Roberta Flack once asked in a song, "Where is the Love?" My old friend Michael Coren asks the same thing in today's Catholic Register. Unfortunately, he has not asked it of himself.
In his latest diatribe, Michael reveals how thin-skinned he really is. As for this "extreme right wing Catholic blogger," there were months of resistance despite requests to challenge his new found support for so-called same-sex marriage. However, a few weeks ago, his words became so radical that my own conscience could not longer allow me to remain silent.
Michael Coren has made tens of thousands of dollars on Catholics. We have bought his books and appointed him as guest speaker for fees at our events; he was given a vehicle to sell his books and raise his profile. For this, Coren has misrepresented the teachings of the Catholic Church in terms of homosexual lifestyle and has insulted and defamed on social media many Catholics who have gone to him respectfully and in charity to ask him, question him and discuss with him, his positions.
Should he be fired?
Michael Coren has made tens of thousands of dollars on Catholics. We have bought his books and appointed him as guest speaker for fees at our events; he was given a vehicle to sell his books and raise his profile. For this, Coren has misrepresented the teachings of the Catholic Church in terms of homosexual lifestyle and has insulted and defamed on social media many Catholics who have gone to him respectfully and in charity to ask him, question him and discuss with him, his positions.
He has become harsh and rude, even publicly insulting and uncharitable. He retorted to the world that I was nothing more than a "strange man" whom he "feels sorry for" and as someone whom "he tried to befriend." Thank you Michael, but I have everything and need no pity party.
Today, he writes again about his own "change" in thinking and how all Catholics choosing to disagree with him are extremist and even like unto, the "Taliban" though he tries to disguise it by invoking a certain priest that used the phrase. A more "broken and dysfunctional group" Michael Coren cannot find.
According to Coren, all Catholics hate homosexuals and wish them damned. It is such a preposterous position as to simply be impossible to challenge.
His column is nothing more than a whine and whimper from a man who takes relish in insult and hyperbole to those having the temerity to challenge him. He is obviously less intelligent than he lets on; or he would debate rather than poke fun, insult and defame as he does to others in public.
He speaks of his closeness to the Saviour as being the reason for his changing view on the homosexual lifestyle, yet he turns his venom on his fellow Catholics. There's not a lot of "love and kindness" here, eh Michael?
Coren's latest includes the absurd statement that "one particular sexual act is actually fairly rare among gay men and impossible among gay women." Rare, really? Is that why there were hundreds of thousands of Toronto World Pride condoms made and distributed.
Do you really expect us to believe that being gay is about poetry and nice wine and love and wallpaper and his and his towels and nothing else?
Do you really expect us to believe that being gay is about poetry and nice wine and love and wallpaper and his and his towels and nothing else?
If two people wish to engage in sodomy is it my business?
They've had the legal right since 1968, to be sure; but Michael, "error has no rights." I have no "right" to sin. The law of God as defined through His Church comes first and as Catholics there is no choice about that. It is not "legalistic" or "hateful" to say it or to have an opinion. Love the sinner, hate the sin.
It becomes my business when what began as a movement to secure "civil rights" and promote "tolerance" now would see my rights for a contrary opinion to be taken away. The gay movement along with most liberalised causes has become fascist in practise. Our culture has been irrevocably changed and not for the better.
Michael Coren complains that people are writing to the Catholic Register to have him fired and that churches are being urged to cancel his appearances.
Should he be fired?
That is not up to me; however, if I were the Editor of the Catholic Register, his latest column would have been spiked and he would have been given notice; -- "Michael, if you wish to write in a secular manner then you cannot write for the Catholic Register."
Should Legatus, Una Voce, and various right-to-life groups and parishes cancel his appearances?
That is up to them but they should look up the word scandal in the Catholic Encylopaedia and they will find their answer. I can tell you that I won't pay him again to speak as I did previously. He has betrayed those that were his greatest supporters.
His whining and "shock" with those who disagree with him whilst tens of thousands of Catholics have been driven from their homes and murdered is trite and embarrassing.
Michael Coren is simply, a well-spoken bully.
Michael Coren is simply, a well-spoken bully.
An old parishioner, now deceased, once advised me, "don't trust that man."
She was right.