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| To Indifferentism ! |
Some samplings:
- Olson / Catholic World Report: "It's a sad but undeniable fact that some of the criticism aimed at him has undoubtedly been harsh, personal, and even outrageous".[1]
- Keating / Catholic Answers: "I have seen several calmly-written pieces (my own among them - good for you, Karl, so humble, you're awesome!) 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".[2]
- Fr. de Sousa / National Post: "Coren, despite his aggressively polemical style in print, radio and TV, constantly complains that people say mean things on the Internet. That too does happen. Most columnists deal with it without public whingeing, as Coren puts it, about "the Church of Nasty".[3]
So, you see, only our enlightened critiques of Mr. Coren are acceptable and worthy of consideration and rumination, because we are civil and fair and level-headed and charitable and
Let it be known: it was the Catholic riff raff on "social media" - bloggers, Facebook, Twitter, e-mails - that spent the last two years or so exposing and criticizing Coren's heteordoxy, challenging him to clarify or justify his shape-shifting views on sodomy and sodomites in the Catholic Church. During this same period, our darlings in the "official" Catholic press were silent as the vacuum of outer space. So far as can be recalled, not one challenge was posed by any "official" Catholic MSM outlet/columnist when Coren started to go pro homo in his commentaries.
Why no objections from Coren's enlightened peers? Was it Martini Hour? Certainly, questions to be pondered.
But now that Coren has publicly apostasized - note that never is the word "apostasy" used, so uncivilized you know (sip vodka martini, one olive, dirty, lemon twist) - these self-appointed legates have suddenly emerged from their plush-carpeted lairs to tell us that, yes, it is unfortunate that Coren "converted"!? to Anglicanism. We are "disappointed" at his duplicity, "hoping" he will once again return to the fold. But now it is safe to speak. After Coren's public admission, no longer are there overseer threats to incoming cash flow nor to club memberships nor to conference invites nor to TV interviews nor to bromances with bishops nor to other myriad forms of self-congratulatory backslapping. What a relief! No risks, no problem, me influential, have pen, get cheque - and it is only us who are entitled the credit, and who possess the accreditation, for weeding out and speaking out against the apostatic likes of Mr. Coren.
Yet during the interim, how many Catholic fans of Mr. Coren were led astray? How many of these people, Catholic or not, trusted his writings on Catholic matters? Perhaps making crucial decisions in their personal lives as an result? Like, maybe, converting to Catholicism? Is it not the responsibility of the "official" Catholic press to keep checks and balances on any influential Catholic personalities who have gone wayward? Were not these wonderful, charming self-appointed legates - so much "informed" on the internal workings of the Catholic Church - supposed to report Coren's soul-endangering positions to the Catholic riff raff? Why did they not? Where were they? Who knows?
For example, why did the aforesaid Carl Olson, editor of the Neo-Catholic World Report, allow Coren to publish an article with the following nonchalant statement therein:
Of course, lesbian couples can have an obliging friend assist them in having a baby, and gay men can adopt or have some other obliging friend have one for them.[5]
In the meantime, Coren's articles remained accessible at the Catholic Register website for a full month after publicly apostasizing in late April. And presently Lifesite News is reporting that he just published a pro-abortion article for the notoriously heretical Prairie Messenger, the "official" weekly for three Canadian dioceses out west: Saint Boniface, Regina and Saskatoon.[6] Indeed, now that he is on a roll, Coren is starting get in on the homofascist action on Twitter:
How quaint - burning a sodomite "martyr" at the stake and two others holding hands under the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. They must be squealing with glee over there. Glitter... glitter everywhere!
So wake up, Catholic riff raff. It's all one big joke. It is a manoeuvre by the Establishment Church to steal the limelight and the credit for disavowing one their own, one of their "friends", who went off the rails, was for a long time running off the rails, under their watch, ever boldly doing so in the public square. These self-appointed legates writing zero about it, not a peep, still letting Coren publish at their respective media outlets. However, it was you... you contemptible Catholic riff raff, with your loyalty to the Magisterium and your devotion to the Most Blessed Virgin and your steadfastness at facing raw, uncomfortable facts head-on, which was chiefly responsible for forcing Mr. Coren to finally show his cards - and do not let the linguistic acrobatics of these self-appointed legates of Nu-Church make you second guess yourselves. Never forget, Catholic riff raff, you have support and corroboration from the popes:
- Pope Felix III: "Not to oppose error, is to approve it, and not to defend truth is to suppress it, and indeed to neglect to confound evil men, when we can do it, is no less a sin than to encourage them".
- Pope St. Leo I the Great: "He that sees another in error, and endeavors not to correct it, testifies himself to be in error".
As a result, his decision to trade Rome for Canterbury has been denounced, especially on social media, as everything from hypocritical to traitorous and, perhaps most unkindly of all if entirely predictable, a betrayal by someone who was never a real Catholic anyway.
Could such a set up as be characterized as hypocritical, incestuous, opportunistic?
You betchya.
Catholics absolutely should be indignant at Coren's apostasy, rightfully they are indignant, and indignation is an expression of zeal. Zeal, say St. Thomas, "arises from the intensity of love".[9] It seeks and wants the good of "the other", and the intensity of opposition to the soul that has gone errant is a direct function of the good desired for "the other". Yes, it is called "love", tough love. Therefore it is not unreasonable to suppose that our newspaper man deems Coren's "critics" on "social media" to be "unkind" because, contrarily, he considers Coren's apostasy not as a tragedy, not as a real loss, where an immortal soul is at stake. It is more of a pragmatic thing, considered principally in a secular context, not theological, definitely not moral. Instead, what we get is this smug "entirely predictable" ascription applied to Catholics on "social media". Yes, we know, just a bunch of dim-witted vulgarians.
Although they would never admit it, what these self-appointed legates do - by insinuation - is to equate zeal (so-called unkindness, hate, etc.) into fanaticism, psychological instability, uneducated oafs, unqualified buffoons, "Church of Nasty", take your pick. Lounging around high atop their Ivory Towers whilst Rome burns below, this is a standard tactic used by an insulated, disconnected elite that endeavours to wholly dismiss the legitimate protests of normal, everyday Catholics, powerless, dejected by the abysmal state of the Post-Conciliar Church, yet many of whom have an acute sensus fidei. Basically, scoring everything off as a manifestation of the mob mentality. It is important for them to maintain this calumniating narrative because in one swipe it renders any opposing views as irrelevant. Problem is, with the contemporary arrival of those once suppressed Catholic voices on the internet, coupled with the free availability of the Deposit of the Faith online, these self-appointed legates of Nu-Church are less capable at sustaining this narrative. They are being challenged, and they do not like it. "How dare you?", they condescendingly think. "Shoo, shoo away" (sip vodka martini).
Now watch as apostasy begins to be warranted:
What his critics either fail to see, or refuse to accept, is the validity of his statement that the decision was a Christ-centred choice: that he had to move away from the political distractions in which he was enmeshed in the Catholic Church in order to stay in the presence of Christ personally.
- Corollary 1: sola fide, sola scriptura.
- Corollary 2: private judgement, individualism, no objective authority, no Real Presence, self-determination without the external referent of Tradition/Magisterium.
- Corollary 3: "A personal relationship with Jesus", "Here I stand", and so forth.
Coren apostasized from the Catholic Church because he refuted the Church's teaching on sodomy, a subject bearing on morality. What our newspaper man seems to be doing here is to transform the issue into a "political distraction". Is this to infer that Catholic morality and secular politics are separate? That issues regarding homo "marriage" and its perverted correlates should be left to be decided upon in the public square, in a "democracy", without any input, protest or prevention whatsoever from Catholics? Sure seems like it. No surprise here. This relegation of Church teaching to a partitioned, distant construct relates directly to those precious neo-Catholic (yet non-Catholic) concepts of "religious freedom" and the separation of Church and State. Begone Social Reign of Christ the King. All hail Fr. John Courtney Murray!
Continuing down the rabbit hole:
Seen in the light of rooted faith in Christ, Coren was right to leave the Catholic Church if staying meant attending at Mass with his heart and mind full of the buzz of worldly argument rather than the peace of Our Lord. It is devoutly to be hoped that the peripatetic pilgrim will find his way home to Rome again. In the interim, it's better that his focus is fixed where it should be.
How many Catholics out there have been daily, monthly, yearly bombarded by the "worldly argument" of Sodomite Propaganda from the culture without, or even from within the Church via, say, the slick and unyielding Jesuit faggotry of Fr. James Martin, but nonetheless remain in the Church and believe what it teaches on this abomination? This, despite family members estranged as a result, ostracization by friends, mockery at the office, opportunities lost, or whatever suffering. Yes, there are Catholics out there with those very experiences, you adorable self-appointed legates of Nu-Church. How many Catholics, who for whatever reason may feel certain moral teachings are difficult (usually out of ignorance), but still believe all that the Church teaches, by trust, by faith, and because they actually assent to the following: "Thou art Peter, and it is upon this rock that I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it; and I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:18-19).
It is not as if Coren joined that "old time religion" of whatever Protestant sect existent prior to the Lambeth Conference of 1920. Before then, Anglicanism proscribed contraception, abortion and sodomy. Rather, he has enthusiastically shacked up with the newfangled hyper-liberalized version of an ever changing, currently imploding, Anglicanism, with its recent acquiescence to whatever sexual perversion. Let alone its stellar cast of lesbians pretending to be "priests" and, now, "bishops". To say it is "right" to apostasize from Catholicism, whatever the cause, still assumes Indifferentism, which is heresy. To say it is "valid" to dispose of Catholicism for a "Christ-centred" Protestantism, assumes Indifferentism, which is heresy.
Why, then, is such an apathetic viewpoint advocated? Because there is a hushed, unspoken and underlying conviction, deep, deep, way down deep - again, a Neo-Catholic thing - that the immortal soul of a baptized Catholic, latterly apostasized, is not reeeaaallllly in danger of going to Hell (wink wink, nudge nudge). That is an old fashioned notion belonging to the "Dark Ages", long before the shackles of oppression were broken at Vatican II, to which only the contemptible Catholic riff raff on "social media" subscribe. Don't worry about it. Nearly everyone makes it to Heaven, squawk the von Balthasar fanboys. It's the Nouvelle Théologie, bebe. Coren will be fine in some other denomination. He is just a "peripatetic pilgrim" (give me a break) galavanting his whimsical way through the travails of life, just selecting another course of choice fare on the menu of religion. Oh well, let's have another martini and wish him well.
It is so un-Catholic, pathetic, lukewarm, flat, blasé. There's nothing there.
Stockland goes beyond a disguised Indifferentism, however, when he writes that "it's better that his focus is fixed where it should be". Really? It is "better" that Coren "should be" a Protestant promoting sodomy (and now abortion) rather than be a Catholic and witness against it? This is no longer a subtle nod, not an enigmatic wink of approval. No, this is public affirmation, even an encouragement to apostasy. And that this garbage passes off as Catholic journalism is an injustice to those poor pewsitters who think the Catholic Register (funded by them) is an authentic source of Catholic news and views.
Now the reader should understand that this stealth Indifferentism (with the heresy of Universal Salvation looming in the background) is not particular to our newspaper man. It spans throughout the unhallowed halls of CanChurch. They're everywhere. Again, we have Coren for confirmation: "I obviously don't blame the Catholic Church as such for all this, especially as there are myriad good and kind people within its ranks, many of whom sent me delightful letters and were extremely upset and ashamed about what went on".[11] So, it is not just writers for diocesan newspapers. You can include whatever form of Professional Catholic that now plague the Post-Conciliar Church - chanceries office personnel, teacher union members, professors, publishers, so-called liturgists and catechists, including that very high percentage of homo priests and bishops.
Why did they send Coren "delightful letters"? Obviously, they condone his apostasy and, correlatively, support his pro-homo promulgations. What else could it be? Why do you think there are so many faggots and dykes working inside the gamut of Catholic institutions? Why are these Nu-Church darlings "extremely upset and ashamed"? Well, it demonstrates a disdain for orthodox Catholics, particularly those on "social media" and, correlatively, the doctrines of the Church, especially those appertaining to morality. What else could it be? Yes, Catholic riff raff, these people do not like you, to put it mildly. However, they do indeed like their power and influence over the laity. But don't you dare test or provoke them, else the dogs will be sent after you personally - out of the public eye, that is.
It cannot be emphasized enough: within the bubble world of Nu-Church, it's all about personal relationships, emotional attachments, opportunities, administration, maintaining face in the public square - all of these overriding principles of the Faith, despite the unmistakeable fact that the Catholic Church is currently undergoing an unprecedented crisis. For them, it is not a battle for souls, not an endeavor to uphold the truths of dogma, but of maintaining respectability, even loyalty to those who are publicly known heretics, despite the damage these heretics have done, for decades. It is abhorrent to them to even think of "betraying" one of their own. Yet this attitude is so damaging to an already exhausted laity and, yes, to their immortal souls as well. Why? These sins of omission, by remaining silent about their heretic colleagues, these enemies within, they are doing even worse damage to the faithful in that they are effectively licensing the perpetuation of error and, therefore, further loss of faith, more apostasy. Judging by what is now published everyday by whatever "official" Catholic agency, there is absolutely no sign of abatement to the pattern outlined just above.
It is the lesson of Catholic history: when it comes down to the crunch, as in the recent ramping up of Christian persecution (as a prime example), these Nu-Church darlings, these innovators and rebels, will be nowhere to be seen. Gone. Vanished. Unless someone blogs about it. But this invariably occurs after the fact, after the exposition, after someone is caught red handed, just like Coren.
Do not trust these people. Keep your distance. Remain vigilant and pray that God will soon end this scourge.
NOTES / REFERENCES
1. C. Olson, "Michael Coren goes Anglican, denounces Catholic moral teaching", Catholic World Report, May 2, 2015.
2. K. Keating, "Michael Coren sidesteps the real issue in his change of religion", Catholic Answers, May 18, 2015.
3. Fr. R.J. de Sousa, "Michael Coren converts, Michael Coren complains", National Post, May 20, 2015.
4. C. Olson, op. cit.
5. M. Coren, "Great Britain and Gay Marriage", Catholic World Report, February 26, 2013.
6. P. Baklinkski, "'Official' Catholic newspaper defends running pro-abortion piece by Michael Coren", Lifesite News, May 26, 2015. See article M. Coren, "Seamless Garment", Prairie Messenger, May 20, 2015.
7. M. Coren, "Coming Out", The Walrus, May 21, 2015.
8. P. Stockland, "Cold days in hell", The Catholic Register, May 14, 2016.
9. Sum. theol. i-ii, q. 28, art. 5.
10. M. Coren, "How a change of heart led to a backlash from the 'Church of Nasty'", Toronto Star, May 16, 2015; J. Brean, " 'I felt a hypocrite': Author Michael Coren on why he left the Catholic Church for Anglicanism", National Post, May 1, 2015.
11. Ibid.
