Coren - Why Catholics are right

There are so many things wrong with this excerpt from the National Post (April 12th) that it is difficult to know where to start. If Coren says Catholicsm is right than other faiths must be wrong. The more modern view of myself, a Jew, Bishop Spong and Tom Harpur is that we don't know the truth and there are many paths to God. No path is in itself better - different paths suit different people. Coren, like many other rigid ideologues feels oppressed because everyone doesn't agree with him. It is true that Christianity is publically criticized more freely than Judaism (except in the Middle East) and Islam, but the criticism generally applies to both Catholism and Protestanism, not to Catholism alone. It is also usually criticism of specific ideas of Catholicism, not of the religion in toto. Undoubtedly he lost jobs, but not because he is a Catholic but because of his rigid ideas about abortion etc. It is not being a Catholic per se that is the problem but some of their ideas which are out of sinc with modern ideas of justice equality and forgiveness. Coren lists many things the church has doen wrong and then says they are all nonsense, instead of saying that the church was wrong and has or will make the correct. Lastly from his other writings it is clear that he loved and respected his Jewish father, but being Catholic must assume that he will burn in hell forever. I just cannot understand either the ruling or Coren's mindset that he would be able to believe that. We don't know the unknowable God, let alone which rituals will please him/her. When the Messiah comes to let us know "the truth" we will know which if any is the better religion until then, life will be better if there is no absolutely "right" religion and we all follow our respective paths to God and allow others to follow their paths to God.

National Post Dec 17th A15

Know Thyself

Can a fundamentalist accuse others of being fundamentalists? Pope Benedict is certainly correct about the existence of Christianophobia, but the fundamentalism that he should be objecting to is not that of Islam but of the Catholic church. His own fundamentalist views on social questions such as abortion and gay marriage are part of the root causes of the secularism that so worries him. "Know yourself" or "see yourself as others see you" would be excellent advice for the Pope.

Coren's defence in the National Post

Also in the National Post Michael Coren defends his view of the Catholic Church. His defence belongs with the defence of Stalinism, Mao, and the Sandanistas, not that Catholicism is like them, but because it is, like the above, a defence of an ideology with the defence lacking any substance, reason, logic or understanding.