Editorial

The new British disease

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor used his erudite Corbishley Lecture this week to erect a breakwater against the incoming tide of aggressive secularism and atheism. His purpose was both to start a debate, he said, and to sound an alarm against the "new intolerance" that disputes the presence of religion in the public sphere. A new breed of secularists, increasingly visible in the media and in politics, seeks to deny even the right of religiously motivated people to serve their fellow human beings in ways dictated by their consciences. The cardinal is evidently still reflecting on the Catholic Church's recent failure to have itself exempted from legislation on homosexual equality. That legislation may force Catholic adoption agencies to close if they will not agree to treat homosexual couples in the same way as heterosexual couples, and the Church's position was rejected by the more strident secular politicians.

There is more than one straw in this particular wind. Recently in certain sections of the media the heaping of insults and abuse on religious believers has become almost routine. A common trait is to treat all who represent different religions the same, thereby laying at the door of venerable institutions of moderation and good sense, such as the mainstream Churches in Britain, all the prejudices seen to flow from Muslim extremism or American fundamentalism. Those same voices portray the campaign against the slave trade, commemorated this week, as a triumph for Enlightenment and humanistic values when in fact it was a triumph largely of Quakers, Methodists and Anglican Evangelicals. History is being rewritten to excise religion, helped by a level of ignorance of religion among the public that has reached disturbing proportions.

One danger is that this febrile and negative climate will lead to an alteration in the way that Parliament deals with religious voices. They will be treated as harmful to the common good and not fit to be heard. In practical terms the ultimate goal of the more extreme secularists extends to the closing of church schools and the exclusion of bishops from the House of Lords. Both of these are significant as they bear witness to the origins of British institutions and values in Britain's Christian past.

But it is with the theoretical level, the defence of British democracy and of freedom of religion, that Cardinal Murphy- O'Connor is rightly most concerned. In a true democracy, religious individuals and organisations have a right to participate in public affairs, not on the basis of privilege but as part of a diverse community. Religious freedom implies that there must be a limit to what the state can do - an argument that should resonate with those concerned with that other fashionable issue of the moment, the intrusion of state power into people's lives. The peculiar power of the British constitution to resist state totalitarianism derives, the cardinal argued, from its inclusion of religion in the public sphere.

The great merit of the cardinal's rational approach is that both by tone and by content it contradicts the caricature of religion in the media as oppressive and fanatical. This is a calm voice that can be reasoned with. It is to be hoped that the secularists who take up his challenge will do so with similar moderation. Should they do so, there is a chance that Britain can form a culture based on justice, solidarity and truth, for the common good. But should they not do so, it would suggest that Britain is no longer a place where religious belief is welcome.

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