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VATICAN NOTEBOOK DID THE VATICAN DETHRONE ROMANO PRODI? PAGE 4

No. 6338

www.catholicherald.co.uk

February 1, 2008 £1 (Republic of Ireland €1.50)

Convert England to Catholicism, says papal ally

Pope Benedict XVI: unity is God’s gift alone

BYMARKGREAVES

ONE OF BRITAIN’S leading theologians has broken ranks with the ecumenical establishment by calling for Catholics to convert non-Catholics. Fr Aidan Nichols, the English theologian most closely associated with the thinking of Benedict XVI, has appealed for England to be “remade” as a Catholic country. He set out his radical and comprehensive programme for Catholic renewal in a new book entitled The Realm: An Unfashionable Essay on the Conversion of England, published by Family Publications. In his preface he says that Catholic Christianity should be put forward “not as an occupation for individuals in their solitude but as a form for the public life of society in its overall integrity”. He admits that the conversion of England is “an absolutely colossal agenda”, adding: “It can only be brought into being, so far as it depends on us to do so, by a coordinated strategy for recreating a full-blooded catholicity with the power to... transform a culture in all its principal dimensions. “That is what ‘the mission to convert’ and ‘the conversion of England’ mean to me.” His comments will be seen as an implicit criticism of the direction of the Church in England and Wales. He points to “flagship” Catholic institutions which have “suffered shipwreck through secularisation”. The Second Vatican Council, he argued, did not replace mission with dialogue. Instead it drew attention to respectful dialogue and an understanding of other faiths as a necessary condition of missionary work.

FR AIDAN NICHOLS’S PLAN FOR RENEWAL

Firmer doctrine in our teaching and preaching Re-enchant the liturgy Recover the insights of metaphysics Renew Christian political thought Revive family life Resacralise art and architecture Put a new emphasis on monastic life Strengthen pro-life rhetoric Recover a Catholic reading of the Bible

Fr Nichols, a Dominican friar, argues that the disappearance of other Christian and non-Christian religions would not necessarily be “a Bad Thing”, since the Catholic faith contains all the elements of truth, goodness and beauty that are present in other forms of Christianity and faith traditions. He argues that Catholicism was crucial in the formation of England and suggests that the Church is well suited to remaking a “not terribly impressive culture” dominated by “supermarkets and sport”. English Catholicism is fit for the challenge, he explains, because it is a “pot-pourri” of recusant families, Anglican converts and Irish, Polish and Filipino immigrants. He says the example of the original Anglo

Saxon conversion of England showed that only a mixture of “indigenous and exogenous elements” can successfully transform a whole society. Fr Nichols identifies a number of strategies he believes the Church ought to implement to draw England back to the faith. He argues for the renewal of Christian political thought beyond merely a concern for the poor. Indeed, he suggests that religious apathy is partly a product of Christianity’s removal from the political sphere. A “re-enchantment” of the liturgy is also needed, he says, since liturgy forms the imagination and is crucial in “getting others to grasp the inwardness of Catholic Christianity”. He cites Cardinal John Henry Newman’s prediction that belief fails where “the imagination is against us”. Fr Nichols also stresses the need to “recover lost ground” in the intellectual argument for faith. He argues there should be a “revival of doctrine” in catechetics and preaching, and a recovery of metaphysics to give people a “coherent and deep philosophy of the created order”. He proposes a stronger defence of the unborn and a recovery of the Catholic reading of the Bible –“a reading of Scripture in the same spirit as that in which it was written, rather than in the light of academic fashion”. He also calls for the “revivification” of the family through the re-union of domestic and work life. Fr Michael Seed, the ecumenical adviser to Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, said he was “grateful” for the arguments put forward in the book. “While respecting the other faith traditions

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The Pope leaves at the end of Vespers in the Basilica of St Paul Outside the Walls, Rome. He told ecumenical leaders that unity was ‘infinitely beyond our abilities’ and a gift of God alone

in England, anything that encourages lapsed Christians to embrace their Christian faith will help to make England a richer country and will help them personally in their spiritual journey,” he said. Fr Nichols, who entered the Dominican order in 1970, is the John Paul II Memorial Visiting

Lecturer at Oxford University, the university’s first Catholic theology lectureship since the Reformation. He has published over 30 books, including the authoritative study in English of the theology of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now the Pope. He is known to be admired by the Pontiff and both men strongly

support the eastward celebration of Mass and emphasise the importance of welcoming disaffected Anglicans into the Church. Fr Nichols is also regarded as a potential candidate to become the next Archbishop of Westminster.

Editorial comment: Page 11

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FEATURES 7-9 COMMENT 10-11 BOOKS 13 CHARTERHOUSE 16

Jesuit blames Christians for the Holocaust and African genocides

BYIANDUNN

A MEMBER of the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with Muslims has provoked controversy by saying Christians were responsible for the Holocaust. Australian Jesuit Fr Daniel Madigan was commenting on the letter to the Vatican from 138 Muslim scholars. He argued that conflict between Christians and Muslims in the present day was overstated. “The greatest shame of the last century was the killing of millions of Jews by Christians conditioned by their own long tradition of anti-Semitism and seduced by a virulently nationalist and racist new ide

ology,” Fr Madigan wrote in Thinking Faith, a new online journal of the British Province of the Society of Jesus. He added: “The last 15 years in Africa have seen millions of Christians slaughtered in horrendous civil wars by their fellow believers. A Catholic missionary is dozens of times more likely to be killed in largely Catholic Latin America than anywhere in the Muslim world. So let us not be misled into thinking either that Muslim-Christian conflict is the world’s greatest conflict, or even that war is the most serious threat to the human future.” He also suggested that the effects of poverty and global

warming were greater challenges than religious conflict. “If we wish to talk of love, we will not be able to ignore the cry of the poor,” he wrote. His remarks on the Holocaust contrast with the words of Pope John Paul II who in the 1990s made a clear distinction between previous Christian “anti-Judaism” and Nazi “anti-Semitism”, which he said was a distinctively neo-pagan ideology. Cardinal Edward Cassidy, then head of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, said at the time that “to make a jump from the anti-Judaism of the Church to the antiSemitism of the Nazis is... to

misread the nature of the Nazi persecution.” John Pontifex of Aid to the Church in Need said the conflict between Christians and Muslims should not be downplayed. “The rise of militant Islamism is a threat to world security in general and Christians in particular,” he said. “What we are witnessing in Pakistan, Indonesia, Sudan, and in many parts of the Middle East is a deeply distressing rise of militancy which threatens to overshadow the strenuous efforts at reconciliation made by moderates, including those who have written this joint letter to the Pope.”

Gifts of Black Sheep forthe shepherd in white

Middlesbrough welcomes its new bishop

BYEDWEST

THEARCHBISHOPof York, Dr John Sentamu, gave the Pope the Holy Grail when the two met last week. The Holy Grail beer, that is: a local brew from Masham, North Yorkshire.

The archbishop visited Rome for the first time to celebrate the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. During the trip the Church of England’s number two enjoyed a 15minute chat with the Holy Father in the Basilica of St Paul’s Outside the Walls, the burial place of St Paul. Afterwards Dr Sentamu told the Guardian newspaper: “I told the brewery I was meeting the Pope and they made a special brew for him. I heard he’d been given some Black Sheep ale and liked it. So I brought that and the

Holy Grail. I was very impressed by the Pope. He cares about human beings. He is such a deep theologian, it drives him to compassion. “He is not a starchy person, but people look at his writings, they are very precise, and think he is like that... but he is very warm.” Over the years the Pope has received many gifts from statesmen and Christian leaders, including a photograph of Cardinal Newman from Tony Blair and a jewelled sword from the King of Saudi Arabia.

Bishop Terence Drainey was installed at Middlesbrough last Friday, expressing his ‘fear and exhilaration’ at taking up his new role. Page 2

Pakistan: Don’tforgetthemnow Livingintheshadowofphysicaland verbalattacks,Pakistan’sChristiansare underthreatfromthegrowingunrestand extremism.Despitesignsofhopewith inter-faithmeetings,the faithfulstruggle forfreedom.

Onepriesttold AidtotheChurch inNeed:“Evenin thistimeof persecution,our churchesarefull. Yoursupport is helpingChristians tosurvivehere.”

Pleasedon’t forgetthemnow.

SUFFERING:Sister Nasemandfriendsata Church-runhomeless centre, animportant inter-faithinitiative.

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