WHAT sort of suicidal lunacy from time to time possesses bishops and makes them deny central teachings of the Christian faith?

Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, has just said: "People who are groping their way into Christianity can suddenly find themselves shocked and horrified at the sacrificial, cannibalistic language of the Eucharist. Christians do not take seriously enough people's sense of horror at going to a Eucharist or Mass and hearing the imagery of sacrifice and eating God." He recommends that we use expressions such as "the food of angels" and "the bread of life" instead.

This would be to change the language which Christians have always known and loved for the cause of not sounding offensive to ignorant secularists. Well, the church has had an obsession these last 40 years or so of scrupulousness in not saying anything that might sound uncongenial to the modern world whose fashions in language and music it follows with fanatical devotion. Besides, not even the youngest child imagines for a minute that what goes on at the Holy Communion is cannibalism. The philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe once told of how she taught a little girl that Christ is really present in the Sacrament. The child asked Anscombe when she came down from the altar rail: "Is he in you now?" And when she replied, "Yes", the little girl knelt down in front of her.

But the truly coruscating arrogance and impudence of Harries' statement is that it is a frank denial and rejection of the words of Christ himself. Christ did not say: "Come and have a bit of angels' bread." Nor did he use the expression "bread of life" as if it were a slogan to persuade people of the value of healthy eating. In the same night that he was betrayed, Christ said: "Take, eat, this is my body... this is my blood, drink ye all of this in remembrance of me." Therefore, when the fastidious and squeamish Bishop of Oxford tells us not to use those phrases, he is by direct implication telling us that Christ ought not to have used them either. This is to claim that he knows better than Christ. That is blasphemy and the bishop should resign.

Those words of Our Lord, spoken at his last supper, are at the very centre of the Christian faith. They have been said every day by Christian priests celebrating the Eucharist for 2,000 years. As an indication of their solemnity and holiness - and yes, let us say without equivocation, their truth - when the priest pronounces those words of consecration he genuflects and makes the sign of the cross.

What do the secularising bishops have next up their sleeve? Will they tell us to get rid of crucifixes. I mean, it's not nice is it to display and reverence such a bloody scene? But what if the crucifixion is, literally, crucial to the redemption of mankind?

There is a purpose in the worst images of suffering, sacrifice and death. After 40 years of debunking and denial, there is precious little left of the faith once delivered to the saints. Harries seems determined to destroy even what remains.

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange