A Signal Moment

ENGLISH-speaking Catholics worldwide took a keen interest in the visit of Pope Benedict to Great Britain. The progress of the English language around the world has been tied for centuries to the English crown, and since the Reformation, the English crown has been tied to the separation of Britain from communion with Rome.



The decisive breach with Rome was sealed in 1535, when King Henry VIII ordered the execution of Saints John Fisher and Thomas More within a few weeks of each other – Fisher on June 22 and More on July 6. The trial of Sir Thomas More took place on July 1, and condemned to death the most accomplished statesman in England, having served as both Speaker of the House of Commons and Lord Chancellor, the latter being equivalent to the office of prime minister today.



The trial took place in Westminster Hall, the oldest and grandest part of the British parliament. It was one of the saddest days in English history, for in the execution of Thomas More it was confirmed that even to be Catholic was a beheading offence. No one today – not even the Anglican Church – defends Henry VIII, and Thomas More is so widely revered as a martyr that there is a plaque commemorating his trial in Westminster Hall itself.



So when Pope Benedict arrived at Westminster, the official guest of today’s Speaker of the House of Commons, and in the presence of all the living former prime ministers of Britain – it was a scene entirely unimaginable in former times.





Unthinkable event





A writer for The Guardian, a newspaper very hostile to the Catholic Church, considered the visit to be historical drama of the highest order.



“This was the end of the British Empire,” wrote Andrew Brown. “In all the four centuries from Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II, England has been defined as a Protestant nation. The Catholics were ‘the Other’; sometimes violent terrorists and rebels, sometimes merely dirty immigrants. The sense that this was a nation specially blessed by God arose from a deeply anti-Catholic reading of the Bible. Yet it was central to English self-understanding when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, and swore to uphold the Protestant religion by law established. For all of those 400 or so years it would have been unthinkable that a pope should stand in Westminster Hall and praise Sir Thomas More, who died to defend the pope’s sovereignty against the king’s. Rebellion against the pope was the foundational act of English power. And now the power is gone, and perhaps the rebellion has gone, too.”





Martyr of conscience





That assessment goes from drama to melodrama, for there was an England, and English power, before the rebellion against Rome. As the Holy Father himself told the Queen upon his arrival: “The Christian message has been an integral part of the language, thought and culture of the peoples of these islands for more than a thousand years.”



So it is not true to say that separation from Rome defines British culture and religion entirely, but almost 500 years is a long time. And so what happened on September 17, when the Bishop of Rome entered Westminster to praise the martyred Thomas More, was a signal moment in the grand sweep of English-speaking Christianity.



“As I speak to you in this historic setting… I recall the figure of Saint Thomas More, the great English scholar and statesman, who is admired by believers and non-believers alike for the integrity with which he followed his conscience, even at the cost of displeasing the sovereign whose ‘good servant’ he was, because he chose to serve God first,” the Holy Father said. “The dilemma which faced More in those difficult times, the perennial question of the relationship between what is owed to Caesar and what is owed to God, allows me the opportunity to reflect with you briefly on the proper place of religious belief within the political process.”





Key question





Benedict then put to the British political establishment the key question: Almost 500 years after St Thomas More was executed for his Catholic faith, is there room in British public life for any religious values?



“The fundamental questions at stake in Thomas More’s trial continue to present themselves in ever-changing terms as new social conditions emerge,” Benedict said. “Each generation, as it seeks to advance the common good, must ask anew: what are the requirements that governments may reasonably impose upon citizens, and how far do they extend? By appeal to what authority can moral dilemmas be resolved? These questions take us directly to the ethical foundations of civil discourse. If the moral principles underpinning the democratic process are themselves determined by nothing more solid than social consensus, then the fragility of the process becomes all too evident – herein lies the real challenge for democracy.”



“The central question at issue, then, is this: where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found?” Benedict continued. “The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles.”





Direct challenge





The Holy Father then mentioned the abolition of the slave trade some 200 years ago in Britain as a key example of how Christian legislators purified the debate, wherein various rationalizations had advanced in defence of slavery.



“Religion, in other words, is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation,” Benedict summed up, in words that were quoted by British Prime Minister David Cameron in his farewell speech to the Holy Father two days later.



The Pope then challenged directly those who were trying to drive Christians out of British public life – words that apply all over the English-speaking world.



“In this light, I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance,” he said. “There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere. There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none. And there are those who argue – paradoxically with the intention of eliminating discrimination – that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience. These are worrying signs of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square. I would invite all of you, therefore, within your respective spheres of influence, to seek ways of promoting and encouraging dialogue between faith and reason at every level of national life.”



The words were not new – the Holy Father has made that point before. The place makes a difference though, and the stirring address in Westminster Hall gave those words more gravity, registering them as another potentially key moment in the history of English-speaking Catholicism.