Scope
This page brings together what journalists and researchers have reported about a pattern in English-language, mostly American, Catholic media since 2013. Some commentators built their reputations inside mainstream institutions: the EWTN network, the apologetics apostolate Catholic Answers, and national pro-life ministries. They later became known for sustained criticism of Pope Francis (and, since 2025, of Pope Leo XIV), for traditionalist positions, or for claims that critics call conspiratorial. "Trajectory" here describes public output over time. It is not a judgment about anyone's motives or faith. The paths differ. Some people left their institutions voluntarily, and some were disciplined by Church authority. Others never belonged to mainstream outlets at all. Several people who stayed inside those institutions have publicly rebutted former colleagues.
Mainstream starting points
Raymond Arroyo, news director and lead anchor of EWTN News, says he established EWTN News and The World Over in 1996 (raymondarroyo.com). He remains at EWTN; he appears on this page because of the reported debates over the network's coverage described below, not because he has left it. By his own account in LifeSiteNews, Frank Pavone's EWTN series Defending Life began airing in January 1995. In 2022 the Vatican dismissed him from the clerical state, a decision he called abusive (CNA; Crux), and by 2026 he was writing political columns for Breitbart and The Gateway Pundit. Patrick Coffin hosted the national radio programme Catholic Answers Live for about seven and a half years. He left in September 2016, and Catholic World Report described the move as a step into entrepreneurial media.
EWTN's own debates, as reported
In 2022 Slate reported that since 2013 the most common charge against EWTN has been that it is anti-Francis. It quoted former staff who said the network would not attack the pope outright, and noted that EWTN denies any anti-Francis bias. In 2019 the National Catholic Reporter examined EWTN's ties to conservative Catholic donors, to the National Catholic Register (which EWTN owns) and to Sophia Institute Press, which NCR linked to anti-Francis books.
Much of the argument has centred on the "Papal Posse," a recurring panel on The World Over with Fr. Gerald Murray and the writer Robert Royal. America wrote that the panellists riff on one another's criticisms of the pope, and that Cardinals Raymond Burke and Gerhard Müller were frequent guests. In 2018 Cardinal Wilfrid Napier accused Arroyo of attacking Francis (LifeSiteNews). America also reported that EWTN chief executive Michael Warsaw had told the journalist Christopher Lamb, for Lamb's 2020 book, that the idea that the network opposes the pope was "simply ludicrous."
The dispute reached the pope himself. On 21 September 2021 La Civiltà Cattolica published Francis's conversation with Jesuits in Bratislava. Without naming it, he spoke of a large Catholic television channel that kept criticising him. He said that he might deserve attacks but the Church did not, and called such attacks the work of the devil (America). Observers widely took this as a reference to EWTN (NCR; Washington Times). An NCR editorial urged the U.S. bishops to reconsider their relationship with the network. In December 2021 Cardinal Seán O'Malley said that EWTN and social media gave a distorted picture of American support for the pope (Crux).
Relations later eased. In 2023 Francis blessed a film produced by EWTN Ireland (RNS). When he died in April 2025, Warsaw called his death a moment of personal grief for Catholics (EWTN News). EWTN News president Montse Alvarado told Reuters that the network was proud of its coverage of Francis's pontificate. The panel format has continued under Leo XIV. The Papal Posse was still airing in December 2025 (EWTN UK), and an episode of Arroyo's podcast asked whether Leo is "Francis 2.0" (Apple Podcasts). The show also aired a discussion of Leo's encyclical Magnifica humanitas with Fr. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute (EWTN).
Moving to independent platforms
- Coffin launched his own show after leaving Catholic Answers. In one video he set out "seven pieces of evidence" that Francis is an antipope, and Catholic Answers produced an episode answering it (Catholic Answers). In May 2023, OSV News reported, Fr. Robert Spitzer, Jeff Cavins and Jennifer Roback Morse, along with 17 other speakers, withdrew from Coffin's online Hope Is Fuel conference (UCA News/OSV News). The philosopher Edward Feser wrote in 2022 that Coffin had been promoting a benevacantist position (Feser).
- Carlo Maria Viganò, the former nuncio, denied the McCarrick Report's accusations against him in a 2020 EWTN interview with Arroyo (CWR). His later statements circulated mainly through independent outlets, including Inside the Vatican, edited by Robert Moynihan, whose book Finding Viganò appeared in 2020. In 2024 he was declared excommunicated for schism; see Viganò's excommunication.
- Joseph Strickland, removed as bishop of Tyler in 2023, now publishes through his Pillars of Faith apostolate. In 2026 he objected that Magnifica humanitas puts humanity rather than God at the centre, an objection Catholic World Report disputed.
- John-Henry Westen co-founded LifeSiteNews as a pro-life news service in 1997, and it later became often sharply critical of Popes Francis and Leo. Mother Miriam appeared on his show in an episode about what its title calls Leo's "errors" (The John-Henry Westen Show).
- John Zuhlsdorf livestreamed exorcism prayers about the 2020 U.S. election. He said his bishop had authorised the rites; Bishop Donald Hying of Madison said he had not given permission for exorcisms connected to partisan political activity. Zuhlsdorf later left the Diocese of Madison in what the diocese called a mutual decision, and it said he remained in good canonical standing (The Tablet; NCR). Michael Voris built Church Militant outside mainstream structures from the start; it closed in 2024.
- Taylor Marshall's 2019 book Infiltration drew criticism from conservative Catholic outlets, according to the National Catholic Reporter. Catholic Answers has also rebutted accusations made by Marshall and Kennedy Hall (Catholic Answers).
How researchers and journalists explain the pattern
An essay series from Notre Dame's Contending Modernities argues that well-resourced outlets kept up steady criticism of Francis, drew some of his doubters into open opposition, and squeezed his theology into American left–right categories. Commonweal observes that most voices of online militant traditionalism were born after Vatican II, and it describes their anti-Francis stance as an "insider's sedevacantism." Writing in U.S. Catholic in 2025, a commentator noted that Catholic media have long depended on donations and grants and that some outlets answer to large donors who are not always named. Research on "platform Catholicism" and on influencers who form a "parallel magisterium" is summarised in traditionalist online culture. Much of the commentary comes from outlets with positions of their own: Where Peter Is, for instance, defends Francis. No published study has measured how audiences or revenue shape these shifts.
The independent-platform economy
Leaving an institution means relying on platforms and donors, and the reported record shows the risks. YouTube removed LifeSiteNews in 2021 for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy, and the outlet moved its video to Rumble (CNA). The blog Where Peter Is, a critic, reports that YouTube permanently banned Coffin after he promoted a summit on COVID-19 and the "Great Reset." LifeSiteNews reported that Patreon suspended Timothy Gordon (LifeSiteNews). Church Militant, a donor-funded nonprofit, closed after a $500,000 defamation settlement (AP). Book publishing is also part of the picture: TAN Books published Finding Viganò. The audience figures that are available are mostly self-reported, and no outlet's revenue data has been published.
What the Church says on the points at issue
Canon law gives the faithful the right, and sometimes the duty, to make their views known to their pastors and to others, "with reverence toward their pastors" and with regard for the dignity of persons (CIC can. 212 §3). Lumen Gentium 25 asks for religious submission of mind and will to the pope's authentic teaching even when he is not speaking infallibly. The Catechism treats rash judgment, detraction and calumny as offences against truth and reputation (CCC 2477–2479). The Dicastery for Communication's Towards Full Presence (2023) warns that polemical communication from prominent figures gives others permission to copy it. In July 2025 Pope Leo told Catholic influencers that evangelising online means more than gaining followers (EWTN News).
See also papal-critique and "resistance" media and Catholic nationalism and the online right.