AOTM: Shea vs Voris in pictures

It's almost been a week but here's some photos and a recap.

This was my first trip to Argument of the Month.  I really enjoyed it.  The men were just rowdy enough, and I've spent enough of my life in Minnesota to enjoy Grain Belt.  By the end of the night there were 600+ men in attendance.  Oh, I got to meet Ray Marshall, but utterly failed to get a picture!

It was Oktoberfest at AOTM, so the night started early outside with refreshments.

"Good"

If there was a winner of the first session, it was probably Shea, but mainly because he stayed on topic. They should have allowed a 10 minute vetting at the beginning to air any grievances and get them out of the way(also the late start kind of messed up things a bit, too many interruptions).  I went with a Voris guy who thought Shea "won."  Michael Matt from The Remnant moderated the first session but it was a tough task to swing the whole thing back to the topic which was "Resolved: The way to true reform of the Church is prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and the corporal and spiritual works of mercy."  As to be expected Voris brought up Shea's name calling, etc. and once it got there it was hard to get it back out.  As I said, open with the personal stuff and then force a hard stop and move on to the topic.  Clearly everyone wanted to see what happened when the personal stuff came up, but it couldn't be the focus of the night. 

Shea successfully defending the "gay saint issue" although Voris gave a very fair accusation I thought(once the session is available online I'd like to know what you think, the man was chaste). The second session wasn't really a debate per se, not really a winner.  Voris better in the second session, all four guys actually were good in the second session.   At some point during the night one of the attendees went up to Shea and called him "a lying piece of shit."  Also a couple guys interrupting during the debate for some reason(reasons unclear... maybe even to them).  Probably the winner of the night I thought was Michael Matt(and "the terrorist" for a phenomenal meal).  I was slightly familiar with him(Matt) prior to the night, but I was thoroughly impressed by the end.

I would have liked to see Dale Ahlquist moderate(he was there in Shea's corner).  I also would have liked to see either men asked tough questions, like asking Shea if "Traditional Catholicism" as it is understood in the blogosphere(or by Voris or in the liturgy) is something that leads people away from Christ.  I also would have like to see Voris answer what Catholics are supposed to do(besides point out when bishops are behaving badly).  He tended to only point out what was wrong but not what was right.

So me and Mr. T(my buddy) were talking afterwards.  It almost seemed like what Voris might just do was ..... get this...... forgive Shea!  I thought there was a chance he might go that route.  He could have read the accounts on Shea's blog and simply stated that he would forgive him for all the offenses.  It didn't happen but that would have been the Voris home run.  He could have said he didn't feel the comments were fair but forgive the offenses.

Here's another recap at In Statu Viae.  Mark Shea also posted on the debate here.(ht TN)

The meal was just fantastic.  If a restaurant served food this good, I would make a return visit.  

I posted the whole set on Flickr but I'll leave you with a couple....

and after everybody had left.....

I thought Terry Nelson would like this one....