On Her Majesty’s Service

WHY DO we have an ambassador to the Holy See? How does ‘our man in the Vatican’ spend his days? Those are typical questions that Britain’s new ambassador, Nigel Baker, has had to answer since he was appointed to the post in April 2011. That’s one reason why he’s started a blog to keep British taxpayers, the media and other interested readers up to date about his work in strengthening ties, tackling issues of joint concern and helping the British Foreign Office to benefit from the vast network of information that the Catholic Church has in countries across the globe.

Relations between the two states have had a turbulent history since King Edward IV appointed the first resident ambassador to the Papal States in 1479 – a relationship that was broken off half a century later when King Henry VIII established the Church of England in 1534. Though Henry’s Act of Supremacy was briefly repealed under the reign of his Catholic daughter Mary, it was reinstated when her half-sister Elisabeth I ascended to the throne in 1558. Official contacts were not re-established until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, and full diplomatic relations were only established ahead of Pope John Paul’s historic pilgrimage to Britain in 1982.

 

The best birthday

 

Now, over one year after Pope Benedict’s State visit to the United Kingdom, Baker told me he believes the relationship between the British government and the Holy See is stronger than ever before.

Ambassador Baker arrived in Rome over the summer and presented his credentials to the Pope on September 9, 2011, coinciding with his 45th birthday. “I don’t think one can celebrate a birthday in a better way than presenting one’s credentials to His Holiness the Pope!” he told me with a broad smile, following the formal presentation ceremony in the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo.

Born in Birmingham and raised in the south of England, Baker has spent most of his career in the Foreign Office, serving most recently as the British ambassador to Bolivia. “There I was, several thousand miles away in La Paz, but Bolivian papers and television were covering the Pope’s trip with interest every day,” he said, noting the global impact of the papal visit to Scotland and England on 16 to 19 September, 2010.

Since then, he said, the British government has been continuing to develop a close relationship with Vatican officials and with the wider global Catholic network, especially in its commitment to development in the poorest parts of the world. The presence of the new nuncio to Great Britain, Archbishop Antonio Mennini, at the launch in London in June 2011 of a funding event, hosted by Prime Minister David Cameron, for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, is just one example of a tangible legacy of that visit. A recent trip to London to meet with CAFOD director, Chris Bain – as Baker recounts on his blog – is another.

 

Mutual benefit

 

In his address to Pope Benedict, Baker spoke of the need to transform his government’s vision into action on some of the most pressing issues, such as tackling climate change, pushing for an arms trade treaty, promoting peace and dialogue or fighting poverty and disease. He’s keen to stress David Cameron’s firm commitment to maintaining the 0.7 percent target of national income spent on overseas development aid by 2013, “despite difficult economic circumstances at home”. But he stresses that support for development in the poorest countries is both a responsibility of wealthier nations, something he sees as “a projection of our values overseas”, but also “helps us in the long run” by creating an environment of stability for British exports and businesses.

On the crucial question of cutting carbon emissions, Baker believes the British government must continue to “lead by example,” but he’s also convinced the Holy See can have a huge moral impact in seeking international consensus on such global concerns. “I think the role of the Holy See and the international Catholic Church in helping to persuade governments that this needs to be a priority... can be extraordinarily powerful, so we look forward to… hearing more loudly the voice of the Holy See on these issues”.

 

Moral relativism

 

Closer to home, we talked about the riots and looting that plagued parts of London and other big cities for several days over the summer, suggesting a severe breakdown of the ‘Big Society’ which Cameron is so keen to promote. While Baker believes it is dangerous to launch into a knee-jerk response to the problem without in-depth analysis and reflection on its “complex causes”, he is convinced that “one of the problems is our own penal system,” since nearly three quarters of all those over 18 who were arrested during the riots had already been in prison before. “What is prison for?” he asks. “It is not just to punish, but you have to find ways to ensure that when young people come out of prison they can enter into society and play a positive role – this clearly isn’t happening.”

He is equally clear that another big part of the problem is a lack of those values which both he and Pope Benedict emphasised during their first meeting. “As you pointed out in your speech,” the Pope noted, “your Government wishes to employ policies that are based on enduring values that cannot be simply expressed in legal terms. This is especially important in the light of events in England this summer. When policies do not presume or promote objective values, the resulting moral relativism, instead of leading to a society that is free, fair, just and compassionate, tends instead to produce frustration, despair, selfishness and a disregard for the life and liberty of others.”

Baker believes the Churches and other faith groups played a key role in some cities, trying to keep kids off the streets during the riots. He says they continue to play a “hugely important role” in rebuilding communities and reminding politicians of their responsibilities in places where social cohesion is under threat. “It’s not for the government to run the way we live,” he insisted, noting that values of compassion, tolerance and social cohesion “have to come from below,” through the family, schools, civil society and voluntary or faith groups.

 

Cradle Anglican

 

While his predecessor in the post, Ambassador Francis Campbell was the first Catholic ambassador since the Reformation, Baker describes himself as coming from “a standard Anglican family” with ties to the local parish in Kent, where he spent most of his childhood years. After attending the prestigious Dulwich College boys school in South London, he went on to study history at Cambridge and began his career in the Conservative Research Department in the late 1980s – where the future Prime Minister David Cameron was also working.

Between 2000 and 2003 he was assistant private secretary to the Prince of Wales, advising him on international, interfaith and cultural matters. During that time, he served as a trustee of the St Catherine Foundation, under the patronage of Prince Charles, which helps to fund restoration work on St Catherine’s monastery on Mount Sinai in Egypt.

His diplomatic postings in the early 1990s included Prague and then Bratislava, where he met his wife Alexandra, who hails from a devout Catholic Slovak family. They were married in a civil ceremony in her hometown of Piestany, a quiet spa town in the picturesque valley of the River Vah, followed by a Church wedding in Venice three days later. They have a three year old son, Benjamin, whom they adopted in Bolivia when he was just six weeks old.

 

Specific mission

 

So what exactly does the new ambassador’s job entail, and what does he see as the greatest challenges of his post, which just a few years ago was facing serious funding cuts as the Foreign Office tried to downsize embassies that were seen as less than essential?

Well, Baker is convinced that the work of his predecessors, and especially the papal visit to Britain, has given his government’s leaders “a far greater understanding of the contribution the Holy See can make” to its foreign policies in countries around the world.

Pope Benedict himself outlined key areas where cooperation could be stepped up, noting in his speech that “the Holy See and the United Kingdom continue to share a common concern for peace among nations, the integral development of peoples throughout the world, especially the poorest and weakest, and the spread of authentic human rights, especially through the rule of law and fair participative government, with a special care for the needy and those whose natural rights are denied.”

At that first meeting the Pope also gave Ambassador Baker a specific mission for the coming months, inviting him “to explore ways of furthering development cooperation between your Government and the Church’s charity and development agencies, especially those based here in Rome and in your country” – a mission Baker has already begun to work on with his recent visit to the CAFOD headquarters in London.

 

Sharing core values

 

Certainly, Ambassador Baker is aware that there are moral issues on which his government’s policies differ from the Vatican’s vision, but he believes these should not deflect from the important goals the Pope spoke of during his UK visit last year. In the “complex, multi-cultural patchwork that is the UK today”, he told me, “there is never going to be a single point of view or one single value system,” but he says it is essential for different groups with different identities “to understand each other and find ways of working together”. Above all, Baker believes his government should focus on “the many core values that we share,” as the Pope recalled during his key speech at Westminster Hall last September. On his blog Baker adds, “it will be my privilege to play a role in building on the platform of our excellent current relations to develop and deepen our bilateral and global relationship in the years ahead”.