Australian Communications Minister, Mr Stephen Conroy, has been named “Internet Villain of the Year” by Britain’s internet industry.

Why?

The Australian federal government plans legislation to force Internet Service Providers to block websites carrying illegal and offensive material.

This has raised shrill complaints from internet and software companies and “free speech” advocates — some claiming that Australia will soon resemble repressive regimes, China and Iran.

About one third of the blacklisted sites will be child pornography.

The rest will include sites promoting euthanasia practices, recreational drug use, recruitment of  young homosexuals, the views of terrorist organisations etc.

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Many people, of course, support such a policy.

Last week, Mexican bishop, Felipe Arizmendi, spoke about how the pervasiveness of erotic material makes celibacy difficult.

“If on television and the internet and so many media outlets there is pornography, it is very difficult to stay pure and chaste,” he said.

It is important that everybody – especially priests – be careful what they watch.

A helpful self-test is to ask yourself whether you could comfortably watch this film or television show, with the Mother of Jesus sitting beside you.

The Catholic Church obviously has much soul-searching to do.

Its enemies are, however, mistaken in attempting to destroy the Church.

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The world needs the Church.

To be honest, only belief in God offers sufficient motive to raise us above our worst instincts.

The Church has always known and taught this.

Every day, every Catholic priest must say his Breviary prayers. These includes Psalms (all 150 of them over the course of a week) divided up into eight sets of prayers each day: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline.  His day also includes times of spiritual reading, silent mental prayer, the Rosary, the Angelus three times a day – plus the Mass of the day.

This all takes about four hours per day. These devotions should so fill one’s mind with God’s presence that impure thoughts are literally pushed out of one’s head.

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Non-priests should do similar devotions. We could all manage an hour. Do not lie to yourself.

The rest of the world should support and applaud the Church for such marvellous traditions — and encourage it to prosper in spreading the message of the gospels and its sacraments.