Catholic columnist and parish priest Alexander Lucie-Smith has raised concerns over the widespread availability of pornography on the internet and said many in the Church will not accept pornography use is “near universal” among boys and young men, writes Bernadette Kehoe.
Addressing the annual Ordinariate festival, in a talk entitled “Preaching the Gospel in the Internet Age”, Fr Lucie-Smith argued that the “pernicious” effect of pornography meant a generation was growing up unable to embark on a proper human relationship. He called for “an urgent, proper proclamation of the sixth commandment and a radical new approach to sex education, marriage preparation and education for chastity”. Organisers of the festival, which took place at a school near Westminster Cathedral, said that the question-and-answer session after the talk showed that he had struck a chord with many of the priests present – and their experience in the confessional.
Fr Lucie-Smith defended the importance of traditional preaching in the computer age, but highlighted the proliferation of opinion in a way that was unknown a generation ago when the “commentariat” comprised a few hundred people. Now, he said, everyone has an opinion and can share it instantly. In his view, a trawl of the Catholic internet reveals “voices overwhelmingly for tradition; it’s the out-of-touch elite that wants change”.
Fr Ed Tomlinson spoke on “the Ordinariate and the English Way”. The English Church was once the “jewel in the crown of Catholic Europe”, he said. “Like a precious vase smashed by the Reformation it needed to be carefully restored and Pope Benedict had founded the Ordinariate to bring important missing pieces back to the restoration process.”
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