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Semper Fidelis
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Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who defame your good conduct in Christ may themselves be put to shame. —1 Peter 3:15-16
Biographies of the Hosts (experts)
of the St. Michael
Question and Answer Forum
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Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM+
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Bro. Ignatius Mary (also known as Coeur de Lion — the "Lionhearted") is an Apologist, Catechist, lay Counselor & Spiritual Director, and writer. He is also an occult expert and Deliverance Counselor.
Brother is a former Baptist preacher/evangelist who was received into full communion into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in 1993. The lectures of Scott Hahn on the faith and an intense study of the Bible convinced Brother that he must become Catholic. Later that year he met Scott and Kimberly Hahn who invited him to join, and did later join, a new organization that was forming at the time, the Coming Home Network.
Brother received permission from his priestly spiritual director and pastor to found, with eight other co-founders, the Order of the Legion of St. Michael [OLSM] and to a conduct deliverance counseling apostolate. The OLSM was founded on December 12, 1993.
In 1994 Brother received permission from his priestly spiritual director and the membership of the OLSM to enter the novitiate for the celibate brotherhood within OLSM. In 1995 Brother’s spiritual director was given the “go ahead” by the Vicar General of the Diocese to receive the private vows of First Profession from Brother Ignatius during a Mass, and to vest him in the habit. He offered his perpetual vows in 1998.
Through OLSM, Brother is involved with the following projects:
1) An Apostolate of Prayer and helping others to profoundly consecrate their lives to Christ through membership in the OLSM. Brother provides spiritual direction to members.
2) The Center for Advanced Spiritual Studies is a new primary apostolate for OLSM currently under development. It will incorporate training in apologetics, the Divine Office, Biblical studies, and deliverance counseling in courses over the Internet and in seminars. The St. Michael School for Deliverance Counseling is in operation now.
3) Spiritual Warfare. To meet the growing need of hurting people Brother Ignatius founded the St. Padre Pio Center for Deliverance Counseling [SPCDC] (2001), an extension of the deliverance work he was already doing since 1993 in the OLSM, and before converting to the Catholic Church, since 1987.
Bro. Ignatius has extensive experience giving workshops on the topic of spiritual warfare, consulting with law enforcement, investigating occult groups, doing research, as well as conducting deliverance sessions with those in various levels of demonization or otherwise in spiritual pain and bondage in order to lead them to healing and freedom in Christ.
Brother was featured on Ave Maria Radio for a series of programs on spiritual warfare in 2005 and has appeared as a guest on several other radio and Web radio programs. He is currently a regular guest on BlogTalkRadio’s Signs of the Times show. A listing of past and current radio interviews and podcasts are available on the blog of the Excellence in Religious Broadcasting Network.
Brother accepts with speaking engagements and radio appearances when invited on the issue of spiritual warfare and plausibility issues.
4) Apologetics. Brother will be teaching apologetics in the new Center for Advanced Spiritual Studies, answering Q&As, writing, and producing radio broadcasts and podcasts through the Excellence in Religious Broadcasting Network, a developing media outlet for the Order of the Legion of St. Michael.
Brother is the host of several Question and Answer Forums including the Faith and Spirituality, Spiritual Warfare, and Divine Office forums located on St. Michael’s Call (the website for the Order of the Legion of St. Michael). In the past he was a catechist and expert on Catholicism for many years on allexperts.com (the largest Q&A Forum on the Net).
5) Internet Missions. Brother was reluctant to enter into such a ministry but was convinced by his advisers and his spiritual director. Thus, OLSM’s website went online on April 5, 1997. At the time there were only about 30,000 websites in existence, thus OLSM was a pioneer on the World Wide Web. Through the Internet we offer most of our services, information, and educational opportunities.
6) Support Group for Sex Addicts. In 1998 Brother founded the first online support group for Catholics with sexual addictions called the Catholic Support Group for Sexual Addition Recovery.
7) Social Justice. In development now is the St. Thomas More Center for Social Justice. The center will deal with areas of social justice as defined by the Catholic Church. Specific subjects include prison reform, education on the real story about sex offenders, human rights issues, and other matters important to the Catholic concept of social justice.
8) The Falling Torch. Associated closely with social justice is the culture war that threatens our democracy and our religious freedom. This subject will be a primary interest to Brother.
Overall, Brother is experienced in a variety of disciplines and ministries that equip him for these apostolates, including apologetics, catechesis, evangelism, teaching, spiritual direction, lay counseling, deliverance counseling, moral theology, ethics, philosophy, praxeology, and the Divine Office. His undergraduate work was in Psychology, Philosohy, Literature, and Writing. He holds a Licentiate in Theology from the Schola Sancti Anthonii Domusque Studiorum Bibliorum in Montana.
Brother lives in residence at St. Michael House Hermitage in Iowa.
Bro. Ignatius is a member several religious, counseling, artistic, and Internet professional organizations. His active membership in associations requiring yearly dues varies from year to year depending upon his ability to pay yearly dues. As a brother he takes a vow of poverty and thus cannot always afford the luxury of association dues; and OLSM is equally as poor.
Religious organization memberships include Catholic Society of Evangelists, Institute on Religious Life, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Adoremus: Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy, Confraternity of the Brown Scapular, and Confraternity of Mary, Queen of All Hearts (Montfort Fathers), among others.
Professional Counseling association memberships include the American Counseling Association, the Association for Spiritual, Ethical, and Religious Values in Counseling, the International Society for Mental Health Online, and the former National Psychiatric Association.
Web Design Professional association memberships include the HTML Writers Guild, the International Webmasters Association, and the Good News Web Designers Association.
On the other side of the professional tracks in brother’s life, he is a professional and published poet and writer, and an editor and publisher. In this life-track Bro. Ignatius is a member of the Academy of American Poets, the Association of Authors and Publishers, and is listed as Editor and Publisher of St. Michael House Press and Writers House Press in the International Directory of Small Presses and Little Magazines and the WritersNet Online Directory.
Brother was awarded in the 1980’s with the honor of induction the Who’s Who in American Poets, Writers, and Editors located in the United States, and the International Authors and Poets Who’s Who located in London. He was nominated, but did not make the final cut in the Who’s Who of North American Authors.
In addition, Bro. Ignatius was a recipient of the prestigious Kaltenborn Foundation Grant for his work on Beginning Magazine (a magazine that specialized in new talent). [Note: Kaltenborn was a contemporary of Edward R. Murrow. Murrow was at CBS and Kaltenborn at NBC].
Bro. Ignatius was among the top three or four activists in the late 1970’s working against the plague of pornography along side the late Father Morton Hill, S.J. who was a member of the Presidential Commission on Pornography and Obscenity and Founder-Director of Morality in Media, Inc.. Bro. Ignatius still remains active in the cause against pornography. He currently runs the first online Catholic support group for those addicted to pornography and sexual sins – one of the most hideous problems of Spiritual Warfare.
PUBLICATIONS:
Religious Books:
- Regula Sanctus Michaelis (The Rule of St. Michael)
- Three Secret Strategies of Satan and Other Essays
- St. Michael‘s Spiritual Warfare Prayer Catalog
- Hope, Help, Victory: A Spiritual Warfare Workshop
- St. Michael‘s Deliverance Counseling Manual
Poetry and Non-Fiction Books:
- Only Silence is Shame (book of poetry)
- The Wilder Letters (book of essays)
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Mr. Joe Meineke
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Mr. Meineke is the Director of the St. Padre Pio Center for Deliverance Counseling. He has been researching the issues of the occult and demonology for more than fifteen years. Mr. Meineke was the Associate Director of the SPCDC, under Bro. Ignatius Mary, for eight years before taking over the apostolate in June 2009 when Brother semi-retired from Deliverance Counseling.
As an investigator, Mr. Meineke has worked with a well-known deliverance ministry and has dealt with demonic manifestations and demonically infested homes. His experience includes not only prayer and spiritual issues, but also the scientific investigation of paranormal phenomena. He has been trained in logic, critical analysis, and the sciences in college and in personal research.
Before beginning his own apostolate in deliverance, Mr. Meineke discussed the project with his pastor who gave him permission to conduct a deliverance apostolate.
Mr. Meineke is also the Co-Host to the St. Michael's Spiritual Warfare Question and Answer Forum on the St. Michael's Call Site.
He lives in Ohio with his wife and four children and works as a software developer.
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Although Mr. Slavek has been Catholic since childhood, it was not until 15 that he began to practice his faith seriously. Mr. Slavek has a degree in Classical Languages at the University of Saint Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota where he has made a special study in Liturgical Law. Mr. Slavek is currently discerning a calling to the holy priesthood.
Mr. Slavek lives and works in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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Hosts Emeritus
John Miskell
Liturgy & Liturgical Law Forum (10/9/1998 - 12/19/2000)
and Pro-Life Forum (12/4/1999-12/19/2000)
Mr. Miskell is a lay apologist and an active member of the Catholic Society of Evangelists. He speaks and write on many issues of apologetics with a specialty on Liturgical Forms. He is known by some, with affection, and by others with less affection, as the Liturgy Cop. With his wife Delia, Mr. Miskell is co-founder of Your Catholic Neighbors. A former Green Beret Sergeant and combat medic, Mr. Miskell later worked as a section manager for a large U.S. based financial services firm until retiring because of disc and joint disease. He and his wife Delia reside in Pennsylvania. The Miskell's have three sons, Jacob, Timothy, and Patrick.
Suzanne Fortin, B.A.
Church History Forum (9/3/1999 - 4/16/2001)
Mrs. Fortin is a cradle Catholic, but only started practicing her faith in high school. In 1998, she received her B.A. in History from Laval University in Quebec City, Canada, and married in 1999. She has done extensive personal research on Church History and has a thorough grasp not only of the history of the Church but also of the Catholic worldview, which is critical in properly understanding history. Presently she resides in Ontario, Canada where she webmasters Communion, a Canadian Catholic site.
Mr. Troy Martz
Pro-Life Forum (4/17/2002 - 4/17/2003) and
How to Answer a Fundamentalist Protestant Forum (7/17/2001 - 4/17/2003)
Mr. Martz is a lay apologist and Pro-Life activist. He has actively worked in Pro-Life efforts for the past 13 years including serving on the Board of a Crisis Pregnancy Center, starting the Gabriel Project at two parishes, and working at the parish, diocese, and state level to promote respect for all human life.
Mr. Martz has taught Bible Studies and Apologetics in recent years and is currently working on a MA Degree in Religion from Catholic Distance University.
His conversion from Pentecostalism stemmed largely through the consistent pro-life witness of a strong Catholic family and the Apostolic Authority of the Catholic Church.
Mr. Martz and his wife Mary live in Maryland and homeschool their three children: Joseph, John Paul, and Anna.