Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Notable "Catholic" Convert Decides to Join Church of England: Not a Big Surprise

Coren Selling His Literary Prowess and Reputation to the Anglican
Communion 
Edit: interesting point.  Some people are going to be surprised by this, but I'm not sure how.  Do these Literary Catholics really embrace the true religion sincerely, or is this an opportunity to appear on EWTN, Catholic Answers and ChurchMilitant.com, in order to sell books. Michael Coren has recently left the Catholic Church again (the first time was in 1993), and returned to the Anglican Communion. He's written quite a lot about CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien and Ronald Knox.

We'd say it was pretty obvious just what he was back in 1992 when he was scandalized by the then Archbishop of Toronto saying things like "fricken" from Wikipedia:
In a 1993 book review he said "Can anyone imagine a detective priest? Regrettably, it is easier to conjure up the image of a priest being questioned by secular detectives over abuse charges." Also in 1993, Michael Coren had a falling out with the Catholic Church over an unflattering profile he wrote of Archbishop Aloysius Ambrozic for Toronto Life magazine[citation needed]. The bishop, who made Coren a "Knight of the Holy Sepulchre" in a ceremony in October 1992, was quoted using words including "friggin" and "bitch", and said that Francisco Franco was a "conservative Roman Catholic and not a bad fellow." Coren defended himself, saying "He's an archbishop and he was vulgar...obviously what thousands of Roman Catholics expected me to do was lie. I still get hate mail about the article."
Although he was born in a Jewish family, Coren has found various temporary homes in various different Christian denominations where he's found plenty of opportunities to be nasty and polemical, to put it mildly. More recently, Coren has been a champion of the sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance.


It certainly does bring to mind the almost programatic way in which other professional Catholics spirit themselves into Church circles to spread their "wisdom", but what can you expect from a spiritual and moral vagabond like this?

21 comments:

100% Anonymous said...

Now this is more like the Tancred we have come to know and love. At least we know it is you.

Deacon Augustine said...

Notable? Who?

Anonymous said...

Logic seems to have fled this man whose articulation of logic in some of his works I greatly admired. This phenomenon is everywhere among once rational Catholics. Diabolical disorientation. Motus in fine Velocior.

_ said...

Yea don't know who the guy is either.

Unknown said...

Rod Dreher 2.0.

Barnum said...

Good one! Perhaps a bit of a Brownson, but without the depth to keep him in the fold. Pray that he repent and come back in.
Amazing how the Catholic media organs keep on finding the Drehers, the Corens, the Corapis, the Rices, and heterodox and neoconservative talking head guests. And keep others out.

Tancred said...

David Coren? I've heard of him before this, but not really known much. I suppose the sexual issues became too much for him.

Eccles said...

So he'll be rewriting his book "Why Catholics are right". Or at least keeping the copies in a warehouse until he changes his religious views yet again.

He was very cross with me a year ago, when I told him on Twitter that some of his views were not Catholic.

Savonarola said...

One might at least wish him well in a true spirit of Christian fraternity. Is that too much to expect from Catholics?

Nicolas Bellord said...

Of course he is notable. You become notable or a leading Catholic Theologian the moment you apostatize. I have some vague memory of hearing his name before but now ...

Andrew said...

There is no Christian fraternity. He left The Church. I imagine he gets from Catholics what all heretics, infidels, apostates, etc get....prayers for their conversions.

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Lead ALL SOULS to Heaven, ESPECIALLY THOSE IN MOST NEED.

Tancred said...

I always thought they'd be something seriously faulty about someone who chose a SN "Savanarola".

Anonymous said...

At least he left. I'm still waiting for those who destroy church from with in to do so.

Murray said...

To fill people in, Michael Coren is a Canadian author and commentator who has spent the last several years developing a career as a Catholic apologist. Though he is mainly prominent in Canadian Catholic circles, he has appeared several times on mainstream Catholic media like EWTN and Catholic Answers, and had considerable success in the English-speaking world with his books Why Catholics Are Right and its follow-up Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity.

Coren is of Jewish heritage, converted to Catholicism as a young man, left for an evangelical church in the early 90s, returned to Catholicism in 2004, then left for Anglicanism last year, though his apostasy only became widely known this week. In the interim, he continued to pose publicly as a Catholic apologist, accepting invitations to speak at Catholic parishes and events, and to appear on Catholic media.

To those who have been paying attention, Coren's apostasy comes as no surprise. After posing for several years as a plain-speaking orthodox Catholic, Coren mysteriously performed an overnight about-face on the acceptability of sodomy, and began labelling traditional Catholic teaching (as well as faithful Catholics) as intolerant and hateful. His arguments on the subject have never, to my knowledge, risen above demagoguery and emotionalism; in fact, it's shocking how trite they are, coming from a man who fancies himself a public intellectual. You only have to look at his Facebook page or his Twitter feed or read one of his newspaper articles on the topic to see what I mean. They are shockingly bad, from a Catholic standpoint. The man appears to be cursed with a combination of exceptionally high verbal intelligence and an extraordinarily shallow intellect.

The Anglican thing was a surprise, though. It seems he wants to adopt the old Anglo-protestant line about still being "Catholic" in order to minimize the appearance of hypocrisy and opportunism. We should pray for his soul and his reversion to the Church, but in his guise as as a "public Catholic", we're well rid of him.

Tancred said...

Reminds me of David Berger, a man who lived life privately as an active sexual deviant and after he was outed by krueznet, claimed to air all kinds of dirty laundry about Catholic Traditionalists for whom he wrote and lectured as an expert on Scholastic Theology and Saint Thomas Aquinas for years.

He's also a lot like other professional Catholics and converts who need to go away.

Anonymous said...

EWTN.......HAHAHAHA....What a joke that cable system and channel is. So very many of their hosts, commentators, priests, and members of Mother Angelica's on Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word have been the cause of scandal.
Let's see, there's been Fathers Frank Pavone, John Corapi, Alberto Cutie,Fr. Ken Roberts(paedophile), Fr. Stone, MFVA, and a half dozen others who have either had scandalous lives, said scandalous things, or been immoral and have had their shows cancelled on EWTN.
Then there's the "rah-rah" Vatican II programs which no one watches anymore and have been cancelled.
Mother Angelica's own monastery of sisters has had a significant downturn in new nuns, down from over 40 sisters in 2005, to less than 20 today (an one point 1-2 years ago they were down to 9, but bounced up again to about 14.)
The Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word, lead by the eternally boring Fr. James Mary Fox were founded about 1986, and still have less than 20 members, and have had their own share of gay seminarians who were expelled. They have had at least 5 of their priests leave the Order over the years, and 1-2 have actually left the priesthood.
This is all the fruit of pushing only the Vatican II agenda for the Church and the Novus Ordo. Notice how with the great Benedict XVI gone, EWTN has ceased to offer the Tridentine Latin Mass on it's channel. They are lock-step with Francis.....which is why eventually they will fold.

Barnum said...

When you can find it. I travel frequently and cannot find EWTN on on local cable networks, whereas maybe 10 years ago it would have been a surprise not to find it among local cable selections. I think I read that EWTN reduced Mother Angelica to figurehead status-- does the decline of EWTN's viewership and availability coincide with her removal from an oversight role?

I do listen to Relevant Radio frequently, and note how the news shows seem to have an awfully frequent neoconservative guest presence, and the news simply parrots what you can get from mainstream media. Come to think of it, I seem to recall hearing Mr. Coren interviewed in the past coupe of months.

Steve Dalton said...

I don't think Koren ever stopped being a Jew. After all, isn't hypocrisy and a love for money the main traits of a Pharisee?

Anonymous said...

Mother Angelica stepped down voluntarily out of necessity around 2002, because she had a very serious stroke. She is also now 92, so even if she was healthy, she could not run the channel.
There was somewhat of a coup at EWTN several years ago, when the pro-Vatican II crowd took charge. EWTN declines shortly after.
Since Francis became Pope, it's declined even more.
Any faithful, traditional Catholic with any sense is appalled by Francis and his agenda and his speeches. His latest about inequality in pay between men and women is totally inappropriate for a Pope to make. Most Popes had the good sense not to get involved in such trivialities, and issues which are mostly just in the USA.
When Francis goes (sooner rather than later I hope), the CArdinals elect not only a traditional Catholic who looks and acts like Pope, but also one who knows when to keep his inflammatory comments to himself.
Popes like Pius XII knew proper papal dignity. So did Paul VI and Benedict XVI.....also John Paul II. But not Francis. He has a comment for everything, and only degrades his office and makes the Church look like a bunch of fools.....like the Episcopal Church et al.

Dr. Mabuse said...

I used to regularly read Michael Coren's newspaper articles, and considered him a pretty reliably straightforward tradition-loving Catholic. The first time I realized something had gone terribly wrong with him was in his first article after Bergoglio's election. He called him "a brilliant theologian", and even at that early date, I was able to say, "Yeah, he's so brilliant, nobody's ever heard of him before." Clearly he knew nothing at all about the man, but was presenting his fantasy as reality. He still was claiming to be a Catholic then, and it's funny to read that article with all its defiant declarations that the Church can never never never change to gratify the frivolous desires of decadent Westerners for gay marriage, women priests, etc. etc. All the things he simply can't stand about the Church now.

The homo stuff started coming thick and fast in the following year, and I gave up on him soon after.

LeonG said...

Anglican decides to convert to Anglicanism - great headline.