The Rectory September 2010

Dear Friends

I remember well the visit to this country of Pope John Paul II in 1982. Prior to his arrival the atmosphere was tense; the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, had to contend with protestant demonstrators in his native city of Liverpool. But the visit itself was a great success with huge crowds attending the open air masses and an historic service at Canterbury where Pope and Archbishop knelt together in prayer at the site of the martyrdom of St. Thomas a Becket. It was the first ever visit of a Pope to this country, papal tours being a modern phenomenon, and occurring at a time when the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC) was at its most productive, it seemed to herald a new era in ecumenical relations. The hopes that arose from John Paul's visit are largely unfulfilled for whilst ARCIC succeeded in producing common statements on historically divisive issues, Rome was lukewarm in its endorsement of them, and new causes for division have subsequently been found in the contentious areas of gender and sexuality. At the present time the institutional reunion of the historic churches seems as unlikely as ever, and many, myself included are not convinced that it really matters. Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Christians of other traditions have for the most part overcome historic suspicions and find sufficient similarity and enrichment in one another's worship as to be ecumenically far ahead of their church leaders. Full communion cannot be delivered without their consent but in its absence local generosity overrides official proscription and long may that continue to be so.

Thirty years ago it was still a matter of considerable general interest whether Anglicans and Roman Catholics could receive communion together. This is no longer the case. Church authorities may not have moved very far but the world itself has moved on. The relationship between churches is interesting to those of us most directly involved but to other observers it is the relationship between faiths themselves, most especially Christianity, Islam and Judaism that is of most pressing concern. Britain has a considerable Muslim population and it would be surprising if this is not acknowledged at some stage during the papal visit. Of equal, and more immediate concern is the place of religious faith and institutions in public life. The Britain of 2010 is far more secular than the Britain of 1982. Not only has church attendance declined markedly since then, the influence of the Church has diminished and continues to be threatened by an aggressive secularism that would happily see religion of all kinds consigned to the private sphere. To such people the Roman Catholic Church with its deeply conservative attitudes to matters of gender, sexuality and bio-ethics is a cause of much resentment. There are considerable differences of opinion here amongst the mainstream churches of these islands but I think a desirable outcome of the visit would be the recovery of a conviction, both beyond and within the churches, that Christianity is a vast and rich resource of moral thinking, the diminution of which leaves the nation much impoverished.

Whilst here Pope Benedict is due to beatify (beatification precedes canonisation in the formal making of a saint) the late Cardinal, John Henry Newman. This eminent Victorian is a person a great significance to Roman Catholics and Anglicans but also to the nation at large. Newman was an Oxford don who was at the intellectual cutting edge of the High Church / Catholic revival that gripped the Church of England from the 1830s onwards. Unable to sustain the contradictions of his position he converted to Rome in 1845, beating a path that many an Anglo-Catholic has since followed. To the majority of English people of the time Roman Catholicism was synonymous with superstition and despotism. Newman's conversion was deeply shocking, but his subsequent life and writings, whilst often alienating him in his new-found Communion, did much to overcome traditional hostilities and to establish Roman Catholicism as a credible influence in national life. That surely could not have been the case had he repudiated every aspect of his former life but Newman remained temperamentally, and to some extent, intellectually, Anglican. As such he is a unifying figure, and we can but hope that when Pope Benedict leaves these shores, this nation will enjoy a greater sense of unity with its Christian inheritance, in a way that will help us all strive for a better and more godly future.

Grace and Peace to you.

Charles Booth