Brief Biography

Michael Woroniecki was the youngest of a large Polish Catholic family who was raised in the city of Grand Rapids, MI. His mother became involved in the Catholic Charismatic movement in the early 1970s and was earnestly seeking to introduce her remaining children to the 'born again' experience. In 1971, Michael, seeking a way out of Grand Rapids, made a deal with God that he would attend spiritual prayer meetings with his mother if he could make All-City Tailback and get a scholarship for college. Michael got the title and the scholarship and attended Central Michigan University from 1972 to 1976. However, when he arrived at college, Woroniecki had a 'wild streak' involving himself in sex, drugs and alchohol, once being arrested for assaulting someone in a nearby college bar. After almost two years of failing to live up to his end of the bargain with God, Michael suffered a disabling football injury that threatened to destroy his dreams. At this time, his mother gave him a Bible, which Michael says he began reading. After two months of serious soul searching, Michael attended the annual Catholic Charismatic Conference at Notre Dame University the weekend of June 14, 1974 with his mother and sister. Michael was in the stadium when he told God that he didn't know what this saying 'born again' meant, but that he wanted everything the Lord had for him. At that moment, Michael believes that he was infused with the Holy Spirit and was born again.

In the remaining years of college, Michael met his then cheerleader girlfriend who would become his wife in 1980. Michael became the president of his Fellowship of Christian Atheletes chapter. He was attending an FCA retreat when he began to call all of his Christian peers 'phonies.' Distraught with his inability to control himself, he sought the counsel of his director-minister Dave Van Dam who had suggested to him that maybe he was called to be a 'Jeremiah' (the office of a prophet who preached destruction). Michael became enamored with this idea and set off to seminary after obtaining a degree in Psychology from Central Michigan University in 1976.

Michael attended Melodyland School of Theology at Aniheim, CA that very same year. His mother died in January 1977 from cancer. An attempt to raise her from the dead was made by him, but he failed in embarassment. There is a hint from his teaching materials that suggest the church cited his failure to heal and raise her was due to a lack of faith, a teaching that Woroniecki now finds repulsive. He applied to the Dominican and Franciscan Orders of the Catholic Church therafter, perhaps to honor the memory of his faithful mother (whom he now believes is in hell), but he was rejected on the basis he was "too zealous." He was finally accepted at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. Michael once again demonstrated his zealousness standing outside chapel preaching to his peers as they exited that "God would make foolish the wisdom of the wise," condemning them for their confidence in their scholastic religious pride. Consequentually, Michael was rejected for every position he applied for within the churches after obtaining his Masters of Theology degree in 1980. Again, "too zealous."

Michael returned to Grand Rapids where he preached on the streets with a sign and a blow horn, starting his own unordained ministry called Cornerstone Christian Fellowship. He was arrested several times for disturbing the peace, the last arrest coming in October 1981 when he allegedly berated a woman to tears while she was standing in line to buy tickets to the Shriner circus. Faced with certain jail time, the city DA made a deal with Michael to leave town in exchange for having the charges against him dropped. Michael agreed, and he left for Florida to preach on the beaches there instead.

Since then, Woroniecki has preached his gospel of hellfire and damnation to over 50 colleges, the Latin Americas and Europe. He once even endangered his entire family by taking them to preach on the streets of Casablanca, Morrocco, an Islamic country where all other religions are illegal. He and his family enraged a mob of Muslims, and they were quickly arrested and faced interrogation by the country's secret police. He was released on the condition that he left the country and didn't return. He went to Spain, where he assualted a police officer for refusing to return his evangelistic signs.

On June 20, 2001, one of his disciples for the previous 9 years, Andrea Pia Yates killed all five of her children. Eventually, Woroniecki surfaced in the media when evidence was admitted in court implicating his teaching as having negatively scripted Andrea's psychotic mind. Andrea had delusionally believed that she was a horrible mother who couldn't give Jesus to her children and that because of her, her children would become spiritually damaged and end up in hell. Letters from the Woroniecki family were found that berated Andrea over her unrighteous standing before God. A tape from Woroniecki that Andrea listened to suggested that children were not accountable until the age of 12, and that "babies were better off aborted than to grow up in the households of 'witches and wimps' grow up and face certain judgment in hellfire." A video that the Yates' possessed demanded that unless Woroniecki's disciples lived a jobless life prophetically preaching the gospel, that their children would consequentually not be trained in the Lord and would end up in hell. Feeling the weight of hopelessness infused by Woroniecki's condemnation of her and her inability to get saved so she could in turn save her children, Andrea psychotically reasoned that it would be better for them to drown in their innocent years and go to heaven than grow up damaged and be sent to hell because of her.

Woroniecki denies that he had anything at all to do with negatively influencing Andrea Yates. Today he roams freely dispensing his abusive gospel of condemnation from campus to campus and nation to nation, leaving behind a wake of damaged lives precipitated from the relentless badgering of his disciples he calls 'rebukes.' Some marriages he has broken apart. Some disciples have become depressed to the point of suicide. Many have had psychotic breaks according to his own admission, however, he blames this phenomenon on their refusal to submit to his rebukes.