When I was a child it was usual for children to play “mummies and daddies/weddings”. It would invariably involve a swift “ceremony”, complete with table cloth veil, before the mummy and daddy would quickly produce offspring- played to irritating perfection by some mewling younger sibling. What is obvious is that these children understood full well that the family was centred on marriage and that marriage was invariably linked to family life. This was where THEY belonged!

It is a game my own children play without prompting. But before long this innocent game, which cements and reinforces the nature and purpose of marriage and family life, will be lost. Why? Because a government pathetically insisting (pretending) it is pro marriage is doing all in its power to deconstruct and reinvent marriage without a thought about the effect on children. The need of every child to be raised by their own biological parents (which all surveys prove is the environment in which children thrive best) is to be of secondary importance to the perceived rights of a minority whose sex lives are not ordered in such a way as to allow for this miracle of birth.

If you doubt that this move undermines marriage consider the implications of the proposals passed in the commons tonight. Laws are forming which will prove utterly confusing, and entirely adult centred, to any future five year old. No longer will there be a gold standard, a universally recognised marital union to hold families together. The place where children instinctively feel THEY belong. Instead we will have a smorgasbord of adult relationships – each as devoid of obvious meaning as the next. And none of them uniquely centred around the young. For, of course, all must be not only equal but the same! Such is the nonsense spouted today where feelings now trump logic.

Tom and Adam will be married but clearly unable to produce offspring alone. Dave and Molly will be heterosexuals in a civil partnership who do have children. When a child asks “what is the difference between the civil partnership and marriage and between civil marriage and religious marriage?” How on earth will parents respond? It will all sound so confusing and unclear. What will society be saying about the purpose of sex, the place of children and much more besides? And where we once encouraged morality by teaching children to wait for sex until married- what will we say in future? Please hang off until you opt for civil partnership/marriage/cohabitation or just feel like it? There will be no obvious forum in which sex and the rearing of children truly belongs.

We will have descended into a culture in which all relationships are largely self defined and on the same footing. Brilliant news for those simply wanting to be PC, or to pretend they are same when basic biology clearly shows difference, but devastating for marriage which will be in such a weaker and more obfuscated place than ever before.

Yet Cameron and co. still insist this move is about strengthening marriage…you couldn’t invent it. Double speak is alive and well in 21st Century Britain it seems. This is a day of rejoicing for Satan. For behind it all we find a move to de-Christianise our culture by waging this war on the family. I hope, pray and trust for a robust defence from our bishops in defence of marriage. I am ready to do anything necessary in response. At the very least we will now need to get out of civil marriage altogether. Grim days ahead which lead us into chaos. This is a winter for the young.

Any gardener worth his salt will tell you that you face an uphill task if you try to grow a certain plant in the wrong conditions. Roses, for example, thrive in clay soil (I looked it up!!) due to the water retention but put them in dry soil and the results are disappointing. This is an analogy of life in the church. For it often seems to me that trying to catechise and grow the next generation of Catholics is a profoundly difficult task where a permissive secular culture is the soil into which they are planted.

But is the poor soil solely caused by forces outside the Church or is the root problem stemming from within? Fr. Dwight Longenecker thinks so arguing that we have spent too long teaching Catholic children to be nice rather than fired up believers. He writes:

We’ve made catechesis nice. It’s all about the sacraments and being nice and the church and being nice and peace and justice and being nice and forgiveness and hugs and being nice. That’s all very nice… but there is another aspect to the gospel which we’ve quietly forgotten. We’ve forgotten that part about, “If anyone would be my disciple he must take up his cross and follow me.” Or that part which says, “The world will hate you as it has hated me.” or “Broad is the way that leads to destruction, but narrow is the gate and few there be that find it.”

So our children aren’t dumb. They grow up and they figure that if it’s all about being nice that you don’t have to go to church to be nice. You can be nice without church. You don’t have to be Catholic to be nice. You can be a nice Methodist if you want. So if they want to be nice they just go along being nice without church, and they believe that because that’s actually what we taught them even when we didn’t know that is what we were teaching them.

I agree with this point. Research shows that children note what their parents do rather than what they say. And have not a whole generation taught the young that one can be a believer whilst also sitting very comfortably in the secular culture. Have we not transmitted by action (if not by word) a nominalism and haziness which has been taken up with zeal? It would explain why most of my Catholic friends as a boy no longer go to Mass. Apparently Mass attendance dropped 15% in a decade….

The promotion of Casual Catholicism has been devastating as regards decline. But at least the solution is obvious. We must show the young something different in word and action. They need to see to a passionate, renewed, convicted Catholicism. Not a fluffy Catechesis focused on “me and my story” but a doctrinally driven programme transmitting “Him and his story”. All of it.

What is needed is a radical shift in gear. We must ask our young to become like John the Baptist, that is learning to recede that Christ may proceed. Denying not indulging the self, sacrificing for him. In love and charity we must lead them to a genuine encounter with Jesus built in prayer and devotion to the sacraments. And given that we only teach the young by example not word this means we adults must start being better witnesses ourselves. Each showing what it means to be a sacrificial not nominal Catholic…

But Oh dear… we prefer to be luke warm. We delight in Cafeteria Catholicism- all good works but thin on doctrine/obedience. Cant we somehow wriggle out of this need to actually live out authentic faith and thereby keep one foot in the church and one in the secular culture?

But search your hearts. You know what Christ demands. You know vocations dried up, and young people stopped going to church at the precise moment we lost our nerve and embraced the modernist secular culture. You know many have grown more convinced by the liberal humanism expressed in the media than Christ proclaimed by the church- so that today they struggle to realise ‘social justice issues’ are not the totality of our faith.

You also know that the devotion of previous generations puts our own to shame. If I had a pound for every Catholic who talks of granny’s firm faith with a dewy eye! You know the queue for communion has grown so very long in comparison with the queue for confession. You know people rarely fast anymore or genuflect, or make serious examination of conscience. You know worship so often focuses on celebrating us the community, and not on him and his sacrifice. You know these things…but it is comfortable being half hearted so we collude together in ignoring our response…

…and then we wonder where the young people have gone? If we want a new generation of passionate and brilliant believers then we are the ones who must form them. What does the example of your own life currently say to the world?

A rather lovely video centred on the religious life for Pentecost which reminds us why it is so important to beautify holy spaces and ensure we give of our best to God. This is heavenly. Biretta tip to Fr. Bradley…

I have, at times, been accused of being too strident on this blog. Those who do not like my robust defence of the Catholic faith, or my unswerving insistence that the Ordinariate is a game changer leaving Anglo-Catholics with only one viable long term option, tend to get annoyed with what I write. Those erring on the side of caution have sometimes suggested I should dampen my zeal and promote a more “live and let live” attitude. But today the Holy Father, Pope Francis, preached a wonderful sermon in which he rather suggests the opposite as he stated that it is better to be “annoying” and “a nuisance” than lukewarm in the faith!

“If we annoy people, blessed be the Lord,” said Pope Francis! “We can ask the Holy Spirit to give us all this apostolic fervor and to give us the grace to be annoying when things are too quiet in the Church,” He then chastised “those who are well mannered, who do everything well, but are unable to bring people to the Church through proclamation and apostolic zeal,” 

Pope Francis then dwelt on the life of St. Paul noting how he often offended and irritated those who found the truth uncomfortable. “Paul, in preaching of the Lord, was a nuisance, but he had deep within him that most Christian of attitudes, apostolic zeal...He was not a man of compromise, no!” he exclaimed. “He is a man who, with his preaching, his work, his attitude irritates others, because testifying to Jesus Christ and the proclamation of Jesus Christ makes us uncomfortable. “It threatens our comfort zones, even Christian comfort zones, right?” he asked the congregation. “It irritates us.”

According to the Pope, St. Paul was a “fiery” individual who was always in trouble, “not in trouble for troubles’ sake, but for Jesus” because “proclaiming Jesus is the consequence.” “The Church has so much need of this, not only in distant lands, in the young churches, among people who do not know Jesus Christ, but here in the cities, in our cities, they need this proclamation of Jesus Christ,” Pope Francis stressed.

So there we have it. Passion can be a healthy thing and whilst charity and good manners are obviously important they must never trump our need to speak the truth boldly and proclaim the Lord with zeal. And where people are avoiding truth then we must be prepared to be annoying…it becomes a salvation issue.

Speaking of being annoying I have a sneaky feeling the Holy Father is going to prove a major irritant soon. For the Tabletistas of this world and the Western media, who would dearly love to see a liberalisation of the Catholic church (gay marriage, women priests and all that) have foolishly projected onto the new Pope their own agenda imagining his simple liturgical style stems from a fuzzy liberal heart. They are wrong, as sermons like this prove, and once they realise how firmly he stands by Catholic teaching then there will doubtless be much weeping and gnashing of teeth. How “annoying” he will prove. Just like his annoying predecessor who also proclaimed God’s truth. But meanwhile the faith of the ages will remain unchanged as Jesus promised it would when he assured us that the gates of hell cannot prevail…

Pentecost is the third most important feast in the Liturgical Year and every Catholic should make every effort to be present at Mass. To mark this great feast a letter has been made available to all priests sent from the Prefect of the Congregation for Clergy. It was very helpful and explored the implications of the priesthood within this year of faith, urging those of us who are ordained to remember that we must be open to the Holy Spirit and remain close to the Sacred heart of Jesus. I share with you a paragraph from this moving and apposite letter:

As priests we must prepare ourselves the lead the other members of the faithful to a maturity of faith. We know that we are the first ones who have to open our hearts more fully. We remember the words of the Master of the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles in Jerusalem “Jesus stood up and proclaimed, ‘If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said: Out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water’. Now this he said about the Spirit, which those who believed in him were to receive; for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (Jn. 7:37-39). Also from the priest as alter Christus, rivers of living water can flow, inasmuch as he drinks with faith from the words of Christ, opening himself to the action of the Holy Spirit. Not only the sanctification of the people entrusted to him, but also the satisfaction of his own identity, depends ultimately on the movement from the priest “opening” himself, to being a sign and instrument of divine grace: “The priest who seldom goes out of himself, who anoints little – I won’t say ‘not at all’ because, thank God, the people take the oil from us anyway – misses out on the best of our people, on what can stir the depths of his priestly heart. Those who do not go out of themselves, instead of being mediators, gradually become intermediaries, managers. We know the difference: the intermediary, the manager, ‘has already received his reward’, and since he doesn’t put his own skin and his own heart on the line, he never hears a warm, heartfelt word of thanks. This is precisely the reason for the dissatisfaction of some, who end up sad, sad priests, in some sense becoming collectors of antiques or novelties, instead of being shepherds living with ‘the odour of the sheep’. This I ask you: be shepherds, with the ‘odour of the sheep’, make it real, as shepherds among your flock, fishers of men” 

Uplifting letters like this are a great help for those of us in ministry. One of the great joys in having become a Catholic is that we all share the one same vision and theology of the priesthood allowing us to reflect together on the nature of our being. It leads to strong collegiality and genuine unity of purpose. Something that just wasn’t possible within an ecclesial community that, out of necessity, attempts to hold in tension very different and often contradictory notions of sacramental theology.

Tonus Peregrinus, the professional choir founded and directed by Saint Anselm’s Director of Music, Antony Pitts, (standing far left) were featured on the Early Music Show on Radio 3 last Sunday. You can listen to it via the BBC playback service until this coming Sunday by following this link.

In the programme, which I listened to updating the pew sheet this morning, Antony is interviewed at length and we get to listen to a range of his beautiful choral music. It is uplifting and inspiring. Well done Antony! We are very blessed and fortunate to have such a talented man working within our parish. A man whose deep faith inspires his work at every level.

Now is the time to book a place at the Evangelium Conference for 2013 if you are a Catholic aged between 18-35. It tends to get booked up quite fast so act today to avoid disappointment. Spread the word…

This is amazing. Watch it and ponder it. And then share it with every protestant you know who has been led to believe that Mary is not worthy of our devotion.

I am hugely grateful to Fr. Ray Blake for bringing my attention to this charming video. It shows one 3yr old Samuel Jamarillo, an orphan, reciting mass from memory during play. He did not want conventional toys for his birthday but the necessary things to offer this make-believe Mass. What a charming video it is and though the celebration is clearly invalid due to him not being ordained there can be no doubt that it must bring deep joy to the heart of Christ and bring forth blessing in abundance. Who says children are too young to perceive what happens at mass? His little chum makes a great server- perhaps he should make himself bishop…

Yesterday an American court decided that Kermit Gosnell, who butchered babies by cutting their necks with surgical scissors, is guilty of murder. A sentence that is both just and appropriate given the vile nature of his crimes. It does however raise some serious ethical questions for both pro-lifers and pro-choicers.

Pro-lifers now face a moral conundrum because he lives in a State which operates the death penalty. If all life is truly sacred then do we have the right to take his? My own belief is that whilst there are rare instances in which the taking of life is morally necessary, such as shooting one armed terrorist to protect many hostages, I do not think it would be right in this instance. Once in custody Gosnell is no longer a threat. I would therefore prefer him to be placed in a stark prison to reflect on his crimes and hopefully come to repentance and find salvation.

The case also throws up uncomfortable questions for those in favour of abortion. The reason, I suspect, this case has been given such a tiny amount of media coverage compared to other current murder trials. The biggest question being why this man would be considered a humane and proficient doctor and not a killer if only he had managed to butcher these very same children “in utero” just minutes before they actually died? What a bizarre situation we face when baby A is deemed to have full dignity and rights in law simply because he slipped out of his mother’ body but child B had none because she had her life expunged when only partially delivered at the same stage. Should the state be standing in the dock as well I wonder?

After all this man, who spent his life ridding the world of unwanted babies, is only considered to have murdered three. None of the thousands of others who had not been fully delivered count. The confusion and evil lurking behind current law is exposed in all its glory. We live in a society that pretends it has divine authority to pick and choose which lives are worthwhile and which can be flushed away without ceremony. For this reason I hope that his trial is not quite over. Next it needs to bring everyone back to the table to look at the issue of abortion afresh. For abortion is a moral evil- even if it is sometimes condoned by otherwise decent misinformed people- and it is time we placed it alongside slavery in the dustbin of unwanted and regrettable human history.

The alternative is to continue to turn blind eyes to the deaths of million of tiny babies. We then make laws based on fallen adult desires and not on true justice. Just listen to the garbled nonsensical defence of abortion contained in this video clip.

The suggestion that a mother is the best judge of what is morally right or wrong simply by virtue of being female is frankly laughable. Would this make Medea justified in killing her children to anger Jason? I hardly think so. Does it excuse the behaviour of Rosemary West or Moira Hindley? Being a mother does provide a unique perspective on life, of that I am certain, but it hardly protects you from the effects of the fall and your innate potential for evil.

The bottom line is that there is not one reason for abortion that could acquit you if you had killed an adult. “Sorry but his life was deeply inconvenient to me” would not cut the mustard in court. “I had to kill him because he had downs syndrome” wouldn’t really work either. “Whilst I could see he was a thriving family man I had to kill him as I discovered he was the product of rape” The list can go on but the point is surely made.