Christian Order

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Christian Order is a British based monthly magazine for Traditionalist Catholics.^[1]

Originally called The Christian Democrat it changed its name in January 1960. Originally it was edited by the Jesuit priest Father Paul Crane, SJ and is the magazine of the Catholic Social Guild. It is now edited by the Australian layman Rod Pead, who sometimes writes under the pen-name 'Michael McGrade'.

Originally devoted to the Catholic response to social issues, it started to take an interest in internal church affairs and the crisis that engulfed the Church after the Second Vatican Council in 1963. It argued that the Mass was being vandalized by Modernists within the Church and that this was the vanguard of "efforts to Protestantize the Faith".

This change of direction caused problems for Father Crane among the administration of the Jesuit Order.

As its focus shifted to internal church matters the magazine picked up a number of contributors from within Traditional Catholicism and at the same time gained an international reputation.

In recent years, and especially since the death of Father Crane, the magazine has been attracting a reputation for criticism of Western bishops who, it argues, have fostered the desacralizing effects of Modernism/Liberalism in the Church. Among the controversial post-conciliar lay movements, the Neocatechumenal Way, in particular, is criticized as "heretical" (Lutheran) and a "Trojan horse" in the Church.^[2]

In recent years there has been a shift from condemnation of the local bishops for ignoring and disobeying directions from the Curia in Rome, to a condemnation of the Curia and even the Papacy for abandoning England to recalcitrant prelates.

The magazine's rationale is presented in confrontational terms: Unless the Church is militant, She cannot thrive and flourish. Thus Christian Order is a militant antidote to the secular "live and let live" attitude which has brought the Church low. For forty years it has embodied that uncompromising spirit demanded by Pope Leo XIII, who contended that in times of necessity each Catholic is "under obligation to show forth his faith to instruct and encourage other of the Faithful" (Sapientise Christianae).