Decades of liberal laws pushing the homosexual agenda have taken a devastating toll on the traditional family, according to an influential figure in the Roman Catholic church.
Edmund Adamus also warned that Britain is the global centre of the “culture of death”, an expression often used to refer to liberal policies on euthanasia and abortion.
Mr Adamus, the Director of Pastoral Affairs in the diocese of Westminster, warned that the family, which he called “the fundamental cell of society”, had been left vulnerable after decades of liberal laws.
Permissive
In strong comments to a Roman Catholic news network he said: “Britain in particular, with its ever-increasing commercialisation of sex, not to mention its permissive laws advancing the ‘gay’ agenda, is such a wasteland.
“More and more people are beginning to realise that the feminisation of masculinity and the laddish culture that haunts the development of young girls and women is not providing the answers to life’s deepest questions.”
Mr Adamus, an aide to Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, also said: “There is a mountain of evidence now pointing to the massive risks to future marriages preceded by cohabitation.
Damaging
“Multiple sexual partners before and outside of marriage, facilitated by contraception and abortion, is having massive, long-term, damaging effects on the human capacity to bond permanently.”
He also cautioned against the increasing prevalence of pornography.
He said: “The evil of pornography is something that must be addressed urgently, pastorally here, as elsewhere, as its levels of use by men and women is slowly being accepted as normative.”
Legislation
Vincent Nichols has distanced himself from the comments.
And Ben Summerskill, a prominent homosexual activist, described Mr Adamus’ comments as “gratuitously offensive”.
Earlier this year the Pope launched an unprecedented attack on Britain’s equality legislation, warning that it unjustly limits the nation’s religious freedom.
Attack
Pope Benedict XVI also warned that the equality legislation “violates natural law”, in a message to the Roman Catholic Bishops of England and Wales.
The Pontiff’s comments were seen as an implicit attack on Harriet Harman’s Equality Act, which was then before Parliament.
However, during the passage of the Act through Parliament the House of Lords had previously voted to preserve the employment rights of churches.
The Pope’s comments came after these votes.