Legatus editor Patrick Novecosky speaks to Canadian journalist Michael Coren . . .
He may not be a household name in the Lower 48, but Michael Coren has earned his place as Canada’s most respected conservative journalist. A convert to Catholicism, he has worked in print, radio and television. The author of Why Catholics Are Right and Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity, Coren spoke to fellow Canadian Patrick Novecosky, editor-in-chief of Legatus magazine, about his upcoming appearance at the 2014 Legatus Summit.
You’re not so well-known in the U.S. You might be called “Canada’s Bill O’Reilly.” Fair comparison?
I wish I earned his money! I don’t want to be critical of Bill, but I consider myself a little more thoughtful person. I don’t do “outrage,” and my politics have never been as polarizing or polarized as his. I can’t imagine him writing long, boring biographies on G.K. Chesterton or H.G. Wells.
You’re a to-the-point conservative. Have you won converts to conservatism?
My conservatism is a byproduct of my Catholicism; it’s never the other way around. I’m not a partisan in the political sense. There’s no party I could embrace completely.
People have come to the Church because of my books. I’m not a theologian. I’m not a scholar. I’m a journalist. I see myself as someone from the tradition of G.K. Chesterton or Hilaire Belloc. Most of the work I do is in the non-Catholic public square. I have put people off, but I certainly have won people over.
The current administration has wreaked havoc on the economy and religious liberty. Where do you see this going?
The U.S. can survive most things. It’s not a political shift. It’s a cultural shift, a societal shift. In the United States, certain assumptions have been moved. On the same-sex “marriage” issue, for example, this was an open, viable debate. But now, if you question it — it’s not that you’re wrong on that issue — you’re considered irrational or even un-American.
Secularism is advancing at a rapid rate. Is the Catholic Church in trouble?
If I relied on how I feel at the moment, I would cease to function. I have to go back to Chaucer and Dante and realize how bad things have been in the past. The Church will be fine, but it’s going to be a persecuted Church. I’m writing a book called The Future of Catholicism, which comes out in November. I can tell you that we will face the open hostility of society at large in the years to come. In your place of work, if you say that you don’t believe that two men can be married, you’re going to be ostracized. The whole culture is going to turn against you.
What’s closest to your heart? What are your personal priorities?
I would like to be able to communicate the Catholic message in the best way I can. If I’ve been given any sort of gift, I seem to be able to defend the Church which, in the end, is the only thing that matters. It’s not about party, it’s not about nation, it’s about the Church, which hasn’t been defended well enough. There is no meaning for me without that.
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