Living rent free in the mind of "Reverend" Michael Coren. Still!

Michael, I know you'll read this. I might live rent-free in your mind but if you are going to quote me, be sure to use attribution, that is the cost of it and your rent payment is months behind. This is not the first time you've done this, old buddy, old Knight of Columbus brother. However, given that you misattributed a quote from me before on CBC News to a journalist they fired, and which you and all at The National were forced to retract, I can see your concern.  

Vox Cantoris: Living rent-free in "Reverend" Michael Coren's brain.

Vox Cantoris: Michael Coren declares that Vox Cantoris makes a "heavy mark!"

I seem to recall you were a great "fan" of the Traditional Latin Mass when you were a regular and "loyal" member of the Oratory parishes of St. Vincent de Paul and Holy Family.

Opinion: The Pope’s reversal on Latin Mass shows the angry split inside the Catholic Church - The Globe and Mail

Thomas J. Rosica

Michael Coren

Next?

Living rent-free in "Reverend" Michael Coren's brain.

 

I've got to thank the so-called "Reverend" Mister Michael Coren, an ordained Anglican cleric. He surely does believe that I am a "leading Catholic blogger in Canada."

Hey, it works for me. But Michael, old buddy, old chum, do at least give me proper attribution. It should read, "Leading Canadian blogger, Vox Cantoris wrote."

https://thecritic.co.uk/the-paradox-at-the-heart-of-catholicism/

Gee, I guess you and that fired CBC "journalist" are still smarting over that false article you put on The National that mentioned my name which the CBC, paid for by me, was forced to retract and remove from their web site and social media.

Poor man.

Vox Cantoris makes a "heavy mark." Michael Coren

Well, I don't know how I missed this? Oh, yes I do. I read nothing of some guy named Michael Coren. This was sent to me by a friend. It was published in something called the Narwal or something like that which has fewer readers than this blog. She insisted I read it as this blog and my good friends at Toronto Catholic Witness were mentioned as Coren testified that both blogs make a "heavy mark." It 

Well, Michael Coren doesn't.

Michael Coren-u-crapia and friends

Nice rerodos.

Oh, and on the far right is an apostate priest of the Diocese of Hamilton, Kevin Cull. He joined the Anglicans just two weeks ago.

La cage aux folles.

Michael Coren declares that Vox Cantoris makes a "heavy mark!"

My old friend and brother Knight of Columbus, Michael Coren, is up to it again. I dare say there is some kind of obsession that causes him to come back so often and to ruminate on us. Clearly, we bloggers have more influence than perhaps we thought and we are leaving a "heavy mark."

Back when we were friends, Michael would telephone me often at home and on mobile to chat and prod me about Catholic issues leading up to and after his book, about Catholics being "right." What a maroon! If we were "right" then, we didn't suddenly become wrong. I sat in his home, had coffee and even booked him to speak at a conference and got him other gigs. I helped put money in his pocket. Sorry, for that, friends. Coren would often telephone me frequently to chat, he often speculated on which Toronto priest was "gay" and if I had any proof of it. This was a real interest for him. At more than one public event, he asked me to do some "advance" and distraction from certain people whom he did not like to receive questions from. One specifically at the University of Toronto I regret doing because the good woman has passed to her eternal reward and was right about her views and advice to me on Michael. May dear Ursula forgive me.

One day, after his departure from the faith, he did an interview on video with the CBC. In that video, the CBC flashed a Tweet with my name on it with Coren alleging that I wrote something to him. It was designed to look as if I Tweeted a certain comment. I had not. Coren took a private email which I sent to him, something I forwarded to him without changing the subject line, it clearly began with, "re:"  It was an email from that same Ursula, expressing grief over Michael's comments supporting Hillary Clinton and her stance on abortion. The subject line referred to the "pure evil" of Clinton's statement and by extension, Coren's seeming endorsement of that opinion. Because all of us, including Ursula, had known Michael and his wife from The Toronto Oratory. Ursula was grieved, as were all of us, over what was happening with our old friend. Coren took that email, as if it were a comment from me and attached my name to it, and made it look as if it were my Tweet. Yet, I do not Tweet under my name, but under, Vox Cantoris and there, on The National, was my name for all to see. I was being slandered and mocked in a very public way. A private email from me to Michael Coren was used to slander me by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a "crown-corporation" which, as a Canadian, I theoretically own shares in. It was broadcast on The National, Canada's national evening news program on the CBC, nationwide and on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. I was accused of stating something which I did not state. That ,,Michael Coren was "pure evil."

I filed a complaint with the CBC ombudsman. The action was pretty quick. The Executive Producer of The National withdrew the video from their web page, Facebook and Twitter and after it was proved that Coren could not prove to the CBC that I said or wrote the words I was alleged to have written, the video with the false accusation of words by me, was edited out and the CBC apologised.

As a certain cleric learnt, if you're going to come after this writer, you need to get up early in the morning, and I'm up before dawn!

Michael has now paid me, and even more, my good friend at Toronto Catholic Witness, Barona, with a great compliment; and for that I thank him and am pleased to let him know that all is forgiven.

In a recent article on The Walrus, Coren declares:

"Even more blatant than Lifesite are blogs such as the Ontario-based Vox Cantoris and Toronto Catholic Witness, with less significance but still making a heavy mark."

Indeed, Michael, on this point you, along with us Catholics are "right." 

Oh and do me this favour would you? Donate one dollar for every hit this sends to your article to Courage Toronto or Campaign Life Coalition for the publicity I am sending back to you.

After all, it would only be "right."

Michael Coren stripped of his Papal KeNighthood

BREAKING: EWTN in the U.K, is reporting that my old friend and brother Knight of Columbus, Michael Coren, has been stripped of his papal knighthood. 

According to Deacon Nick Donnelly, Coren has refused to return the medal.

In other news, Eccles is Saved is reporting on the latest conflicts with Henry Tudor.

Well that was a quick switch - Michael Coren is reported to be relieved

Well they've done it again, the Anglican "Church" of Canada has become ever more irrelevant.  Amidst charges that the vote was not taken fairly they voted again and now they will "bless/marry" sodomites and lesbians.

It's okay Michael, you don't have to leave. 

You can stay there and go to Hell along with the rest of them. 

Canadian Anglicans vote not to "bless" so-called marriages of the same sex - what will Michael Coren do now?
Of course, it is because of bullying that the vote was very, very narrowly defeated.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/programs/metromorning/anglicans-gay-marriage-canada-1.3674706

Hello Michael? Where to now, bro?

Bye the way, Mike, I loved that CBC interview with Wendy Mesley. What will be your next "Epiphany"?

Michael Coren and the name which dare not speak its name but won't shut its mouth!

It seems a little odd that a day after the quickly failing Toronto Star featured an article by Thomas Cardinal Collins on doctor assisted suicide or legalised physician murder, it should feature a column by Michael Coren attacking the Catholic Church. Well, maybe it is not so odd at all, the Star hates the Church.

In a column today in the Toronto Star, Coren states the following:

While most priests would never harm a child, and many are fine men, the culture of enforced celibacy and, forgive me, sexual immaturity, is profoundly damaging. Many experts estimate that perhaps half of all clergy break their vows of celibacy and while their partners may be adults, it creates the need for dishonesty and hiding. The abuser uses this dark insularity to his advantage.

When we mingle this with clericalism, a reverence towards the ordained that prevents criticism, a vehemently all-male and anti-democratic authority structure and a powerful self-defence mechanism it leads to all kinds of problems. Remember, abuse is not only sexual.

I will agree with Coren on one thing,"abuse is not only sexual."  

On "clericalism," I detest it and anyone who reads this blog knows that. The worst clericalists are amongst the current crop of media priests and they don't need to be named here, we all know who they are. Coren and I would share the disdain for it and them. It was a false clericalism that allowed the predators that Coren describes and the bishops who covered it up to do the damage which they did and on this, we would also agree. A few blog posts below is the latest from a Grand Jury investigation in Altoona.

On the remainder, Coren; perhaps due to his new found funds and to stay in the good graces of TVO, The Toronto Star, CFRB and the CBC takes up the old canard to bash the Church, yet fails to mention the actual elephant in the room.

The crimes to which Coren refers were committed by homosexual men. It is not a matter of celibacy, it is a matter of sexual perversion. This is not to say that every man with same-sex attraction is a rapist or an abuser, but every man who has done these evil and dastardly deeds has same-sex attraction. 

These were men who had no business in the priesthood. They came into the priesthood because it put them in close proximity to those whom they could bugger. They engaged in disgusting and vile acts upon Innocent boys mainly between 12 and 17. They were not interested in girls or little pre-pubescent children. They wanted perverted sex with boys and they were HOMOSEXUALS. They were protected for a variety of reasons, all of them wrong. Sometimes, they were protected by bishop who were themselves, sodomites.

Homosexual men should never and must never be admitted to the Catholic priesthood. 

That is what Mr.Coren cannot bring himself to publicly state, but believe me, he knows it and I know that he knows it.

The John Jay report shows the following facts for the United States; the results would be similar in Canada:

The John Jay Report stated that 4% of Catholic Priests were accused of child abuse.
(Although only only 5.7% of these were convicted, as  an undisclosed number of other cases may have been settled out of court I shall keep to the higher figure of 4%) 

Abuse of boys - Of the 4% of Catholic priests who abused children, 81% abused boys. So 3.24% ( ie 4% x 81%) of Catholic priests abused boys. But 16% of US Catholic priests were homosexual. So it appears that 20% of homosexual Catholic priests abused boys.

Abuse of girls - Of the 4% of Catholic priests who abused children, 19% abused girls. So 0.76% (ie 4% x 19%) of Catholic priests abused girls. But 84% of US Catholic priests were heterosexual.

Some abuse was against girls, the overwhelming majority was committed by men against boys. All of it was evil.

Coren was my friend and brother Knight. I had coffee in his living room and we shared many a phone conversation. He knows full well what the problem was and is. 

Nice gesture bro.

Toronto's Catholic Register - Slam down to Michael Coren

Let us give credit where credit is due. 

Toronto's Catholic Register has published a column by Dorothy Cummings McLean on the Michael Coren saga. She sums up well the problem of living a double-life by worshipping as an Anglican whilst dissenting on the truths of the Faith and taking money for it. Let us be clear, Coren boasted on his own Twitter and Facebook that he was in fact, already gone and had the Anglican Diocese not published that picture of him outside of St. James' Cathedral in Toronto, he might still be doing engaging in a business taking money from Roman Catholics.

It was my intent to leave this man to his own self; however, given my criticism of the Catholic Register previously, I certainly owe them a bouquet when they do something right.

Professional Catholics must be professional and Catholic

BY  DOROTHY CUMMINGS MCLEAN

• May 7, 2015

According to the Anglican Diocese of Toronto, Catholic Register columnist Michael Coren was received into the Anglican Communion on April 19. Despite Coren’s fame as an apologist for the Roman Catholic faith, his break with Rome went almost unnoticed. The news was made public by a tweet congratulating Coren on his reception. This disappeared from Twitter, although not before a sharp-eyed reader took a screenshot and posted it to a blog.

Initial reactions to his conversion included shock, sorrow, doubt, scorn, satire, exhortations to pray and emails to Roman Catholic organizations. In Coren’s words, preserved on yet another blog: “Some right-wing Catholics finally realized I’d been an Anglican for a year and spent last 24 hrs telling everybody.”

Imagine being called “right-wing” by Michael Coren. But I digress.

Read the rest of it at the Catholic Register.

Michael Coren is something else

Michael Coren has given an interview with the National Post. I am posting it because of certain points he has made, otherwise I would just leave him to himself.

Before I highlight the points let us be clear.

Four years ago, this man wrote a book Why Catholics Are Right. He made money from groups and then betrayed those same people and groups. He comments now in public that he was worshipping as an "anglican " for a year and he still took their money. He says he cannot be a "hypocrite," well, he has been something else. He has taken the money of the Interim, Catholic Insight, the Catholic Register, Legatus, the Toronto Traditional Mass Society, Una Voce Hamilton and dozens of others whilst not believing what he was saying.

Michael Coren, you made your choice. Go and worship God in a false church founded upon adultery and murder.

"An obsession on contraception and on life that Jesus never mentioned" said he.

I feel sorry for you and I feel sorry for you wife.

May you find your way home. Quietly and humbly.

"Right-wing Catholic bloggers" made your departure from the Church an issue.

Now, I am done with you.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/religion/i-felt-a-hypocrite-author-michael-coren-on-why-he-left-the-catholic-church-for-anglicanism?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Q: Some people see you as a Catholic champion against an amoral, secular world. How have they reacted?

A: It’s brought out the worst in the Catholic right. If you look at some of the comments, there’s a little tinge of anti-Semitism there (Coren’s father was Jewish), a lot of very sectarian hatred. The Catholic right is very frightened and very aggressive right now, because they have a pope who they no longer think is one of theirs, and so they’re feeling very defensive.

Vox: What is this "Catholic right" Coren speaks about? He no doubt means people such as me. He has referred to this blog as a "right-wing blog" and and "extreme" one at that on the now defunct SUN News and in the National Post. What does "right wing Catholic" mean? One who accepts the teaching of the Church? I have seen no anti-Semitism in any comments. The rest of his commentary is ignorant, pedantic and juvenile.

Q: Even as Pope Francis is welcomed with unprecedented vigour by the popular culture?

A: That’s one of the main reasons they can’t stand it. They don’t want to be accepted.

Vox: "Can't stand it?" What? that the Pope is admired by the UN enviro-fascist movement? That NARAL has used his careless words to their advantage? That homosexualists have also used his words to beat the Truth of the faith? If the world loves the Pope something is indeed wrong. So, I'll give Coren this, but he fails in what he is not saying.

Q: You left the Catholic Church for three years in the 1990s, worshiping in various evangelical and Anglican churches. Why did you leave?

A: Not really for particularly good reasons. I had written a piece about (the late) Cardinal (Aloysius) Ambrozic for Toronto Life, and that’s a very long story, and I still don’t really think I did anything wrong, but it was a very difficult time. I was being sort of personally attacked by the Cardinal and his people. I quoted him saying things that were not very Christ-like, I suppose. He had called someone a name. He was a very harsh man. … I just thought I needed a closer relationship with Christ at that time. I just wanted something simpler, a relationship rather than a religion.

Vox: Speak well of the dead, Michael. You did not know Cardinal Ambrozic or what his own issues may have been. You did not seem to understand the problems that this woman whom he called "that bitch" now a former Anglican/, then Catholic Nun, then married Catholic woman, then divorced Catholic woman and now a lesbian Anglican priestess caused. Really Michael, I've heard you say worse over coffee in your living room! You said much that day and on numerous phone calls to me over a few years; I'll keep all of that to myself.

Q: What brought you back?

A: It was really the pull of the Eucharist. It really was that. That is a centrepiece of worship for me.

Q: It is not exclusive to the Catholic Church. The same sacrament is given elsewhere.

A: That’s why I’m now in the Anglican Church.

Vox: Really Michael? There is no Eucharist in the Anglican communion unless it is from a priest ordained through an Old Catholic line and then, it is illicit. You are receiving a piece of bread and you know it. 

Q: You say you could no longer worship with integrity as a Catholic. Why not?

A: I could not remain in a church that effectively excluded gay people. That’s only one of the reasons, but for someone who had taken the Catholic position on same-sex marriage for so long, I’d never been comfortable with that even though I suppose I was regarded as being a stalwart in that position. But I’d moved on, and I felt a hypocrite. I felt a hypocrite being part of a church that described homosexual relations as being disordered and sinful. I just couldn’t be part of it anymore. I could not do that. I couldn’t look people in the eye and make the argument that is still so central to the Catholic Church, that same-sex attraction is acceptable but to act on it is sinful. I felt that the circle of love had to be broadened, not reduced.

Vox: Michael Coren, you are wrong and you have publicly misrepresented the teaching of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not exclude "gay people." You know this as you have had a Brother Knight (until you left our Council) on your program. You know him from the parish. You know well that he was never mocked and always welcomed. 

Michael, you may not want to be a hypocrite but you are something else.

Mary Wagner's bravery

After the hit-and-run by Michael Coren in the Catholic Register on Mary Wagner, the Catholic Register responded with a guest column by Alissa Golob of Campaign Life. Of course it still begs the question as to why was Coren's column published in the first place. 

When one looks at the photo below it can be clearly seen that Coren's hit and the letter to the editor in the CR by a dyspeptic mutterer supporting him and criticizing two bloggers for leading with this news for a month until the Catholic press caught up is even more disgraceful. Mary is a humble and holy woman that would put both of these people to shame. 

I would like both Coren and the mutterer. once again barking up the wrong tree, to comment here about what they have done recently to match the humility, bravery and holiness of this woman and her fight to awake the consciousnesses of Canadians?

Mary Wagner with His Excellency Archbishop Depo of Czetochowa
Photo courtesy of Barona at Toronto Catholic Witness

Below is a an excerpt from Dorothy Cummings Mclean's column. Read all of at the Catholic Register.

Mary Wagner’s bravery is in not minding her own business

BY  DOROTHY CUMMINGS MCLEAN

• January 29, 2015

On Dec. 27, 1989, I was arrested outside a Toronto abortion business, thrown into a police van and locked in a cell for hours. So were about 74 other people, including at least one priest. The CBC reported 80.

Twenty-five years have passed, so readers may not remember that in the 1980s Catholics and evangelicals protested the horror of abortion outside Toronto’s hospitals and its four abortion businesses almost weekly. Back in 1989, only one of the “temporary bubble zones” had been created, and that was around Henry Morgentaler’s business on Harbord Street.

...

I could hold up a sign and take the verbal abuse, and I could even sit where the police said not to sit and get locked in a cell, but I never had the guts or the truly self-sacrificing love to approach abortion-bound women and say, “Please, won’t you reconsider? There is help for women who choose to keep their babies.” It was just too hard — the words choked in my throat.

Breaking the law of “mind your own business” can be harder than breaking the Criminal Code. For breaking that law — for having the courage and love to engage pregnant strangers face to face — I believe Mary Wagner deserves the honour those like her so rarely get.

(Cummings McLean is a Canadian writer and author of Ceremony of Innocence.)

Does Michael Coren support euthanasia?

Oh Michael, I had no idea that you were so gentle, sensitive, so caring and just so warm and fuzzy. The manner in which you interviewed this poor distraught woman from the so-called "Death With Dignity" group which has just had its charitable tax status revoked is just so, so -- tolerant and sweet.

Not viewing your program any more, I depend on good friends out there to let me know the latest; so here's a shout out to C.B for this!

Oh Michael, Michael: Did you really say this?

"Again if someone we know has a month or two to live and it will be a month or two of intense suffering, it does seem to me to be, um somehow very selfish, to say you have to live that amount of time." Michael Coren

Yep, you did!

The teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as to the suffering of the sick is profound and beautiful and a core teaching of our faith. There is merit in suffering. Further, the Church is quite clear that pain can be alleviated and that palliative care is a beautiful and charitable action towards the dying. 

For another reflection on redemptive suffering, let us turn to this man:

"Recognising the necessity for suffering I have tried to make of it a virtue. If only to save myself from bitterness, I have attempted to see my personal ordeals as an opportunity to transform myself and heal the people involved in the tragic situation which now obtains. I have lived these last few years with the conviction that unearned suffering is redemptive." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Would Michael be so gentle and kind interviewing a currently jailed activist for life and against the slaughter of the unborn?

Oh my little dyspeptic friend, do you support Michael on this too? Will you write to the CR about it?

I'm such a TBB, oh goodness, what will I do? 

Focus on the issue

Some would like to distract from the issue. Michael Coren has done it. There are some others that have criticized Barona and myself for our campaign. They can hold their perverted views, we prefer to speak the truth with clarity and support those who do brave work; the work of Christ and first in our minds in this regard is Mary Wagner and her sacrifice and her own mother whose heart bears its own spear. We will never forget the reason why she does it.

Those such as Coren who would undermine her character and those others out there, barking up the wrong tree and brought to my attention today [you know who you are] that would impute motive to us and to her, need to consider their consciences. Instead of focussing on the truth and the reality of Mary's imprisonment,  you have perverted our motives.  What have you done brother? What have you done about this but reveal your own inadequacies. 

The pressure  by this blog and Barona will continue until Catholics wake up and consider the evil before us. 

Here is the open letter from Jane Wagner to the Editor of the Catholic Register who has this week printed a guest column by Alissa Golob (below) to challenge Coren's mutterings.

An Open Letter to "The Catholic Register", by Jane Wagner ~ "this is a story worthy of publication, but you have been silent..."

Dear Editor

I had not intended to write to you after Michael Coren's scathing indictment of my daughter, Mary Wagner. I do not believe he is deserving of a reply; his "opinion" was both spiteful and childish. Beyond that, to continue to discuss the topic of Mary's incarceration, in the way that he does, makes it about Mary, and that is something she clearly never wanted. Her focus has always been, and will always be, the babies, who lives are being taken every day at the abortion mills in cities all over our country. We Canadians, we Catholics, have become numb to the killings and have demonstrated daily that we don't care, at least not enough to do something about it. 

I am writing to you, not to convince you of my daughter's purity of motives, because she doesn't need defending. You need only to meet her to know that she is real, that she lives and breathes the Gospel of Life with all of her being. I am writing to let you know that I am greatly disappointed in your paper, one which ought to herald a story that affirms so deeply the value of human life in the womb. That one person would renounce her freedom, her youth, and her own future, speaks clearly of the value of these little ones. She has raised them up for our collective consciousness by her willing sacrifice. It really is about these precious babies. Mary has taken to her heart the words of our great St John Paul II to "be not afraid", and to follow his lead in disobeying an illicit law that permits abortion. 

“Abortion and euthanasia are crimes which no human law can claim to legitimize.... In the         case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is never licit to obey it..."  St John Paul's exhortation in The Gospel of Life.

This is a story worthy of publication, but you have been silent about it. 

So, why does The Catholic Register stoop to publish absurdity such as Coren has penned? As an editor of a Catholic newspaper you should uphold the Teachings and the Truth given to us by of our Catholic leaders, our saints, our Popes. Instead, you publish a deplorable article from a man who has never spoken to or met the woman he is vilifying. Clearly, you have failed in your duty to write the Truth in a Catholic manner this time around. 

God bless you. I hope you do better next time.

Sincerely,

Jane Wagner

Golob rebuts Coren's disgraceful hit

ichael Coren disgraced himself as a Catholic twice recently with reference to Mary Wagner and her unflagging sacrifice of her youth and life for the unborn. The most recent was in the Catholic Register two weeks ago, a few days after Campaign Life's Alissa Golob appeared on his SUN TV program where he also attempted to discredit Mary by questioning her motives.

This blog and Barona at Toronto Catholic Witness has been very aggressive in our opinion that Coren's column was inappropriate for the Catholic Register, a newspaper owned by the Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation for the Archdiocese of Toronto, a Corporation Sole, meaning it is literally owned by the Ordinary himself. 

Alissa Golob refutes Coren's disgraceful comments in The Register which invited her to write a guest column.

As Golob writes, 

Some may question Wagner’s motives. After all, what can she do to change the abortion laws or save any babies if she’s behind bars nine months of the year? Indeed, a column in last week’s Catholic Register suggested Wagner intentionally sets out to be arrested and there “is certainly a heavy dose of contrived disingenuous in all this.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. But who better to explain her motives than Wagner herself? In an open letter from her imprisonment at the Vanier Centre for Women in Milton, Ont., she eloquently explained her motivation for actions that have led to multiple incarcerations. 

Mary Wagner's arrest: Two journalistic approaches

The issue of Mary Wagner's arrest before Christmas is starting to be reported in the Catholic press in Canada -- albeit from two different angles.

Here, on line, is an exceptional report from Deborah Guyapong in the BC Catholic. Deborah spent the time to interview and research the story. It is a thorough and sensitive report.

Yet, we have another Catholic journalist in another Catholic paper that takes a completely different approach and a sad one at that.

Michael Coren criticised Mary quite harshly on his cable show on SUN TV. He writes this week on Mary in the Catholic Register, the column is on the web page. It takes a different approach than Deborah's work and is more in keeping with his television comments. Tim Haines at Vericast does a good job dissecting the interview with Alissa Golob of Campaign Life starting at 33:13.

As someone who was once his friend, who had coffee in his home; as someone who paid him to speak before a Catholic group and arranged another group to do the same and to sell his books, I regret very much his more recent positions and cannot explain how this man who once did good work and could do so much more could have betrayed the truth to this extent:

"Could there be something personal, even needy, about all this? I know Mary Wagner’s supporters will react strongly to what I have said and I have already been rudely condemned for gently questioning her stance on my television show, but the question has to be asked: is this about the unborn or about Mary Wagner?"

The issue is about the unborn as the letter from Mary's mother testifies; I am shocked that Coren would even question her motives. He clearly does not know her and has never spoken with her. The issue is also about Mary Wagner and Linda Gibbons and others who risked everything for the truth. 

Michael, You are upset at me and you're upset at Barona at Toronto Catholic Witness because we have refused to be silent on this matter and we have both challenged your previous comments on other issues - why have you taken your anger at us out on Mary Wagner? 

Go and read it all there. I will refrain from any further comments, I am too disgusted to formulate anything coherent, you are welcome to do that in the combox.

Meanwhile, in Poland!

Mother of Mary Wagner responds to Michael Coren

Broadcaster Michael Coren, a Catholic has publicly and harshly criticized Mary Wagner as described in the blog below. 

Jane Wagner, Mary's mother has written a response to Mr. Coren; it deserves to be read and with her permission it is posted below:

Michael, you have missed the point entirely. You said that Mary went to the abortion clinic to be arrested. Wrong. Mary goes to the abortion clinic in an eleventh hour attempt to save the life of a baby who is being carried to his appointment with death. She knows that it is likely that she will be arrested, but she never gives up hope that other pro-lifers will join her there and make it impossible for the judicial system to handle the crowd. You said that she is breaking the law. Yes, a law that is wrong. In the same way that good Germans broke the law in hiding Jews from the Nazi exterminators in the great war. You made other personal disparaging remarks about Mary while defending the indefensible, our Justice system. It is easy for us on the outside, who lead banal and pseudo peaceful lives, to consider the actions of Mary to be reprehensible. So were the acts of Christ, so much so that the political powers of that day had to crucify Him to silence him. I hope this isn't what has to happen to Mary to get you on side. Or maybe you will think she brought it on herself. You resent the Poles for calling us a Fascist country, which by our very actions define us to be. How can you be a proud Canadian when you know that our government supports the wholesale slaughter of innocents, and has a law in place to protect them from public outcry? I wonder which side you really sit on Michael. As Mary's mother, I am deeply ashamed of you and those who share your thinking. Jane Wagner.

Treated as a Catholic heroine in Poland and a pariah by our own as Barona reports.

Coren's confusion over papal authority -

In a recent quote on Facebook referring to his most recent Sun Newspaper article, journalist and "Catholic" author Michael Coren wrote the following:

What I didn't say in my column today was that many right-wing Catholics are so angry with Pope Francis that they are - implicitly and often explicitly - questioning Papal authority; without that, of course, Roman Catholicism has no distinct meaning. Not that right-wing Catholics are alone in this; liberals exhibited the same attitude about John Paul and Benedict. All of which leads us to ask just how many Catholics actually believe that the Pope is the direct descendant of Peter and has exclusive authority. In a world of open debate, encouraged dissent and fierce social media this presents a profound problem for Roman Catholicism. It's going to be an interesting 2015.

Fellow journalist Deborah Guyapong left a comment challenging Coren's statement:

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote: “After the Second Vatican Council, the impression arose that the pope really could do anything … especially if he were acting on the mandate of an ecumenical council … In fact, the First Vatican Council had in no way defined the pope as an absolute monarch. On the contrary, it presented him as the guarantor of obedience to the revealed Word. The pope’s authority is bound to the Tradition of faith … The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition.”

And this is what Vatican I had defined: “The Holy Spirit was not promised to Peter’s successors so that by its revelation they might disclose new doctrine, but, so that, by its assistance, they might devoutly guard and faithfully set forth the revelation handed down through the Apostles.

Deborah has done us a favour by citing the quote above and links the whole article to Father Hunwicke's Mutual Enrichment which addresses a statement by Cardinal Marx of Germany.

What is a "right-wing Catholic" Michael? Is it someone that accepts what the Church has taught down the centuries? Is that a bad thing? I watched your recent interview with Alissa Golub where you showed disdain for the sacrifice Mary Wagner is making and I am saddened by it - though at least you featured it and for that at least, I applaud you. However, the fact remains; as Barona so rightly testifies, her imprisonment, whilst according to the law, is a mark of fascism which has slowly been creeping into our beloved Canada quoting Bishop Johannes Maria Gföllner; “The nation is not the highest power, nor may the state be idolized; The highest power for each nation is and remains religion.” False religion and error has no rights.

These neo-caths (he uses labels so let us use them too) such as Coren, Mark Shea and a host of others are displaying papolatry and that is not Catholic. They and many since the Second Vatican Council have betrayed Our Blessed Lord and His Social Kingship and are Judases, many of them, clerical Judases!

If Pope Francis stood up tomorrow and said "I solemnly proclaim that the moon is made of cream cheese and I bind the belief on all Catholics" would you rush to the store to buy bagels and smoked salmon to celebrate and hire Virgin Airlines to take you there to shovel it up?

Soon, the Pope is expected to issue an Encyclical on the environment. Rumour has it that he will release it at the United Nations. This is appalling and has the credibility of the moon made of green cheese. What does the Pope know of the environment and so-called "global-warming?"

Good grief, climate changes why do you think that there are fossils of ferns and palms in Greenland! 

I will reserve judgement until I see that encyclical but if it trumpets the usual left-wing, Al Gore poppycock of man being responsible for climate change, I will put it in the same category as the moon being made of cream cheese. Stewardship is one thing, a political agenda based on junk-science is something else entirely and not befitting the Vicar of Christ or the Holy Catholic Church.

Now, before one says that we "trads" and "right-wing Catholics" are creating confusion, read the two statements below by Pope Francis : 

“She, during her earthly life, knew no small difficulties, joined to the daily fatigue of existence,” he said. “But she never lost peace of heart, the fruit of trustful abandonment to the mercy of God. Let us ask Mary, our tender Mother, to show to the whole world the sure path of love and of peace.”

 — 

"The Gospel does not tell us anything: if she spoke a word or not… She was silent, but in her heart, how many things told the Lord! ‘You, that day, this and the other that we read, you had told me that he would be great, you had told me that you would have given him the throne of David, his forefather, that he would have reigned forever and now I see him there!’ Our Lady was human! And perhaps she even had the desire to say: ‘Lies! I was deceived!’"

Seriously Michael, Mark and the rest of you, stop misinterpreting the First Vatican Council on the authority of the Pope ; you display ignorance that I find incredulous, particularly as Catholic writers. 

Michael Coren flips the bird to Catholic Truths

Michael Coren sad departure from Catholicism and the truth of Our Blessed Lord's teachings has been written about elsewhere on Vox Cantoris. My old friend and former Knight of Columbus brother (he has mercifully left before the movement to boot him out) has spent the better part of the year besmirching Church teaching on same-sex behaviour and mocking any Catholic faithful to the teachings of Christ and His Church that would have the temerity to question him.

The fact that this man does it in the secular media compounds the problem.

In his latest column, Coren writes:

"Now, lo and behold, the preliminary report from the General Assembly of the Synod of the Bishops has stated that gay people have "gifts" and qualities to offer the Christian community."

I will not belabour the sham of the Synod or go any further into Coren's article except to say this that this sentence says more by what it does not say and it convicts Coren as an author of deception.

Michael Coren has distorted not only the teaching of the Church but the reality of the Synod to his readers. The "preliminary report" which caused a firestorm for its heterodoxy was not accepted. Coren gives the impression that it was.

Michael Coren is doing severe damage to the Church and any Catholic organisation that continues to provide one penny to him for conferences is sharing in his hypocrisy and heresy.

Michael, you can call me any name you like. You can mock me on SUN TV or in the Catholic Register as you already have; but I am not going to be silent in the face of your scandalous manipulation of the truth.

If you think this blogger and others are going to be silent whilst you drag our faith through the mud of the secular-humanist, sodo-fascist world of modernity you might as well stop now. My pen is just as big as yours and you can't bully or silence me as you did last week on CHCH to someone else. We are not going to let you continue unchallenged. If you cannot be Catholic and then stop perverting the facts and the truth for your own pathetic objectives. 

You Michael, are the real hater.

+++

I apologise to all for writing this previously and promoting his book; it has since been removed:

This new book will do more for Catholicism in Canada and I dare say a good portion of the English-speaking world than many media-clericalist talking heads who suffer scarlet fever. I am honoured to know Michael Coren personally and I am very pleased to recommend this book.

Twenty years ago I met Michael Coren in the now defunct, Frank Magazine. He was on the back pages if my memory serves. Every two weeks, I grabbed that magazine for $2 and read Coren first. I was impressed with his wit, his sarcasm and his intellect. A few years later, I was the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto with my now 22 year old son. There outside one of the buildings was a CFRB trailer and a live broadcast of the Michael Coren Show. He was kibitzing with the small crowd gathered around and we exchanged a few words back and forth; he of course would not remember. Imagine my surprise a few years later, whilst still following him on the various rounds of media outlets in Toronto and in the newspaper, I found out about his conversion and that it was at the Church where I was involved with the choir. He is now a Brother Knight of Columbus.

Enough of the personal recollection. Go here to the National Post and read an excerpt from Michael's new book. It is in the bookstores now and I'll be getting my copy soon. And I'll take it with me to our Clergy Appreciation Night for a signing.

Congratulations Michael, and thank you for doing this.

And what happened to the man I wrote this about?

+++

Of all the articles that have appeared in the media about Summorum Pontificum, most have been laden with histrionics, half-truths, inaccuracies and outright lies. This one is an exception!

"The Second Vatican Council or Vatican II was intended to be an organic progression of 2,000 years of Church tradition and teaching. Windows were supposed to be opened but an assortment of 1960s academics and left-wing priests preferred to smash them. Continuation became breach and a legion of abuses were allowed and even encouraged."...Michael Coren

Thank you Michael Coren (whole column) for your clarity!

Michael Coren is the author of twelve books, including biographies of GK Chesterton, HG Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis. He has contributed to the Dictionary of National Biography and several other anthologies. He is published in many countries and in more than a dozen languages. He has received several honorary doctorates and awards for his writing. In 2005 he won The Ed Murrow Award for Radio Broadcasting, in 2006 The RTNDA Radio Broadcasting Award and in 2007 the Communicator Award in Hollywood for his television show.

Michael Coren's corrupted Catholicism

Michael Coren appeared tonight on a rather pedestrian television program from Hamilton, Ontario with Damian Goddard. The two debated each other, with the two moderators. Coren is a bully, though he called Goddard one repeatedly. Yet it was Coren that did all the interrupting. He even called Goddard a hater. 

I won't quote everything but Coren stated that Jesus never preached on homosexuality.

This statement does not merit a rebuttal.

Michael Coren, stop identifying yourself as a practicing and faithful Catholic. Stop appearing to defend the Church as if you are speaking on Her behalf. You are no theologian. You have no standing to go on regional or local television and speak for the Church. 

Your opinions are heterodox and please, stop complaining of cancellations and the loss of income from Catholics. Certainly all your new friends should be able to make up the difference.

Where's the love, empathy, kindness? -- Indeed Michael Coren, indeed!

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.

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 that 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 views on the homosexual lifestyle, yet he turns his venom on his fellow Catholics. What about all that "love, empathy and kindness,"  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? 

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.  Coren has used the same tactics as these liberal fascists right out of Alinsky's Rules for Radicals to target and defame the enemy.

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.

An old parishioner, now deceased, once advised me, "don't trust that man." 

She was right.