BOOK: Michael Coren, "Why Catholics Are Right"

In his new book, Michael Coren does battle with enemies of Catholicism

Charles Lewis  Apr 16, 2011 – 9:30 AM ET | Last Updated: Apr 16, 2011 7:51 AM ET

Michael Coren looks relieved, a bit tired too, like someone who has finally returned from a long march into hostile territory, which in a sense he has.

In his just released Why Catholics Are Right, his 13th book, the broadcaster and columnist does battle with the myriad enemies of his beloved and adopted Catholic Church. It is thoughtful and logical but built on a well of impatience and anger with those who feel they can kick around his religion.

"There is no languor and lace about me," he said from his home in Toronto. "I don't like it when people refuse to think."

In Why Catholics Are Right, he is pugnacious, perhaps channelling something of the spirit of his late father, Phil, a London boxer, cab driver and Royal Air Force veteran who was the son of Polish Jews hounded out of their homeland by pogroms.

"My father grew up in a rough suburb near London called Hackney. I would have been eaten alive there. I'm a real softy compared to his generation."

The title suggests another addition to the long tradition of Christian apologetics — the field of theology that seeks to persuade non-believers through gentle explanation and reason the benefits of the faith.

But Mr. Coren attacks from the start, confronting every issue he sees used unfairly to diminish the Church's place in the world. It is equal parts historical analysis and scorched earth policy. In short, he is giving Catholics like himself ammunition to fight back.

He moves quickly from the abuse crisis, to celibacy, the Crusades, the Inquisition, historical anti-Semitism and the controversial Pope Pius XII, whose memory many say was maligned with accusations he did little to save Jews from the Holocaust.

To Mr. Coren, the abuse crisis was tragic but the condemnation "went much further than justified criticism and became dishonest" and the root problem of the abuse crisis was not celibacy, but dishonest men who deceived the Church; the Crusades, he argues, "were not the proudest moment of Christian history but nor were they the childish caricature of modern Western guilt; anti-Semitism existed but it was often the Church that stepped in to protect Jews; and Pope Pius XII saved thousands of Jews and was hated by the Nazis.

Mr. Coren uses his training as an historian to rip apart every attack on the Church and then declares with an almost unheard of directness in popular Catholic writing that the Church stands for all that is right.

"The importance of Catholicism is that in a culture where various forms of religious and atheistic fundamentalism, crass materialism, and clawing decadence eat away at civility and civilization, the only permanent, consistent and logically complete alternative is the Roman Catholic Church," Mr. Coren writes in the introduction, lest anyone expects him to beat around the bush.

"Which is probably why it seems to so antagonize people who would usually be fair and tolerant toward a faith and ideology they did not completely understand."

That Mr. Coren finds himself as a crusader for the Church was not inevitable. His father was Jewish and his mother completely secular. He was sent for Hebrew lessons for a few years but quit after deciding there were better things to do on a Sunday.

His flirtation with the Church came during a high school history course about the Reformation, the 16th century movement that gave rise to Protestantism and the Anglican Church in Britain.

"The assumption in the class was that the Protestants were right. You have to remember that Catholics were a small minority in Britain at the time and Catholicism seemed very foreign," he said. "But I thought, 'Hmmm. I really like these Catholics.' "

He attempted conversion twice before it finally stuck in 1985 when he was in his mid-20s.

By that time he had a flourishing career in London as a journalist and broadcaster and had already written two books with a third under way.

But at a conference in Toronto he met Bernadette, the woman he would eventually marry. He began flying over every two weeks to see her and friends in England would give him assignments to foot the bill.

"The Independent newspaper flew me over to interview this guy Wayne Gretzky, who they heard was a great ice hockey player. I had never heard of him."

He now lives in Toronto with Bernadette and his four children, one of whom is entering graduate school next year in philosophy.

The front room of his home is lined with books and dotted with religious icons and other imagery. Atop one wall is a replica of the Cross of San Damiano, which Catholics believe spoke to St. Francis of Assisi 800 years ago with the message, "Rebuild my Church."

He sprawls across the couch as he explains why he took this particular hard-line route as a way to talk about the Church, especially hitting the abuse scandal from the outset.

Indeed, the first line of that chapter begins with: "This is the chapter I didn't want to write and shouldn't have to."

"It's the elephant in the room," he explained. "No matter what else you bring up, people are going to say, 'But what about the abuse scandal?'

"What people are saying is that this is a product of Roman Catholicism, a product of an all-male clergy and celibacy. I'm trying to show this is not true. Look at churches where they have ordained women, where clergy marry — the same kind of abuse occurs. It's a tragedy but it doesn't say anything about the Catholic Church but it says something about human nature."

It is the chapter on abortion that is the most raw. He marvels, he said, that the moment the Church raises the issue of abortion, its critics say a line has been crossed.

"When the Church calls for the relief of debt in poor countries, no one complains it is out of bounds. When the Church questioned the war in Iraq, no one complains either. But soon as it comes to life issues, suddenly the Church is interfering. Why is that?"

In Why Catholics Are Right, he writes: "[The killing of abortion doctors] is never justified and is, thankfully and contrary to what some would have us believe, incredibly rare, but compared with the millions of children aborted in recent years, an isolated assault on abortion doctors does rather pale in comparison."

He hopes the book will at least lead some non-Catholics to gain a better understanding of the Church and not be so quick to judgment.

But there is one group he believes he cannot convince, and who will likely remain forever unreachable.

"For people who hate the Church, I don't really care. You can't worry about the actual haters."

National Post
clewis@nationalpost.com

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