Christian Order is a British international monthly devoted to the defence and propagation of the One True Faith - Catholic, Apostolic and Roman - through incisive comment on current affairs in Church and State; at home and abroad.

Yes, the corrosive familiarity of Communion in the hand has bred contempt for the sacred, giving rise to a casual impiety and lack of awe and adoration in our churches. It is also at the heart of resistance to the restoration of the Old Mass and tradition in general. Even more elementally, however, by rupturing the innate relationship between the Priesthood and the Holy Eucharist established by Our Lord on Holy Thursday, it has devastated priestly identity, savaging vocations in the process and shaking the very foundations of the Church.

A major factor in the undermining of Catholic morality for millions in the Church was the impact of the Comprehensive Classroom Sex Education phenomenon. Now, a new problem has emerged for parents and Catholic educators with the emergence of a particular kind of Sex Education being  presented by Theology of the Body (TOB) Lecturers and teachers. One of the leading contemporary Lecturers on the Theology of the Body is Christopher West. Though Mr. West’s TOB presentations have been widely applauded, some critics have taken exception to his presentations, finding, for example, his TV programs (geared to teenagers or older students or the young/engaged) crude and vulgar and verbally explicit in dealing with sexual matters. This is hardly in conformity with the seminal Vatican guidelines. There are many other problems, such as the grave matter of his teaching on Sodomy (“There’s nothing inherently wrong with anal penetration as foreplay to normal intercourse”). His critics naturally ask: can one who so mitigates the sin of Sodomy be regarded as a fit sex educator in TOB for Catholics or anyone else? After all, has he not written that “The Pope has a vision of erotic love far more glorious than anything beyond Sigmund Freud, Dr. Ruth or Howard Stein could dream or imagine”? There appears to be a certain confusion in his writing between sexuality and sex, and a tendency to write in the same ambiguous and obfuscatory vein as secular humanist sex educators. There are grounds for believing that West misconstrues the body-soul relationship. He pays much more attention to the body and its sexual desires than to the work of grace in the soul. Christopher West’s TOB does not appear to be a balanced spirituality or even a reverential and chaste presentation of the Pope’s Theology of the Body. West’s TOB reveals serious problematic issues resulting in distortions of an authentic Education in Chastity.

The chronic uncleanliness of British hospitals, which has turned even the most innocuous hospital treatment into a lethal lottery, is just a symptom of the darker cause now stalking NHS corridors and menacing the whole cradle-to-grave apparatus: callous disregard for life. “Yet surely even in our dehumanised, irreligious age, the old belief - central to most religions - that life is sacred cannot be lightly dismissed,” plead the worldlings, clinging by their fearful fingertips to the secular fantasy of a reverential world without Christianity. In fact, the irreligious Zeitgeist has not so much “lightly dismissed” the sacredness of life established at great cost over millennia by Christians, it has unleashed the fury of Hell against the most vulnerable members of society: the sick, comatose, elderly, disabled and mentally impaired. And the same irreligion points inevitably to the targeting of the not-so sick, not-so comatose, not-so elderly, not-so disabled and not-so mentally impaired. A scenario with us right now and escalating in inverse proportion to the decline of Christian faith, as bogus deities arise to fill the vacuum.

We have a crisis in the NHS - a crisis that has been creeping up on us for 20 years. The NHS cannot cope with the number of elderly people who need admission. Therefore the pundits have decided to reduce admissions through the NHS End of Life Programme. If the Liverpool Care Pathway is used in care homes throughout the country, I predict that there will be many deaths due to inappropriate sedation without hydration. Terminal or palliative sedation is a danger area of medical ethics yet this dangerous practice is being promoted with Government backing, for use in hospitals, hospices, care homes, nursing homes and in private homes, if the patients are thought to be dying. Care Homes are being targeted, the aim being “to reduce emergency admissions and reduce transfers of patients from care homes to hospitals at the end of life.” (Changing Gear, Nov. 2007).

Heavenly Father, we ask Thy blessing on our efforts. Show us the way to spread the Truth of the Catholic faith in the midst of error and infidelity. Fill our hearts with authentic love for our priests, bishops, pope and all the clergy, a love that moves us to unceasing prayer for their souls and to constant exhortation to faithfully fulfill their sacred task of preaching the whole truth of the Catholic faith without compromise. Grant us wisdom in our deliberations, courage in exposing error and corruption, and humility and charity in all the things we do. Bless our Holy Father with the wisdom and holiness to discern and carry out Thy Will, and the loyalty and fidelity of bishops, priests and all Religious in helping him carry out this task. May Thy will be done in all things.

We ask this through the intercession of our Holy Mother Mary.