Poor John Henry, he looks like he has been through the mill. I see before his feet have even touched the ground in his new venture he is already pan handling for dough.
Well he has 7 children and this is his job and he has to earn a living. St Paul did not have to provide for a family and he could go into the public forum in any town he visited. Setting up a new platform has to be expensive. It seems he got no severance deal so he needs to hit the ground running
I am not convinced these are proper jobs because of the use of click-bait to rope people into contributing. Also there this is a form of politicising the faith and micro-analysing everything to attract maximum subscription . He mentions working 16 to 17 hours a day - this is not healthy and one wonders how do you fit in prayer time to such a schedule. The man is in danger of burn out. Just my opinion.
He looks heartbroken.Whats he to do? These voices calling out heresy's are vital because without them the church would be already buried. Bishops of priests who dare to speak on their misgivings have been cancelled.
Look it is all a business simple as that. LSN started ecumenical then gradually took on a more Catholic lens and some went complete trad, which is perfectly fine. It became more hypercritical and focus gradually shifted from "life" issues to more scrutiny of the church. Again also fine. It swelled beyond its means and did not diversify enough with advertisers, products etc to sustain its operation. Journalistic endeavours can either make or break you financially. There is no God given right to seek to sustain a swollen operation on the back of donations. In this age a few people could run the operation and then diligently choose what to focus on with liberality. Personally I can't really listen to Weston, Marshall etc as they take themselves too seriously, Doctor Taylor...please, and give off a very somber and depressing tone. It's as if it is a requirement that if you attend the Mass of ages and are of a more tradional bent that you most have great gravitas and act with complete seriousness. We must be able to discuss the issues with due seriousness but with some levity and humility. Christ is in charge. We don't have to walk about dragging knuckles and be all doom and gloom. Who would be attracted to that. The Church is a mess, we know it is a mess but we don't have to carry the weight of it. We should be using the good chestertonian wit and charm and expose the rot and evil by pointing to the heights and the glory.
So well said. Catholic Inc is on line business now. It needs to sustain itself on donations. Just like the old TV evangelicals. I'm sorry if this sounds cynical but they are selling a product many of them. They didn't start out that way I am sure but it devolves.
I have mixed feelings on this currently, where as I used to be offended by the constant begging of Catholic content creators. Because some people are putting out really really good content, like Sam Shamoun. Not that he is a beggar. But others put out absolute garbage under the banner of the Catholic church. I would normally be more upset about this, but it isn't like the church authorities are using donations in a positive way either currently. I also appreciate all the online content from Catholic creators who are exposing the current degeneracy trend. We even have Bishop Strickland sounding the alarm now. No Catholic content creator will ever suit someones tastes entirely as well and people can donate how they choose to. People like Taylor Marshall may not suit everyone's tastes, but he suits enough people's tastes that he is popular.
The primary problem is that many (most?) bishops and many priests are failing in their duties to teach and preach. If our shepherds were doing their jobs, lay people wouldn’t need to step into the breech. Holy Orders confers the grace to properly fulfill this task. Lay people do not receive this same gift, and have families to support. When our shepherds reassume their rightful place lay people will be able to return to their lane. Until then we’ll see this begging by lay people to support what is not properly their apostolate.
That's fine but it doesn't need to be a full time swollen operation. How many people are actually seeking this content in relation to the supply. It's like people freak out about closing parishes and aging priests. Then you point out that there are 4 people in the pews with grey hair and zimmer frames.
Things are not always as they seem. I was wondering whether John Henry had already reached retirement age and, if he had, was there some kind of pension plan for the staff of Lifesite News. He's clearly not in the first flush of youth and letting someone go when they have decades of other earning potential is different than doing the same to someone close to retirement when career opportunities are limited. So, I did a search for John Henry Westen hoping to find out his age. No luck with that. I did come across lots and lots of headlines about John Henry's departure from Lifesite. This headline stood out: "Was Opus Dei involved in board coup against John Henry Westen?" https://www.thecatholicmonitor.com/2025/07/leoto-heal-relationship-with-opus-dei.html Reading through the article, it looks like Steve Jalsevac is being cast in the role of chief villain. There is one response from Steve Jalsevac to an accusation but I can't read all of it because it links to X. I don't have an X account and when I click on the link I get an error message. Further down the article there's a link to this report about Pope Leo mending fences with Opus Dei which it seems had been damaged under the Francis papacy: https://cathcon.blogspot.com/2025/05/pope-leo-begins-to-heal-relationship.html?spref=tw Another link brought me to this article: https://akacatholic.com/opus-deis-role-in-the-vigano-affair/ I had been uncomfortable for a while with the tone of some of my more trusted Catholic news outlets regarding their attitude towards the Pope. It's not that I had been pleased with the Francis papacy (far from it), but in my opinion they were very close to the line of undermining the papacy itself. Now, reading that Randy Engels article about the Opus Dei role in the Vigano affair, I'm wondering to what extent we ordinary Catholics are being manipulated by powers unknown to us. P.S. I know precious little about Jalsevac or Engels. I had been an admirer of the Papal Posse but got weary of that too. I have a vague memory of the priest on the Papal Posse saying that he was a member of Opus Dei. An honest man, Fr. said so in full disclosure but I don't recall the context and my memory is so bad these days that I could be completely mistaken. All I'm trying to say here is that things go on behind the scenes that we nobodies never hear about, so best to trust the the Holy Spirit has the Pope's back and will step in to prevent any Pope making what then Cardinal Ratzinger once referred to as a complete mess of things. Best not to take sides unless we are confident we know the whole story. All those involved could be acting in good conscience and we're obliged to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I agree with all the above BUT without the voices of lay Catholics we would be lost at present. Bishops & priests who dare speak uncomfortable truths are cancelled. These lay people have been a thorn in the sides of heretical church leaders and have curbed them. I agree when the church assumes it's rightful mission of preaching the faith as passed down to us in season and out of season then as Brian says there will be no need for lay ministries of this nature. Yes we give the benefit of the doubt but how can we remain silent in the face of heresy like blessing gay unions, blessing couples in non martial unions, preaching that all religions are equal etc etc etc. We are still giving the benefit of the doubt to Pope Leo but we now have Bp Strickland saying he is compounding the errors of Francis. I'm praying that he does not yield to the spirit of the age. It's like walking on eggshells
Well I don't want to be too hard on the poor man. He was brave speaking out when few others would. He was always going to pay the price.
John Henry Westen and others need to stop politicizing our Church. Who cares that Catholic Charities and Catholic Relief Services were two of the top three organizers of 20 million illegal immigrants entering the USA during the last 4 years? I'm sure the fact that the US bishops' greatest source of money ( more than 50%) comes from the funding the US government gives these NGOs is simply an accident of doing God's work. The fact that 300,000 children went missing in the process? I'm sure it wasn't their responsibility. Who cares that the previous pope was a champion of borderless countries? Our bishops know that God loves everyone and just wants us to live in harmony. I'm sure all of the UK and Europe are better places for it. It'll just take a little time. It's good that our Church leaders care for all of God's children and aren't political. People like John Henry are trouble makers. We're better off without them.
I’m sorry you feel that way. Many of us are going through anti Catholic issues in our families and society. It’s difficult today to stay faithful. People like John Henry have kept me strong. It’s been a relief to listen to Catholics I can relate to.