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Christian Leadership Formation programme launched

Friday 1st January 2021

Christian Leadership Formation programme launched for Sixth Form students

Stefan Kaminski

Government leaders are easy targets for our criticisms, however justified these may be. But we cannot escape the fact that leaders do not grow on trees. They emerge from our very own society, and their shortcomings to some extent reflect our own collective failures in educating and forming our young people.

 As Catholics, we have a duty to provide a solid philosophical and theological formation for those whom we wish to see safeguarding and promoting a Christian society. We cannot expect future government ministers and legislators to formulate and implement ethically-coherent laws that distinguish between morally-licit surgery and invasive operations, genuine rights and the demands of lobbyists, if we have not given them the framework for such judgements.

 

The Lord Alton of Liverpool is one of many who have long recognised the need for a greater preparation of potential leaders. When he founded The Christian Heritage Centre charity, he dovetailed his desire for such a preparation with the charity’s objectives.

The Centre is delighted to now announce the launch of its first Christian Leadership Formation course. It has partnered with St Mary’s University, Twickenham and the Catholic Union of Great Britain to offer a course consisting of three, residential modules delivered over a nine-month period. Organisations such as Alliance Defending Freedom and Catholic Voices, besides other independent, Catholic academics, are also contributing to the course, so that participants will receive a variety of top-quality input from experts in different fields.

“In an increasingly fast moving and complex world where decision makers have to grapple with ethical challenges, about which they feel ill-equipped to deal with, a course which provides formation, maps and sign posts will be greatly welcomed by many,” noted Lord Alton.

Applications for the course are now being welcomed from Lower Sixth students until the end of March, when fifteen students will be selected on the basis of their personal statements, recommendations from their school, academic grades and personal references. The students who will be offered a place will be those who are motivated by their faith to help shape and create a society founded on Christian values; those who are driven towards public life by a love of God and of neighbour.

The successful applicants will gather at the charity’s Theodore House, in Lancashire, at the end of July for the first, five-day residential. Two shorter residentials will follow in London, during the October half-term and the Easter break of their last year of school

Each residential will have a particular focus. The first will consider the prerequisite “Philosophical Foundations for the Common Good”, providing the students with a grounding in concepts such as human dignity, natural law and conscience. The bedrock of Catholic ethics, these concepts today remain mostly in name whilst their origins have been lost from view and their meaning substantially mutated. The course will seek to offer students the necessary vision and tools to engage both faith and reason in pursuit of the truth that is common to all people, and which is the only source of a genuine and common good.

 The second residential will offer input on “Human Life and Ethical Considerations”, covering a range of issues from the basic definition and understanding of human life, through stem cell research and end-of-life care. As St John Paul II noted, “A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members; and amongst the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying.” This second module will thus aim at instilling in our future leaders a profound sense of the full dignity of life at all its stages, and a clear, moral framework to tackle the continually-growing field of ethical issues around the existence and the nurture of human life.

 The final module will focus on “Applied Political Leadership”. It will examine Catholic Social Teaching in the context of the current political field, providing students with a clear, applied understanding of the purpose and role of politics as well as the essential principles that are necessary for a pursuit of the common good. One particular field that will also be addressed, which so many are particularly sensitive to today, is that of the management of public finances. Economic interests are often at the heart of political divisions, and yet the Church has long-since elaborated clear principles for the structuring of a fair and just fiscal policy.

Interspersed with the lectures provided on these different themes will be workshops on practical skills such as public speaking, policy making, political virtues and statesmanship. Learning and team-building activities, as well as social time, will complete a daily routine framed by communal meals, prayer and liturgy.

 The charity has been securing sponsorships from various organisations and trusts to cover the costs of the participants, in order to make this course free of any financial burden. However, the current pandemic has not made this process easy, and several places remain awaiting sponsorship.

 The charity will therefore not only be very grateful for any further support it receives towards meeting the costs of the course, but particularly for prayers offered for the course’s success. Please do also signpost your local Catholic secondary schools and Lower Sixth students to the details below!

 For more information about the course and for the Information and Application Pack, visit www.christianheritagecentre.com/clf or contact [email protected]

To donate towards the cost of this programme, please use the link below:
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Newman: A Light between the Reformation and Modernity

Friday 6th November 2020

The CHC @ The Catholic Universe

Newman: A Light between the Reformation and Modernity

Stefan Kaminski

St John Henry Newman’s journey to the Catholic faith remains a powerful testimony to an increasingly-secularised world

Last month, two important anniversaries of English saints coincided. We saw the fiftieth anniversary of the canonisation of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, and we celebrated the first anniversary of John Henry Newman’s canonisation.

Although the Martyrs and Newman lived and died several centuries apart, they are united by the experience of the protestant Reformation and the ensuing split of the English State’s Church from the Catholic. However, they both experienced this split in rather different ways. The Martyrs experienced it from without: being persecuted and executed for not adhering to the new, Protestant Church. Newman, as a member of that Protestant Church, experienced it from within; from there, finding his way to Catholicism.

Oriel College, Oxford, where St Newman was elected Fellow in 1822.

Although Newman was no longer subject to laws that penalised the practice of Catholicism in England, he was nonetheless ostracised following his public conversion, and lost – at least for a period – many of his friends. A large dose of prejudice and suspicion of Catholics remained from the Reformation era, and in this sense too, his experience was in continuity with the Martyrs. 

However, Newman also faced a prejudice and suspicion from different quarters, which, in our turn, we can identify with too. The philosophical current known as modernity had already taken root by Newman’s day. The “modern” way of thinking rejected the possibility of acknowledging any religious belief to be true. It declared, in the words of Newman, that “revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous.” Modernity meant that all interpretations of reality were equally valid: meaning that none were ultimately true. In this milieu of an increasingly secular culture and an embedded hostility to Catholicism, Newman found his way to God and to the Church.

The statue of Cardinal Newman in front of the Brompton Oratory, London

It was not, as is often the case, a simple and immediate conversion. Rather, as Pope Benedict XVI observed when he beatified Newman, it consisted of three, distinct phases. The first is, in part, a response to the secular world: it is basically the thought that there exist “two and two only absolute and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator”. In effect, this was a conversion to a properly Christian way of thinking, which we are increasingly alienated from due to the contrary assumptions that secular thinking makes. For “modern man”, reality is defined by the empirical: that which science can tell us. For the Christian, reality is defined by the spiritual: God and one’s soul.

This truth applies not only to our own, physical existence in this world, but also to every person around us and, indeed, to the entire world that surrounds us. It leads to the understanding that the meaning of things is given by God; their existence itself is guaranteed by God, rather than by the laws of nature (which are themselves an expression of God’s will). And so, the second of Newman’s conversions is summed up in his insistence that it is not enough to hold one’s faith as an abstract state of consciousness: Christianity means “’looking to Jesus’ (Heb 2:9) … and acting according to His will.” It is a trusting in the Lord to lead us concretely through along the path of life, perhaps best summed up by Newman’s hymn, “Lead, Kindly Light”.

The third conversion was, in a sense, the most difficult. If there was a stigma attached to the rejection of his own, Anglican Church, it was increasingly counter-cultural to profess adherence to the doctrines of the Catholic Church. As Benedict XVI noted, this step involved giving up his rank, profession and many of his academic and personal ties; and yet Newman resolutely took this step in October 1845. If it was a step that involved a great interior struggle; it was also a step that finally brought a peace to his mind. Despite the corruption, divisions and imperfections that Newman saw vividly in the Catholic Church, he understood that these were not relevant to the question of faith. For in the Church, Newman saw the same objectivity that he identified in God: the reality of the Church as the real and living, Body of Christ. The Church, with its frail and human outward appearance, is the real place of God’s presence, that the Creator made for Himself upon entering into the world. In that Church, Newman “found a power, a resource, a comfort, a consolation in our Lord’s Real Presence, in communion in His Divine and Human Person, which all good Catholics indeed have.”

Contrary to what is sometimes, sceptically, asserted: becoming a Catholic did not involve a handing over of his own powers of thinking and autonomy. Becoming a Catholic meant finding the freedom to be transformed by what is true, and therefore to discover oneself ever more authentically. It is the same freedom that the Martyrs possessed in giving their lives readily for God, the Church and their flock. It is a freedom that appears contradictory to the secular mind, which can only conceive of freedom as pure, unstructured (and therefore meaningless) liberty.

St Newman thus retains an enormous relevance to today’s Christians. He stands as a powerful reminder that authentically seeking God entails neither freedom from the Church nor freedom from religion.

This article draws from a talk given by Dr. Giuseppe Pezzini’s on St Newman for The Christian Heritage Centre. It is accessible at www.christianheritagecentre.com/media/sssm3newman/

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Homage to the Martyrs at Deepdale

Friday 2nd October 2020

The CHC @ The Catholic Universe

Homage to the Martyrs at Deepdale

David Gorman

David Gorman looks back 50 years to when 20,000 flocked to Preston’s Deepdale Stadium for Mass to celebrate the Canonisation of the Forty Martyrs, a quarter of whom came from Lancashire.

The cause for the canonisation of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, which eventually took place on 25th October 1970, stretches its roots back to the mid-19th Century. 

Following the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England and Wales in 1850, Cardinal Nicholas Wiseman and Cardinal Henry Manning led a campaign for the recognition of those who had been Martyred for the faith. 

Just a year previously, in 1849, Frederick William Faber had written the rousing hymn Faith of Our Fathers in memory of the Martyrs. Born and raised an Anglican, Faber converted and was ordained a priest, later becoming an Oratorian Father. 

By 1935 nearly 200 Reformation Martyrs had been beatified, earning the title ‘Blessed’, but only two, John Fisher and Thomas More, had been canonised; both on 19 May 1935 by Pope Pius XI.

Following the end of the Second World War, the cause, which had been largely dormant for some time, was gradually revived and, in December 1960, the names 

the Lancaster Evening Post, 3 July 1961

of 34 English and six Welsh Martyrs were submitted to the Sacred Congregation of Rites by Cardinal William Godfrey, Archbishop of Westminster. All had been Martyred between 1535 and 1679. The list of names was drawn up in consultation with the Bishops of England and Wales and an attempt was made to ensure the list reflected a spread of social status and religious rank, together with a geographical spread and the existence of a well-established devotion.

Of the 40, 33 were Priests (20 religious and 13 secular) and seven were lay people. It is worth noting that around a quarter of these Mar-tyrs came from within the historic boundaries of the County Palatine of Lancashire, a reminder, albeit a poignant one, that the region remained a true stronghold of the faith despite the persecutions and difficulties that brought.

On 24th May 1961, the re-opening of the cause was formally decreed by Pope John XXIII. It was no surprise, therefore, that once the list of 40 names had been submitted, and the decree issued, the Diocese of Lancaster was quick off the mark in organising a rally in support of the cause. The rally took place on Sunday 2nd July 1961 at Deepdale, home to Preston North End, and was attended by more than 20,000 people including over 200 clergy. 

Pontifical High Mass at the Forty Martyrs Rally, Deepdale, Preston

Parishioners, school children, scouts, guides, cubs and brownies all processed through the streets of Preston from their respective churches to the stadium while others, from parishes further afield, arrived by coach. The Lancashire Evening Post reported that: ‘It started back in the parishes where three huge processions based on St Joseph’s, St Ignatius’ and St Gregory’s formed and walked through the streets with banners and bands to converge at Deepdale’.

A ‘Pageant of the Martyrs’ took place with 40 individuals each dressed as a martyr in the colourful costumes associated with the Tudor and Stuart periods. Narrators announced brief details of each martyr’s life and death, and once all were assembled on the dais ‘they presented a huge tableau, strangely set in a modern football stand, of figures who suffered the strife and religious persecution in England and Wales 400 years ago’.

The pageant was followed by Pontifical High Mass celebrated by Monsignor Thomas Eaton, the Vicar General of the diocese, in the presence of Bishop Thomas Flynn of Lancaster. 

For the canonisation to proceed it was necessary for two miracles, granted through the intercession of the 40 as a group, to be recognised. A list of 24 miracles was collated and submitted by the English and Welsh bishops and, after careful examination, two of these were chosen for further scrutiny. The Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints granted a special dispensation whereby it was decided, subject to Papal approval, that one of the two miracles would be sufficient to allow the canonisation of all 40 Martyrs to proceed. This was the “cure of a young mother affected with a malignant tumour (fibrosarcoma) in the left scapula, a cure which the Medical Council had judged gradual, perfect, constant and unaccountable on the natural plane”.

On 4th May 1970 Pope Paul VI confirmed the “preternatural character of this cure brought about by God at the intercession of the 40 blessed Martyrs of England and Wales”. The path was now open for the canonisation to take place on a date to be set, and thirty-four English and six Welsh Martyrs were submitted to the Sacred Congregation of Rites by Cardinal William Godfrey, Archbishop of Westminster. All had been Martyred between 1535 and 1679. The list of names was drawn up in consultation with the Bishops of England and Wales and an attempt was made to ensure the list reflected a spread of social status and religious rank, together with a geographical spread and the existence of a well-established devotion.

Parishioners on Skeffington Road, Preston about to leave St Joseph's Church for Deepdale

However, there was concern in some quarters about the effect the canonisation might have on the ecumenical agenda. In November 1969, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Michael Ramsey, had “expressed his apprehension that this canonisation might rekindle animosity and polemics detriment to the ecumenical spirit that has characterised the efforts of the Churches recently”. 

It was clear, however, that the majority of people within both faiths supported the canonisation and, on 18th May 1970, Pope Paul VI declared, during a consistory, that the canonisation would take place on 25th October that year “pointing out, with serene frankness and great charity, the ecumenical value of this Cause, also laying particular stress on the fact that we need the example of these Martyrs particularly today not only because the Christian religion is still exposed to violent persecution in various parts of the world, but also because at a time when the theories of materialism and naturalism are constantly gaining ground and threatening to destroy the spiritual heritage of our civilization, the 40 Martyrs – men and women from all walks of life – who did not hesitate to sacrifice their lives in obedience to the dictates of conscience and the divine will, stand out as noble witnesses to human dignity and freedom”.

Some 10,000 English and Welsh pilgrims, together with the bishops of England and Wales and representative bishops from Scotland and Ireland, were among the large congregation which attended the canonisation Mass at St Peter’s. Special guests included descendants of many of the martyrs, including the Duke of Norfolk, England and Wales’s most senior Catholic layman and himself a collateral descendant of the soon to be St Philip Howard. In recognition of the unique significance of the event for English and Welsh Catholics, the Maestro Perpetuo of the Sistine Chapel Choir, which would normally sing at all canonisation Masses, agreed that the Westminster Cathedral Choir could sing in its place. The Catholic writer, Auberon Waugh, described the canonisation as “the biggest moment for English Catholicism since Catholic emancipation”.

This article is from a series published in the Catholic Voice of Lancaster this month, commemorating the 50th anniversary of canonisation of the Forty Martyrs.

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Dare we forget the call to sainthood?

Sunday 20th September 2020

The CHC @ The Catholic Universe

Dare we forget the call to the sainthood?

Stefan Kaminski

The lives of the saints have historically provided one of the great staples of the catechetical and spiritual life. 

Their biographies, in varying levels of literary and spiritual complexity, would be read by Christians of all ages. Children would be presented early on with these figures in story book form. As they grew, so also did they in knowledge of and friendship with the saints, through reading more complex or original texts as they were able to.

This has always been a self-evidently important element in the formation of a person’s faith, since the saints are guiding lights for the sincere Christian. They mark out a true and trodden path that navigates the difficulties and complexities of this life, while making a bee-line for Heaven. The saints are those who have ‘fought the good fight… finished the race… kept the faith’ (2 Timothy 4:7). 

They have faced the world, they have discerned what is right and what is wrong, and they have relentlessly pursued the former. Do we not still need them today? 

It does not seem unreasonable to suggest that our celebrity culture has, to a large extent, either pushed the saints off our radar or filled in the previously-vacated space that the saints used to inhabit. The saints were at once role models and witnesses to the reality of our faith. Celebrities also serve as role models, and most often as witness to the realities of this world. The saints are clearly a less attractive role model to someone who does not understand the primacy of Heaven over earth, or the spiritual over the physical.

And equally, someone whose primary aim is to make the most out of this world, rather than to strive for Heaven, will not see their relevance.

Perhaps it is precisely the apparent unpopularity or unattractiveness of the saints that serves as a warning of our need for them more than ever. 

It continues to be in the relational nature of humans to look for role models, to aspire after others and to imitate that which we see as appealing in them. This is especially true throughout childhood, in the most formative years of our character. So it is precisely then that we let children down most of all if we fail to present them with these great, Christian role models.

If we take seriously the words of Pope Francis, “To be saints is not a privilege for the few, but a vocation for everyone” – in other words, if we take seriously the fundamental Christian precept that we are all called to holiness – we cannot discard what the saints have to offer us. Pope Benedict XVI once said that for him, “Art and the saints are the greatest apologetics for our faith”. A vivid and real knowledge of the lives of the saints is itself a powerful testimony to the reality of God and the possibility of a relationship with Him. Every young boy who sees the attraction of combat and soldiering can draw great inspiration from St Ignatius of Loyola’s mercenary adventures and his discovery of the one cause worth fighting for. Every young girl who wants to find the means to security and success can look to the commanding and uncompromising presence of St Teresa of Avila.

Moreover, knowing the saints well teaches us that their lives are not somehow simply summarised in a single, beautiful stained-glass window. Seeing the saints means seeing how to struggle to find what is good, how to fight to choose that good for ourselves, and how to persevere in that choice of the good. Knowing the saints is empowering. It teaches us that, as Pope St John Paul II said,

“We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures: we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son”. 

It is tremendously liberating to truly know and live this, because it gives us both the courage to identify and name our sins, as well as to fight them. 

If, on the one hand, St Ignatius warns us that “It is preferable for us to avoid sin than to be lords over the whole world”, on the other, Padre Pio encourages us with the reminder that “Jesus is never so close to you as he is during your spiritual battles”.

The lives of the saints and the fruits of their spiritual wisdom are treasures that we should not be willing to discard or to fail to hand on. They are part of that great spiritual heritage of Catholic Christianity, which constitutes a sure foundation for navigating this earthly pilgrimage. 

With the upcoming 50th anniversary of the canonisation of the 40 Martyrs of England and Wales, and the first anniversary of John Henry Newman’s canonisation, it is an opportune time to revisit our spiritual patrons and friends in Heaven. At Stonyhurst we have therefore brought together a number of highly respected and well-known speakers, to offer insights into the lives and spirituality of some of the great spiritual masters of the Western Church. The series of talks that they will present will be offered online for free (they will also be accessible afterwards on our website).

Stefan Kaminski is the Director of the Christian Heritage Centre, Stonyhurst.

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How St John Paul II placed the family at heart of his papacy

Monday 20th July 2020

The CHC @ The Catholic Universe

‘Light, joy and hope’: How St John Paul II placed the family at heart of his papacy

Mgr. Livio Melina

This year marks the 100th anniversary of Karol Wojtyla’s birth. As a priest, bishop and pope, John Paul II’s greatest pastoral concern was undoubtedly the family. Sadly, the centenary of this remarkable saint’s birth has been inevitably muted by the constraints of the Covid situation, but those same constraints have, for many, forced a greater focus on our own families. Mgr Livio Melina recalls the Pope’s words at the first World Meeting of Families. 

“Every family carries a light and every family is a light”, Pope John Paul II said, adding that it was “a light which must illuminate the Church’s path and the future of the world.”

He said those words on Saturday, 8th October, 1994 in St Peter’s Square in the Vatican. He was addressing thousands of families gathered below him for the World Meeting of Families. The piazza, recently drenched by an October downpour, glistened with the light of the candles they carried. No doubt this helped to inspire the pope’s words, which had been “improvised, dictated by the heart and sought in many days of prayer”.

His remarks were not merely an extemporisation, however. Faced with an increasing confusion around the family and “attempts to overturn the family’s meaning, depriving it of its natural reference to matrimony”, the Holy Father did not hesitate to ask this decisive question: “Family, what do you say of yourself?” 

Analogously, the Church had asked herself the same question at start of the Second Vatican Council: ‘Church, what do you say of yourself?’ The answer had been: “I am Lumen Gentium [The Light of the People], the light of the world!” The Church reflects the light of Christ; and the family, as the “domestic church” according to Lumen Gentium n. 11, must therefore also reflect the light of Christ in this world. 

St John Paul II talks to families gathered for a meeting in Rome
The would-be pontiff's parents, Karol and Emilia, with John Paul's eldest brother, Edmund. Photo Archidiecezja Krakowska

John Paul II had always loved the family in an extraordinary way. Having lost his own family early on, he had placed families at the heart of his priestly and episcopal ministry in Krakow. From holidaying in the Tatra mountains with groups of families, to his role as ‘uncle’ (a nickname to protect his identity from the communist authorities) to the Focolare Movement, this special care and concern carried over into his papal ministry. 

As Pope, he convoked the Synod on the Family in 1980, promulgated such important documents as Familiaris consortio, created the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Institute for Studies in Marriage and Family Life, and began the World Meeting of Families. “I wish to be remembered as the Pope of the family and of life”, he once confided to a friend. 

Why this great concern for the family? The answer lies in Familiaris consortio n. 17: the family is an “intimate community of life and love… [which] has the mission to guard, reveal and communicate love, and this is a living reflection of and a real sharing in God’s love for humanity and the love of Christ the Lord for the Church His bride”. 

He well knew that “man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself, his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it” (Redemptor hominis, n. 10). 

In meditating on the mystery of the family, John Paul II defined human love as a nexus of three fundamental connections, which together guarantee its authenticity according to the Creator’s original intention. 

The first connection is that intimate and intrinsic link between love and life, which was affirmed by Pope Paul VI in a definitive and prophetic manner in his encyclical, Humanae vitae. The authentic environment of love, in which human life can worthily be received and mature, is the family founded on matrimony. Without that generous openness to life, the human love between a man and a woman becomes sterile and exposed to the danger of a hedonistic egoism, which collapses in on itself. “The family is the sanctuary of life”, as John Paul II would later affirm (Evangelium vitae, n. 92).

Second, John Paul II points to the link between love and marriage. Love is not simply a feeling or an impulse, but consists of a firm resolution of the will. In this act of love – in desiring the good of the other person – one freely commits one’s being as a gift to the other, creating a communion of persons in the marital covenant. Temporal fidelity and the social and institutional dimensions of this covenant are not extrinsic factors imposed in order to limit the freedom of love: they are intrinsic exigencies of love’s true nature.

The future St John Paul II (centre of photo) relaxes in the Tatra Mountains

The final connection is that between marriage and family. Matrimony is the sole basis for a family that is capable of safeguarding authentic love and life. When a family is detached from matrimony (understood as a stable union between a man and a woman) the bond between its members becomes very fragile; the only reference point that is left for the family is a subjective search for self-realisation. 

“This is the hour of the family”, both in the Church and in society! On that October evening of 1994, Pope Wojtyla again passionately affirmed his profound conviction: the future of humanity lies with the family. The glimmering lights on the piazza inspired the Pope to say:

“every family carries a light and every family is a light”. For ethical imperatives only follow that which is already given by God’s grace: namely a gift that is present in every family.

This affirmation does not refer to a generic reality, but to a singularly concrete one: “every” family that lives in “every” part of the world. If prophecy is characterised by the enunciation of the little seed of hope for the future that is hidden in the difficulties of the present time, John Paul II did exactly this. “Dictated by the heart” and matured in “many days of prayer”, he pointed to precisely the family as that seed of hope: as every family that is born of love and vivified by the grace of the sacrament.

 

Mgr Melina served as Professor of Fundamental Moral Theology at the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family Life for over 30 years, for 10 of which he also served as the Institute’s President.

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Saluting our modern-day martyrs: dare we too confess our faith?​

Friday 5th June 2020

The CHC @ The Catholic Universe

Saluting our modern-day martyrs: dare we too confess our faith?

Stefan Kaminski

While we remain locked in debate over Covid-19 statistics, social distancing and lockdown measures, it’s a good time to remember that many of our Christian brothers and sisters around the world have more immediate concerns: they are (readily) putting their very lives at risk by professing and practicing their faith.

On 8th January, four young Catholic seminarians were kidnapped from the Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna, north-west Nigeria, by gunmen. Kaduna is not a small shanty town: it is the capital of Kaduna state with a population of well over three-quarters of a million, and is a busy trade and transportation hub. The seminary is located on a main highway, and houses around 270 young men.

But in January it was raided by a kidnap gang disguised as soldiers, led by Mustapha Mohammed. Their intention was to use the hostages for ransom. In the weeks following the raid, they released three of the seminarians, aged between 19 and 23, in exchange for $25,000. Michael Nnadi, 18 years old, was never released.

Speaking to Nigeria’s Daily Sun newspaper after his arrest, Mustapha said that he was not able to have any peace from the moment they took the young men, because Michael “continued preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to him”. The seminarian “told him to his face to change his evil ways” or risk eternal life. In the end, Mustapha decided “to send him to an early grave” as he did not like the young man’s confidence. 

Michael Nnadi, 18-year old seminarian killed for preaching Jesus Christ. ‘He continued preaching the gospel’ to his kidnappers, telling their leader ‘to his face to change his evil ways.’ The leader decided ‘to send him to an early grave’ as he did not like the young man’s confidence.

Michael Nnadi’s bold witness shines among many such martyrs. Only 10 days later, Lawan Andimi, a member of the Christian Associationof Nigeria, was decapitated.

Today, some 120 other Christians remain hostage in the hands of Boko Haram; among them are many young women such as Leah Sharibuand Grace Taku, who refused to renounce their faith in Jesus Christ. All these are part of a worsening and systemic attack on Christians, whose villages are attacked, farms set ablaze, adults kidnapped and killed, and women taken as sex slaves.

The Nigerian archbishops have repeatedly appealed to the country’s government for collaboration andprotection, but many Christians have accused the state of ignoringthe reality of Christian persecution.

Despite the assurances given, they point to the inconsistent protection offered by security forces and the consistently late responses to such incidents.

Hopefully, the thought that such atrocities are not being challenged and responded to effectively fills us with horror. Equally hopefully, the fact that men and women just like ourselves are dying gruesomedeaths because they practice their Christian faith moves us to some desire for solidarity with them.

Meanwhile, we are no doubt thankful that such persecution does not take place in our liberal and tolerant Western society. However, thegrowing challenges to Western governments over their own discrimination against religious practice in their responses to Covid-19 should tell us that we are not entirely immune either.

Last month, several Catholic groups successfully appealed to the French Council of State, which ruled that the government’s ban on gatherings at places of worship was ‘disproportionate’ and ‘seriously and manifestly illegal’. A number of states in the USA have seen legal challenges against their closure of churches and bans on religious gatherings, with, most recently, the governor of Virginia facing two lawsuits over this issue.

Our own government sidelined public religious expression by declaring it as ‘non-essential’ at the beginning of the lockdown. The assignment of churches to an importance lower than garden centres can hardly, therefore, inspire great confidence in the public perception of the place of religious freedom. More to the point, if such a freedom is not seen to be demanded and practised, its fundamental importance will stop being appreciated.

A number of public figures have now stepped up to question this state of affairs. Edward Leigh MP pointed out on Twitter not long ago: ‘If MPs can socially distance in Parliament, why can’t people socially distance for private prayer in churches?’

Two weeks ago, a letter was sent to Catholic Bishops, as well as to Robert Jendrick (Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Governance), requesting the re-opening of churches, and signed by 19 peers, politicians and other notable Catholics. Another letter went to Boris Johnson this week signed by 20 MPs, requesting the same. And in a recent interview on BBC Radio 4, Cardinal Nichols asked the government for “a bit more sensitivity” to people’s spiritual needs.

As Pentecost approaches and we once again pray for the same courage that the Holy Spirit gave to the Apostles in those early, turbulent times, it is perhaps an opportunity to make our own stand for our faith. It would be a fitting act of solidarity with Michael Nnadi, and the many other men and women, young and old, who are suffering brutal treatment and death, to make our own faith public, in however small a way.

Until such a time as our churches are reopened, the first thing that can be done is to write to local MPs and/or to Robert Jendrick. It need not be a long email, but simple enough to register the fact that as Christians, our faith is of fundamental importance to us; and as Catholics, it is essential to be able to access our churches and the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

Besides this, a group of young Catholics, led by Anton’ de Piro (a trustee of the Christian Heritage Centre) has set up the website https://opendoors.church. This allows Catholics to register their name, contact details, diocese and parish in order to help manage the safe re-opening of churches. Volunteer details will be passed directly to the relevant diocese or parish, and will provide priests with the necessary help for to reopen their churches.

Lastly, but most importantly: when our churches do reopen, it is imperative that those Catholics who are able to do so safely provide a public witness to our faith. If every able-bodied and healthy Catholic in the country made the point of making a visit to their parish church once during the working week, the steady stream – even trickle – of visitors would make for a very visible statement.

Christians in Kwara stateprotest in February against thecurrent persecution

It is an opportunity not simply for outward effect, but also for the deepening and renewal of one’s interior life.

The small efforts and sacrifices we make are always observed by the Good Lord, who repays with His grace in His own way and time.

After the period of absence we have suffered from the Eucharistic Lord, what better way to mark the season of Pentecost – the era of the Church – by going out of our way to witness to the Lord, in solidarity with our martyred brethren?

Stefan Kaminski is the Director of the Christian Heritage Centre, Stonyhurst.

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Easter Saints: Anselm and the faith that seeks understanding

Friday 1st May 2020

The CHC @ The Catholic Universe

Easter Saints: Anselm and the faith that seeks understanding

Stefan Kaminski

St Anselm, together with St George, offers a clear model for a pragmatic faith during the difficulties of lockdown.

This last week has seen the feast days of two ‘English’ saints, one perhaps more recognised than the other: St George on the 23rd April, and St Anselm of Canterbury on the 21st April. 

Apart from their faith, what they do have in common is that neither, despite being associated with England, was English! While St George was born in Cappadocia (modern-day Turkey), St Anselm hailed from Aosta in northern Italy. 

Both are fitting saints for Eastertide, however. The story of St George requires no retelling, but his emblem – the red cross – is a reference to Christ’s saving death, to which he joined his own martyrdom at the hands of the Emperor Diocletian in the year 303. The dragon he fought is most commonly taken as a symbol of his conquest of the devil, by means of his faith and fortitude.

St Anselm is a somewhat contrasting figure to the Roman soldier, but no less staunch and heroic in a different age and place. Born in 1033 or ’34, he came to England via the Benedictine monastery of Bec, in Normandy. While a monk at Bec he quickly gained a reputation for his great intellect and profound spirituality, thus also further increasing the monastery’s already-established reputation as a centre of learning. 

In 1078 he was elected as Abbot of Bec and it was this that first brought Anselm to England. William the Conqueror had previously granted lands both in Normandy as well as in Canterbury to the Bec monastery; as the Abbot, Anselm was required to visit these lands on certain occasions.

By the time the incumbent Archbishop of Canterbury died in 1089, William had been dead two years and had been succeeded by his son, William Rufus. The younger William was a tyrant, who had only just been kept in check by the previous Archbishop of Canterbury. Once his grasping nature took hold, however, injustices flowed. 

A portrait of St Anslem in the Church of St Anslem in Bomarzo, Italy

Among these, he kept deferring his permission for the replacement of the various vacant bishoprics while he seized their revenues year on year, and left dependent communities in near-poverty. It was only when he became violently sick and seemed to be on his deathbed that he returned briefly to his conscience, fearing for his eternal salvation. From this state he not only settled outstanding debts, granted pardons and fed prisoners, but he also nominated the widely-esteemed Anselm as Bishop of Canterbury. 

The reluctant Anselm accepted the position, but used every occasion and means to try to both reconcile the King with Rome and reform the Church in England. (William Rufus’ momentary penitence had quickly disappeared as he regained health.) Anselm’s continual struggle against the king’s injustices, his rampant passions and his manipulation and censoring of the Church eventually forced Anselm to leave the country to seek the Pope’s support. 

St Anselm

At a council with Pope Urban II, at which the situation in England was also discussed, Anselm yet again demonstrated his Christian compassion. The Pope was about to excommunicate William Rufus on the advice of the council, when Anselm threw himself at the Pope’s feet and begged for mercy for his nemesis. The excommunication was delayed. In the end, however, William died suddenly during a hunting accident before Anselm could return to England or reconcile him fully with the Church – something that caused the saint great bitterness.

Anselm’s nobility of soul and character can be understood both by his contemplative detachment from this world and through his motto, ‘Faith seeking understanding’. His greatest pleasure was in contemplating God, and every object served the purpose of raising Anselm’s mind to his Creator. 

His motto, while easily misunderstood, is eloquent in its simplicity: faith, for Anselm, is neither a blind belief nor even primarily an act of the intellect or mind. Faith consists in the action of our will: a movement of love that comes from the heart, and an active desire to do God’s will. Such a faith “seeks understanding”, in that it wants to know God more deeply. In other words, faith is first of all a state of desire or a willing, rather than a state of thought, or of the mind. 

This Easter has perhaps been a particularly challenging and opportune moment for assessing our own faith. In a sense, the best measure of this has been the extent to which we missed the liturgy and the Sacraments, for it is indeed through the Sacraments that the Resurrection of Christ touches us and that the graces are given to transform us into a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:17). 

Equally, without being able to actually participate in the Church’s liturgies, we have had to rely more so on our own motivation – on our faith – to engage with the Easter mystery.

The lockdown is making life harder for many (if not most), particularly by challenging our internal resources. It is, however, an opportunity to grow in faith. Both St George and St Anselm are strong characters of faith because their lives were built by fixating their hearts on God, and everything else was motivated by that.

This locked-down Eastertide, the one thousand, nine hundred and eighty-seventh Easter in human history, is an opportunity to delve more deeply into our hearts, to discover and nourish a greater capacity for loving the God who gave His life for us.

Prayer of St Anselm

I confess, Lord, with thanksgiving, that you have made me in your image, so that I can remember you, think of you, and love you. 

But that image is so worn and blotted out by faults, and darkened by the smoke of sin, that it cannot do that for which it was made, unless you renew and refashion it. 

Lord, I am not trying to make my way to your height, for my understanding is in no way equal to that, but I do desire to understand a little of your truth which my heart already believes and loves. 

I do not seek to understand so that I can believe, but I believe so that I may understand; and what is more, I believe that unless I do believe, I shall not understand.

Stefan Kaminski is the Director of the Christian Heritage Centre, Stonyhurst.

The death of William Rufus
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Covid-19 crisis from the perspective of providence: A call to creative love

Jordaens’ 'The Good Samaritan'

Friday 3rd April 2020

The CHC @ The Catholic Universe

Covid-19 crisis from the perspective of providence: A call to creative love

Fr José Granados

In these days of Lent, we re-read the story of Israel’s departure from Egypt, when God delivered them from the scourge of plagues. 

The scene is poignantly brought to life by the epidemic that we are experiencing at the moment. It reminds us that God is no stranger to anything that happens to us. “My times are in your hands”, says the psalmist (Ps 31:15). 

Whoever lives the totality of their life according to faith in the Creator, must also live the Covid-19 crisis according to faith in the Creator.

Why the virus? What are its causes and effects? The biologist and the doctor can tell us something about these, as can the psychologist and the economist. But only faith offers the ultimate horizon that unifies these partial perspectives. The believer does not have all the answers, but knows who does. He knows Him and knows how to invoke Him, to help him live this hour with meaning. Believing in God means that our “why?” can be transformed into “what for?”

“In the programme of the kingdom of God”, St John Paul II said, “suffering is present in the world in order to release love, in order to give birth to works of love towards neighbour” (Salvifici Doloris 30). 

The suffering caused by the virus is also present in order to revive love in ourselves. It is towards this love that providence leads all things. So, whoever believes in providence does not respond with negligence or irresponsibility, but with the intelligence of love.

Jordaens’ 'The Good Samaritan'

We discover how precious are our relationships, which are lived out in the body. This is why this virus is a threat to our communal life. This is why we are afraid to be together, to work together, and why we isolate ourselves. Thus, the virus wounds us at the heart of our humanity, which consists of the call to communion. 

At the same time, we understand the greatness of the good that is threatened. For we experience that we have no life if it is not life together; that we cannot flourish as solitary individuals, but only as members of a family, school, neighbourhood. The virus unmasks the lie of individualism and testifies to the beauty of the common good.

The reawakening to love continues, secondly, because we suffer as our own the suffering and anguish of others. Pain unites us. In a certain sense, we have all been infected by the virus because our community, our city, our nation has been infected. Hard times are on the way for many families, for the elderly, for the most vulnerable, but these sufferings will have the effect of increasing amongst us the works of love carried out for others. The difficulties of having physical contact will require an intelligent love, which will invent new ways of being present. Technology will help us to express that closeness and that affective support which, far from spreading the virus, vaccinates us against it. 

Reawakening to love will also, and thirdly, consist of the discovery of new ways of working together. For the pain of the virus, in addition to that caused by the physical disease, will be the pain of anxiety, of not knowing what to expect or how to get on with the thousand things of everyday life, and the fatigue of remaking plans and of enduring the waiting. An intelligent and creative love will be that of teachers who do not interrupt their educational work and their support for their students; that of parents who create tasks  and games for their children; that of pastors who continue to bring food to their faithful; that of families who inspire and share their creativity with other families.

Finally, this creativity of love will help us discover that love has an inexhaustible source. And so, fourthly, our suffering will reawaken us to love if we turn our gaze to God, who is the source and channel of all love.

The forced isolation caused by the virus is an opportunity for us to delve more deeply into the big question, the “why?”, that lies behind everything. 

The virus, in threatening the life-giving air that we breathe and the presence of those we love, invites us to ask ourselves about the ultimate secret of this very life and love. What is its origin and destiny? This question will lead us to discover the face of

“Let us remember, therefore, that the grace of God continues to act, even when we cannot receive Communion. For at every Mass that a priest says, even if he is alone, we will all be present and God’s grace will touch us. “

the God who wanted to respond to suffering, not with a theory, but with a presence: His suffering with us. For He became flesh, taking on our suffering in order to heal it; and, in the Sacraments of His Body and Blood, He gave us the gift of health.

It is precisely at this time that access to the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, has become difficult. Let us remember, therefore, that the grace of God continues to act, even when we cannot receive Communion. For at every Mass that a priest says, even if he is alone, we will all be present and God’s grace will touch us. Faith in providence will arouse an intelligent love so that the Eucharist continues to be present in our lives. 

We will be able to strengthen our communal prayer, our reading aloud of the Word of God, our family recitation of Sunday Lauds or Vespers, our invocation of Mary in the Rosary…

It has already become clear that many will have to live this Lent fasting from the Eucharist. If, however, this awakens in us a love for the living Bread that comes from Heaven, if it teaches us that we cannot live when deprived of the Eucharist – the medicine of immortality – then this fast will have a saving effect. For in the Eucharist is the resurrected Body of Christ: immune to any virus, and inexhaustible source of our common life. Thus, the threat of the virus will awaken in us not only a concrete love for those who suffer, but a hope for the Love that never ends. The psalmist’s plea will sound anew: “You shall not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day, because you have the Lord for your refuge and have made the Most High your stronghold” (Ps 91:5-6:9).

Nothing escapes the providence of God, and God relies on our prudence (which is the intelligence of love) to face the epidemic, supporting each other in a generous and creative fashion.

Fr José Granados is the Superior General of the Disciples of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

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Henry’s Reformation: England’s defining moment?

The towering presence of Henry VIII looms large over English history in this portrait by Holbein. Inset, the poetry of Robert Southwell provided spiritual nourishment for the faithful at home

Friday 6th March 2020

The CHC @ The Catholic Universe

Henry’s Reformation stands as the key moment in England’s history

Adam Coates

Every country can point to some event within its past which has played a role in defining the nature of that country, both historically and to the present day. A French person would likely point to the French Revolution in 1789, a German to the fall of the Nazi regime in 1945, a Russian to the arrival of Communism. However, to what might an Englishman point? 

The events of the Second World War are surely an important one. The Civil War in the 17th century is another. A common one that would be brought up, a date seared into the mind of nearly every English person, is the Norman Conquest of 1066.

However, despite all of these, one event which arguably stands above them all is the English Reformation. Beginning, initially, as a political dispute, theological conflicts were brought to the fore with a series of Acts of Parliament, including the Act of Supremacy in 1534, which placed the English Church in Schism. The aforementioned 1534 Act formally declared the King, Henry VIII, as Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England’.  

This was followed by Henry’s son, Edward, coming to the throne and pushing a more explicitly theologically and liturgically Protestant line. The early death of Edward saw the succession of his half-sister Mary. Her five-year reign reversed her brother’s religious reforms and her father’s schism. However, Mary’s efforts were in vain as she was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth who again took the English Church from under the umbrella of Rome, though choosing a theological via media between continental Protestantism and Catholicism. 

Why is this series of events arguably the most important in English history? While it is fun to engage in counterfactual history, wondering what may have happened had the religious changes of the 16th century never taken place, this is not a proper historical task. These religious changes are important, not because of what we can imagine in their absence, but because of what religion is in a human society. The 20th century historian Christopher Dawson, whom TS Eliot described as “the most powerful intellectual influence in England”, was interested in the study of civilisations.

The towering presence of Henry VIII looms large over English history in this portrait by Holbein. Inset, the poetry of Robert Southwell provided spiritual nourishment for the faithful at home

The questions of how and why they rise and fall led to a lifetime of research and writing, producing numerous books, articles and lectures. The great conclusion of Dawson’s works was that religion is one of the key and consistent driving forces of civilisation throughout history. It therefore stands to reason that an event such as the Reformation, where the religious fabric of the country was fundamentally altered from top to bottom, would be of primary importance. 

One might reasonably argue that the traditional English stiff upper lip is a result of the more restrained Protestant approach to worship when compared with the rich ceremonies of the Mass. Charles Darwin observed that “Englishmen rarely cry […]; whereas in some parts of the Continent the men shed tears much more readily and freely”. G. K. Chesterton would write that ‘those countries in Europe which are still influenced by priests, are exactly the countries where there is still singing and dancing and coloured dresses and art in the open air. Catholic doctrine and discipline may be walls; but they are the walls of a playground’. The implication is clear; there are cultural differences between Protestant England and the Catholic countries of continental Europe that are the result of religious doctrine and practice. Even though these countries are quickly shedding their religion, those cultural differences remain

Religious changes brought about mass cultural changes. The religious houses of England were supressed in what the historian Professor George W. Bernard has described as “one of the most revolutionary events in English history”. 

The dotted remains of ruined abbeys and priories, their stone remains jutting from the ground like the bones of a long extinct beast, are eloquent testimony to the radical change of the suppression. These religious reforms, naturally, affected everyone. Some, such as those in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, responded by open rebellion. Others secretly kept their Catholicism while attending Anglican services. Some refused to attend Anglican services and practised their Catholicism secretly. 

A consistent desire among wealthy Catholic families who continued in their Catholicism was that of seeing their children educated as Catholics. Stonyhurst College, on whose estate the Christian Heritage Centre has its home, is one such school. Beginning life at Saint-Omer in 1593, it provided a Catholic education for English boys in the then Spanish Netherlands. Within centres like this, a distinctly Catholic and English culture could remain and, indeed, flourish in relative safety behind the barrier of the English Channel. These sanctuaries were to produce saints and martyrs who were to die in England for preaching the Catholic faith. 

One such figure, Robert Southwell, a product of the English College at Douai, was to provide spiritual nourishment for the faithful at home. One way he did this was through his corpus of poetry. One poem, New Heaven, New War, speaks of the coming of Christ at Christmas. God invades the Devil’s abode to defeat him: ‘This little Babe so few days old, Is come to rifle Satan’s fold; All hell doth at his presence quake, Though he himself for cold do shake; For in this weak, unarmed wise, The gates of hell he will surprise’.

God, in having taken on flesh, will defeat Satan. 

Verse such as this must have been a great comfort to English Catholics who thought themselves once again in ‘Satan’s fold’; Christ’s victory against these powers is inevitable. 

It is precisely on this topic that the Christian Heritage Centre will be hosting an academic conference on Saturday, 28th of March. Led by Professors Peter Davidson and Gerard Kilroy, the conference will examine the cultural interactions between Protestant England and the Catholic part of Europe. 

St Robert’s poetry, such as that quoted above, represented a vibrant Catholic and English culture in exile that sort to provide comfort to those at home. The conference will be providing a fresh look at these cultural contributions that demonstrate, despite its persecution, a vibrant, living body of faith. 

Adam Coates is the Educational Assistant, The Christian Heritage Centre

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A change of Christian climate, and its deniers

Friday 7th February 2020

The CHC @ The Catholic Universe

A change of Christian climate, and its deniers

Stefan Kaminski

That there is a change in the Earth’s climate is an undisputable fact. The significance of that change is debated by some. Others label these people as ‘climate change deniers’. However, there has also been a different sort of ‘climate change’ going on for a while, which also has its own set of rather vocal deniers.

In last month’s article on Christian heritage, Sr Emanuela Edwards wrote eloquently of the significance of the Magi’s journey. She noted their wisdom and courage in recognising and following the star, which guided them to the full revelation of the Incarnate God. 

Her article was a call to Christians today to offer such a “guiding star” to the people of our own times by their witness to the faith. The particular need for visible ‘stars’ in contemporary society was already present in St Pope Paul VI’s time: she noted that he had already identified a “rupture between the Gospel and culture as the drama of our time”. 

Christianity has provided the general ‘climate’ for European culture for the best part of the last two millennia. It has shaped the greatest thinkers, writers, artists and scientists who stand unchallenged at the pinnacle of what Europe has to offer. From Augustine to John Paul II, from Agnelli to Pugin, from Albertus Magnus to George Lemaître: they were all formed by a certain worldview, which has gradually been divorced and discarded by modern thinking. 

That worldview, which the scholastic thinking of the Medieval period had elaborated and expressed so clearly, understood the entire cosmos as being in an inherent relationship to God. Creation is not seen merely as a onetime, distant event somehow linked to God, who is then subsequently written out of everything that happens since; creation is a continual act of holding everything in being, intentionally guiding every development in the cosmos, however random these may appear to us.

The Gothic masterpiece of Amiens Cathedral

 Frank Sheed (of Sheed & Ward publishers), described it as “nothingness worked upon by omnipotence”. Deliciously succinct, this phrase captures the two essential facts about our world, from a Christian point of view: it would not exist if God did not will it; it only continues to exist because God continues to will it.

This is the perspective that underwrote our Western culture, providing direction and impetus for both the sciences and the arts. The meeting of faith and culture was not simply a convenient intertwining of two parallel strands: culture was shaped by faith. Nonetheless, many academics today insist on minimising, if not altogether setting aside, the religious dynamic when delving into the minds of those cultural icons whom we all admire. A bit like today’s climate change deniers (but in reverse), they attempt to write the significance of a previous, Christian climate out of the textbooks. 

One such icon whose Christian adherence and life is frequently downplayed is the Victorian polymath, John Ruskin. He was the subject of our first evening talk of the year at The Christian Heritage Centre. Professor Keith Hanley, of Lancaster University, offered a fascinating insight into John Ruskin’s Travels on the Continent, providing us with a view of European art through this particular set of English eyes. Brought up as a devout evangelical, Ruskin had clear ideas of what defined good landscape painting. As the epigraph to his five-volume series on modern landscape painting stated, ‘Nature presented the laws behind God’s creation for mankind. Landscapes, therefore, were worthy insofar as they revealed the truth, the beauty and the intelligence of God’s creation.’

John Ruskin

In Ruskin’s opinion, the realism of William Turner was the epitome of this artistic form, which formed the comfortable confines of Ruskin’s artistic world for his early years. 

But Ruskin’s first solo trip to Italy changed all that. There, he was confronted – and indeed, “utterly crushed”, as he put it – by the revelation of the full ‘Art of Man’. His initial encounter with Jacopo Tintoretto’s work in the School of St Roch, and in particular with Tintoretto’s Crucifixion, opened his eyes to the world of “theological symbolism of the entire Christian scheme of redemption”, as Prof Hanley expressed it. Thereafter, while his views continued to evolve, they were marked by a new and lively sensibility to the transcendent world, which informed and brought a whole new significance to the material order. 

Indeed, his very last work, on the Gothic cathedral of Amiens, recognised the full drama of the medieval worldview that is so wonderfully expressed in the cathedral’s West Front: the interconnectedness of everything, from the lowliest elements of creation to the highest personages in the Judeo-Christian tradition, in a single, allembracing path to Christ.

Our next evening talk at The Christian Heritage Centre, Stonyhurst will pick up another figure who has been recently “rediscovered” and again often remoulded to the post-Christian thinking of today: Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio. His realism, often considered in purely psychologically terms, has even led some to consider him a 20th century painter in spirit. Yet his genius is firmly grounded in the dynamism between the spiritual and earthly worlds, and his ability to communicate this. 

Providing a “guiding star” to the one true Creator and Redeemer of the world in today’s society also requires being able to point to and reclaim the fruits that have been borne by our faith over the course of its history. 

There are plenty of voices ready to point out the apparent defects of Christianity and the problems they claim it has caused; we need more voices that can speak eloquently of the truth and beauty that Christianity has engendered over the centuries in our Western culture.

 Stefan Kaminski is the Director of the Christian Heritage Centre, Stonyhurst.