WE STAND SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE POPE IN FIGHTING FOR FAITH

This article appears in today's Daily Telegraph:

We stand side by side with the Pope in fighting for faith

Britain’s delegation to Rome takes a message of religious confidence that should ring out beyond the Vatican walls , writes Baroness Warsi.

Today I have the honour of leading the largest ministerial delegation from the United Kingdom to the Vatican – our reciprocal visit following the momentous State Visit of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI in September 2010.

We will be celebrating the decision Margaret Thatcher took 30 years ago to restore full diplomatic relations between our countries. The relationship between the UK and the Holy See is our oldest diplomatic relationship, first established in 1479. And today, thanks to the great success of the Pope’s visit, it is one of the strongest too.

But this trip is about more than a Valentine’s Day “love in” with our Catholic neighbours. This is about recognising the deep and intrinsic role of faith here in Britain and overseas. For a number of years I have been saying that we need to have a better understanding of faith in our country. Why? Because I profoundly believe that faith has a vital and important role to play in modern society. But mistakenly, faith has been neglected, undermined – and yes, even attacked – by governments in recent years.

When I met the Holy Father in 2010 he told me that he had heard what I had been saying and urged me to carry on making my case robustly. So today, I am taking a renewed message to the Vatican City; one which I want to ring out beyond the Vatican walls.

I will be arguing that to create a more just society, people need to feel stronger in their religious identities and more confident in their creeds. In practice this means individuals not diluting their faiths and nations not denying their religious heritages.

This is a message I’ve delivered on these pages before. But today I will be taking the argument one step further. I will be arguing for Europe to become more confident and more comfortable in its Christianity. The point is this: the societies we live in, the cultures we have created, the values we hold and the things we fight for all stem from centuries of discussion, dissent and belief in Christianity.These values shine through our politics, our public life, our culture, our economics, our language and our architecture. And, as I will say today, you cannot and should not extract these Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can or should erase the spires from our landscapes.

My fear today is that a militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies. We see it in any number of things: when signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings; when states won’t fund faith schools; and where religion is sidelined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere.

It seems astonishing to me that those who wrote the European Constitution made no mention of God or Christianity. When I denounced this tendency two days before the Holy Father’s State Visit in September 2010, saying that government should “do God”, I received countless messages of support. The overwhelming message was: “At last someone has said it”.

That so many people felt moved to write showed just how uneasy they were at the rising tide of secularism.

For me, one of the most worrying aspects about this militant secularisation is that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant. It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes – denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities.

That’s why in the 20th century, one of the first acts of totalitarian regimes was the targeting of organised religion.

Of course there is a crucial caveat to all of this. I am not calling for some kind of 21st century theocracy. Religious faith and its followers do not have the only answer. There will be times when politicians and faith leaders will disagree. What is more, secularism is not intrinsically damaging. My concern is when secularisation is pushed to an extreme, when it requires the complete removal of faith from the public sphere. So I am calling for a more open confidence in faith, where faith has a place at the table, though not an exclusive position.

When we look at the deep distrust between some communities today, there is no doubt that faith has a key role to play in bridging these divides. If people understand that accepting a person of another faith isn’t a threat to their own, they can unite in fighting bigotry and work together to create a more just world.

All the major religions ask their followers to stand up for their neighbours. Doing so doesn’t make you less of a Christian, less of a Jew, less of a Muslim – it makes you more of one.

So when I have my second audience with the Holy Father tomorrow afternoon, I will not just be looking back on his remarkable visit. I will be giving him my absolute commitment to continue fighting for faith in today’s society. I hope this is something we can share in and I hope it reinforces this extraordinary relationship between the UK and the Holy See.

PLENTY TO LEARN FROM SCOTLAND'S GREATEST POET

This is Fr Gregory Murphy's First Person column, published in today's Leicester Mercury:

Plenty to learn from Scotland's greatest poet

Fr Gregory Murphy considers Robert Burns, Devolution and the cause of Christian unity

The season of Christmas, in the calendar of the Church, continues until the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, or Candlemas, on February 2. It provides a useful excuse if, like myself, you've been a bit tardy with the Christmas cards.

There are some secular feasts as well: especially, if you're Scots, or have Scottish connections, Burns night suppers around January 25.

Robert Burns, the ploughman poet from Ayrshire, rose from humble origins to be feted by the literary society of the late Scottish Enlightenment.

Burns was – on the evidence of his writings – a pretty level-headed character, happy to accept the fame (and the money) while keeping his feet on the ground ("A man's a man, for a' that").

As someone who enjoyed wine, women and song ("'Gae bring to me a pint o' wine") he had a certain reputation in Presbyterian Scotland, though this did not inhibit his secular success – his love songs were quickly set to music, and their popularity endured well beyond Burns' lifetime.

Though a Scots patriot he was happy enough to take the King's shilling, working as a customs officer in a time of chancy employment ("The Deil's awa wi' th'Excisemen") so it's likely that, as most Scots from his time onwards, he'd have looked at the question of devolution with an eye to the main chance.

Growing up in a Presbyterian background his roistering would have attracted negative comment, and he in turn was critical of religious hypocrisy ("Holy Willie's Prayer").

One of his works echoed the age-old question of the Delphic Oracle – know yourself – "O would some power the giftie gie us/tae see oursel's as ithers see us!"

That plea takes on a deeper resonance during this week of prayer for Christian unity.

We are all liable to the gospel critique of being hypersensitive to the splinter in our brother's eye while being oblivious to the beam in our own.

The mutual increase in knowledge and tolerance of other Christian traditions is, I would argue, evidence of the working of the Spirit in our own times.

The great Dominican theologian and ecumenist, Yves Congar, whose work bore fruit in the Second Vatican Council, used to say that each of the main divisions of Christianity emphasised a particular aspect of Christianity which it was their privilege to share with the others: from the Orthodox churches, the sense of life in the Spirit; from the Catholic Church, the presence of the Lord in his sacraments; and from the churches of the Reformation the presence of the Lord in his Word.

Let's pray that we can become mutually enriched by drinking from each other's wells.

Fr Gregory Murphy, OP, is a Dominican priest at Holy Cross Priory, in Leicester