Saturday’s edition of the Toronto Star ran an opinion column by Michael Coren: “How a Change of Heart Led to a Backlash from the ‘Church of Nasty.’”
In it Coren explains why he made a change of religion and complains about the vociferousness and even nastiness of people who responsed to what he did.
Not surprisingly, his column sidesteps the real reason so many people have been upset with him.
As I wrote in this blog a week ago, Coren—a Canadian broadcaster, journalist, and author—revealed recently that he had abandoned the Catholic Church for the Anglican Church. He has been attending an Anglican parish for a year, all the while holding himself out as a loyal Catholic, writing for orthodox Catholic publications and defending the faith of Rome even after having rejected some Catholic teachings.
I said it was a matter of false advertising. Coren continues the misdirection in his May 15 column.
He begins by saying, “It’s been an interesting two weeks. I was fired from three regular columns in Catholic magazines [he doesn’t name them and doesn’t claim that he told the editors a year ago that he had stopped being a Catholic], had a dozen speeches cancelled [presumably for Catholic organizations that thought they were hiring a Catholic speaker], and was then subjected to a repugnant storm of tweets, Facebook comments, e-mails, newspaper articles, and radio broadcasts.”
I’m not privy to those tweets and other comments that Coren finds “repugnant.” I have seen several calmly-written pieces (my own among them) that took Coren to task for his lack of transparency. He doesn’t allude to any of these. His column refers only to rude comments. I can believe there have been some, but, by mentioning only them and by not dealing with the many substantive and civil commentaries, Coren skews things.
He says, “At the beginning of May it was made public that a year ago I left the Roman Catholic Church and began to worship as an Anglican. More specifically, from being a public and media champion of social conservatism I gradually came to embrace the cause of same-sex marriage, more liberal politics, and a rejection of the conservative Christianity that had characterized my opinions and persona for more than a decade.”
In his case, Coren says, “The change was to a large extent triggered by the gay issue. I couldn’t accept that homosexual relationships were, as the Roman Catholic Church insists on proclaiming, disordered and sinful. Once a brick in the wall was removed the entire structure began to fall.”
What did he do? “I privately and quietly drifted over to an Anglican Church that, while still working out its own position on many social issues, is far more progressive, open, relevant, and willing to admit reality.”
Well, that’s an opinion. I don’t see how it is an admission of reality to think that two men or two women can marry one another. To me, thinking such relationships are marriages is an exercise not in reality but in fantasy.
In any case, Coren says, “I was ‘outed’ by some far-right bloggers [he doesn’t name them], and the gates of media hell opened roaring wide. . . . Why would the religious and political change of what is at best a mid-level Canadian journalist and broadcaster cause such visceral anger and aggression in so many people? Their disappointment is understandable, of course.”
Yet not to Coren. He doesn’t understand what the problem is. It isn’t so much that he changed religions. Sure, people who used to follow his television program and read his columns must feel let down: a hero failed them. But Coren avoids dealing with what has bothered people the most: his dishonesty.
For a year he held himself out to be a Catholic—and not just a Catholic but a conservative, defend-the-faith Catholic who was right on the doctrinal and social issues. During that year he had ceased to practice the Catholic faith and held in his mind and heart opinions in conflict with those he proffered to the public.
In other words, he was a hypocrite. He pretended to be one thing when he really was something else. That’s what people find irksome.
If, a year ago, Coren had announced publicly his change of religion, resigning his columns and offering to cancel scheduled speeches, there would have been disappointment but probably not anger. Catholics who used to follow him would have thought, “He’s making a tremendous mistake, but he’s got to go where his conscience leads him, even if it’s leading him the wrong way. I hope he wises up and comes back.”
Coren didn’t handle it that way. He continued to accept honoraria from Catholic publications and groups. He didn’t volunteer to them that he had left the Church. He says he was “outed” by a third party: it wasn’t on his schedule. How long did he intend to keep up the charade? Did he expect to keep it up indefinitely?
I have no doubt that some people responded to Coren in a “repugnant” way. There’s no excuse for that. But Coren leads readers of his Toronto Star piece to think that every response to what he did was “repugnant.” He doesn’t mention any of the calm and well-argued critiques.
This is another lack of transparency on his part. He still isn’t being honest with his readers.