City OKs settlement with Church Militant over protest permit

The city of Baltimore plans to pay $275,000 to settle a lay Catholic organization’s lawsuit over the city’s attempt to block it from holding a 2021 rally on the grounds that the event could create a risk of a violent disruption.

St. Michael’s Media, also known as Church Militant, is a nonprofit digital media outlet based in Michigan. It sued the city regarding its plans to hold a “prayer rally” at MECU Pavilion, a city-owned, open-air auditorium on the Inner Harbor, on Nov. 16, 2021.

The proposed settlement with Baltimore is outlined in the agenda for the next meeting of the city’s Board of Estimates, which is scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to approve it.

The group, which is unaffiliated with the Catholic Church, bills itself as “a bastion of Catholic truth and a light to the faithful in hard times.” It is known for its frequent criticism of church leadership, including what it has called the evil that gave rise to the church’s global sexual abuse crisis, as well as what it considers the church’s insufficient vigor in pushing back against abortion and tacit approval of pro-abortion politicians.

St. Michael’s leaders said they chose the rally date to coincide with that year’s conference of U.S. Catholic bishops in Baltimore. That gathering is held each November at the Baltimore Waterfront Marriott Hotel, which is adjacent to the pavilion.

St. Michael’s held a similar rally at the site in 2018 without incident.

But city spokespersons said some of the proposed speakers for the 2021 rally — including Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former Republican President Donald Trump, and political provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos — had expressed approval of protesters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2020. They argued the rally therefore would bring a risk of political unrest to the city. They also suggested that Yiannopoulos, a paid columnist for Church Militant at the time, had a history of attracting counterprotesters to his events, which they said increased the threat of a disruption.

That August, city officials instructed the contractor that manages the pavilion to cancel the event “out of a legitimate fear that it would incite violence in the heart of downtown Baltimore,” according to a later court filing.

That sparked more than two years of legal wrangling centering on what St. Michael’s attorneys argued were First Amendment concerns. On Sept. 13, 2021, the group filed a federal lawsuit against the city, Democratic Mayor Brandon Scott and then-City Solicitor

James Shea, on the grounds that the cancellation order violated the group’s rights to free speech, religious expression and free assembly.

U.S. District Judge Ellen Hollander agreed. She issued a preliminary injunction barring the city from making the cancellation, writing in her finding that while the MECU Pavilion is a nonpublic forum to which access can be restricted on the basis of a speaker’s subject matter, the fact that the city was using Bannon’s and Yiannopoulos’ past remarks as a reason for canceling suggested “viewpoint discrimination” and would likely not stand up under legal review.

“The First Amendment to the Constitution is at the heart of this case,” she wrote, adding that “the city cannot conjure up hypothetical hecklers and then grant them veto power.”

Baltimore appealed Hollander’s decision, sending the case to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That court affirmed Hollander’s ruling.

The Baltimore City Law Department said in a statement Thursday that while Baltimore “vehemently objects to the group’s message of hate, given the court’s initial decision, the city feels the best course of action is to settle this matter now to mitigate further exposure were the matter to proceed to trial.”

St. Michael’s Media did not respond to requests for comment.

The “Bishops: Enough is Enough” rally, as St. Michael’s billed it, was held as planned, drawing some 1,500 people to the 3,000seat venue. Bannon did not appear, but Yiannopoulos — who had said he wanted to speak because he had been sexually abused by a Catholic priest — served as master of ceremonies. About two dozen counterprotesters appeared outside the gathering, but city officials’ fears of a violent clash were not realized.

St. Michael’s Media was rocked by scandal in November when it was revealed that its founder and CEO, Michael Voris, sent shirtless photos of himself to a number of younger male staffers. Church Militant strongly opposes efforts by some in the church to soften its stance toward LGBTQ+ Catholics.

Voris stepped down at the board’s request for what the group called “breaching Church Militant’s morality clause.” In a video statement he released on X, formerly Twitter, Voris expressed a need to conquer “demons.” A fundraising email the group sent out in December suggested the site would fold without donor support.

In 2021, the latest year for which online records were available from the Internal Revenue Service, the group reported net assets of $700,000.