(LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Joseph Strickland will be returning to the Rome Life Forum this year as its keynote speaker.

The bishop will also be celebrating Mass on October 17 and 18 at the gathering, which will be held at the InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri.

Last year, Bishop Strickland’s appearance at the Rome Life Forum triggered Modernists throughout the world after he gave a fully transparent, candid talk about the crisis in the Church. He soon paid the price for consistently telling the truth in love: Within days of the publication of his speech, Strickland was removed by Pope Francis as the bishop of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas.

“I didn’t follow the ‘program,’ and I admit that,” Bishop Strickland told the UK’s Catholic Herald afterward. “I am proud to stand with the truth of Christ. While I’m sad about the removal, I remain joyful in my faith in Jesus Christ and am joyful to be part of His Church and to be, as priest and bishop, a successor of the Apostles.”

RELATED: Pope Francis personally removes America’s Bishop Joseph Strickland

Last year, the Rome Life Forum was concerned about the Synod on Synodality. This year’s Rome Life Forum in Exile theme is “Recovering from Modernism,” so Bishop Strickland will be addressing not just the current travails of the Bride of Christ but the whole “program” that emerged under cover of the Second Vatican Council.

Recently, Bishop Strickland has been writing and talking about the 1973 prophecy of Our Lady of Akita that “the work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, bishops against bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their confreres … churches and altars sacked; the Church will be full of those who accept compromises, and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord.”

RELATED: Bishop Strickland warns of apostasy ‘at the top’ of the Church

On the most recent Bishop Strickland Show, the prelate said, “In many ways, what the Akita message really gets down to is what happens to the Church if modernism takes over, and that’s where we are.”

Joseph Edward Strickland was born the sixth child of Raymond and Monica Strickland on October 3, 1958, in Fredericksburg, Texas. The family moved to Texarkana, Texas, when he was a one-year-old and then to Atlanta, Texas, in June 1963. The Stricklands were founding members of St. Catherine of Siena Church in Atlanta, Texas where young Joseph assisted as an altar server. He entered first grade in Atlanta public schools in 1965 and graduated from Atlanta High School in May 1977.

The young Strickland entered Holy Trinity Seminary and the University of Dallas, studying for the Diocese of Dallas in August 1977, and earned a Bachelor of Philosophy in May 1981. He continued his education at Holy Trinity and the University of Dallas and was ordained to the diaconate by then-Bishop Michael Sheehan at Holy Trinity Seminary on December 8, 1984.

Deacon Strickland earned a Master of Divinity in May 1985 and was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Dallas by Bishop Thomas Tschoepe at St. Monica Catholic Church in Dallas on June 1, 1985.

Father Strickland was assigned as a newly ordained priest to Immaculate Conception Church in Tyler in June 1985 and served as parochial vicar until June 1989. Upon the erection of the Diocese of Tyler on February 24, 1987, he then joined the presbyterate of the new diocese and was named the first vocation director for the diocese in March 1987 by Bishop Charles Herzig. He was assigned as parochial vicar of Sacred Heart Church in Nacogdoches, Texas in June 1989 and served there until October when he was assigned as pastor of St. Michael Church in Mt. Pleasant, Texas. He served as pastor of St. Michael’s until August 1992 when he was assigned to canonical studies at the Catholic University of America by Bishop Edmond Carmody.

Father Strickland completed his canonical studies with a Licentiate in Canon Law in May 1994 and was assigned by Bishop Carmody as rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Tyler in June 1994. He was appointed judicial vicar for the Diocese of Tyler in May 1995 and named a Prelate of Honor with the title monsignor by His Holiness Pope John Paul II in February 1996.

Msgr. Strickland was elected Administrator of the Diocese of Tyler in March 2000 when Bishop Carmody departed for Corpus Christi and served in that capacity until January 2001 when Bishop Álvaro Corrada del Rio, SJ, was installed as the third bishop of the Diocese of Tyler. The monsignor continued to serve as rector of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and judicial vicar of the diocese until February 1, 2010, when Bishop Corrada named him Vicar General. He served in that capacity until September 2011 when Bishop Corrada was installed as the second bishop of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico and appointed Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Tyler sede vacante. At that time, Bishop Corrada appointed Strickland as Delegate of the Apostolic Administrator.

On September 29, 2012, it was announced that Pope Benedict XVI had chosen Msgr. Strickland as the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Tyler. He was ordained to the episcopacy on November 28, 2012, by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston with Bishop Corrada and Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe, New Mexico, assisting as co-consecrators. Bishop Strickland served as the ordinary of Tyler until November 11, 2023.

RELATED: Bishop Strickland: US nuncio told me to stop focusing on deposit of faith and ‘get with the program’

Other speakers at this year’s Rome Life Forum in Exile will include “Candace” podcast CEO George Farmer; LifeSiteNews Editor-in-Chief John-Henry Westen; professor emeritus Janet E. Smith; author and Mariologist Xavier Reyes-Ayral; and Father Michael Rodriguez, an El Paso priest who celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass.

Attendees are expected to take part fully in the discussions, particularly in the question-and-answer sessions. The Rome Life Forum attracts Catholics from all over the world, and everyone has a unique perspective to share. Doing what can humanly be done to steer back on course is not the work of only a few but of as many of the faithful as are called to do it.

To buy tickets, and for more information about the Rome Life Forum, please visit our Rome Life Forum page here.