press handlers immediately had police escort Voris and CMTV crew away from the area despite the fact that they had legally authorized press credentials in their possession.
While no direct quotes have been attributed to Cardinal Dolan giving the order to have Voris forcefully pushed out, detailed analysis of the video does show His Eminence whispering to his communications director Joseph Zwilling before greeting other reporters. Moments later, footage shows that Zwilling kept tracking Voris and his crew until he eventually ordered an unidentified guard to have them removed, the very same guard who calls upon police to escort them out.
According to Voris, Joseph Zwilling knows exactly who he is and the two have communicated on multiple occasions, so the claim cannot be made that he feared for Cardinal Dolan's safety.
As of now, numerous mainstream Catholic media sources from Catholic News Agency to EWTN to Catholic News Service have been completely silent on what took place Tuesday.
