“A DAY of remembrance, of extraordinary sorrow, and of silence.”
With these words of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor described the grief that accompanied the first anniversary of the London terrorist bombings of July 7, 2005 that killed 54 people and maimed many more.
Giving the homily at a remembrance Mass for the bombing victims, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor singled out the faith of Marie Fatyi-Williams, who lost her son Anthony, as expressing “for countless millions the anguish and pain of that time”.
“She said, ‘I cry out from the depths of my heart to the perpetrators of this pain … Peace is the fruit of love, not hatred and violence’.”
A week after the Mass, speaking on the phone from London, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, expressed his admiration of Marie Fatayi-Williams’ courage.
“I found to be with her and with other victims of the bombing to be very moving,” he said.
His homily had also singled out Gillian Hicks, an Adelaide woman whose injuries were so grave she lost both legs.
“She was going to be married, and she is now happily married,” the cardinal said. “To hear her stoicism and her bravery and her seeking to understand why people do such terrible things – I found it very moving.
“Immediately after the bombing I joined with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi, Sheikh Zaki Badawi (of the Council of Mosques and Imams), and the Free Churches Moderator, Dr David Coffey, at Lambeth Place in London to issue a joint statement condemning the terror.
“We said, ‘Violence of this kind or any kind has no part of real religion’.
“There was a sense in which the different faiths stood up together and said, ‘The things we seek together are things that make for peace, not for this kind of warfare’.”
As the minority Christian faith, British Catholics have a long tradition of dialoguing with the dominant Protestant culture.
Under Pope Benedict’s leadership there is also a renewed resistance to relativism.
As the leader of English and Welsh Catholics, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor is acutely aware of the challenges facing Great Britain’s 5 million Catholics.
“Secularism, particularly in Europe, has found a form of trying to distance religion from life – to privatise religion,” the cardinal said.
“Yet the fact is that if people live their faith to their fullness there is no way it can be privatised.
“Religion and life go together. If it means Christians in their secular country have to swim against the stream of secularity, then so be it. That is our natural habitat today.
“I don’t think of secularism as an enemy. It is something we live with, which we breathe, not taking away from our own faith, but enabling us to witness it in a new way.”
But isn’t the danger that in travelling this road we are invited to see ourselves not so much as individuals but ever more so as consumers and commodities?
“That of course is true,” the cardinal answered. “The consumerist mentality is there in our comparatively rich secularist culture.
“One of the things that our Christian faith stands up for is the dignity of every human person, for what he or she is – not what they own – and therefore I think it’s very important for the Catholic Church to be on the side of the neglected and the poor and the marginalised. It’s part of our action for the poor.”
Last year Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor came out strongly as a spokesman for the unborn in the lead up to the British election.
“What I was calling for was a national debate on the whole subject of the unborn,” he said.
“I think many more people in our society are now more worried about abortion. Not least of all because those within the womb are living people, human beings at a very early form, but human beings, and they should not die in this way.
“I also think of the trauma of women who have abortions and feel constrained to have abortions.
“What kind of a society are we that we don’t help those who are pregnant to keep their children?
“It’s a very complex question but it goes to the heart of the whole gospel of life from its beginning to its very end.
“So just as today we might be talking about abortion, tomorrow we might be talking about euthanasia.
“There’s a whole gospel of life that the Catholic Church particularly has a very large part in promoting,” the cardinal said.
“I think the core of society is the family and the more the family is broken, the less it is sustained by law, by the community and the people, then the more disruption, the more crime, the more dysfunctional society gets.
“Therefore I think that the ideal that must be lived up to, that must be promoted, is lifelong marriage. In many ways that’s been attacked today by the lifestyle of people, by the pressures of the ‘me’ society.
“If you were to say to me what are the main things that are at the core of the Church of the future in terms of community it is Catholic marriage. One of the things that sustains the Church as well as society is faithful marriage.”
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor also has a long background in ecumenism with the Anglican Church. He admits it has been “a very long road”.
“For many years I was on the international commission (for Roman Catholic and Anglican dialogue), which was very encouraging.
“We had many things we developed and deepened together in our understanding of the Eucharist, of the ministries, and so many other things that we share.
“I suppose the difference is the obstacle that has been there all the time, the question of authority.
“The recent steps by the Anglican Communion with regard to the question of the ordination of women has meant we have to pause.
“The obstacles at the moment seem to be insurmountable, but we have to persevere. There is no way in which we can go back on the ecumenical path. It is like a road with no exit.”
“There is today a struggle within the Anglican Communion, particularly along the lines of authority and who is eligible to be ordained.
“I think the difficulties that the Anglican Communion are facing today are very great for them and it comes down to those reciprocal questions Anglicans might ask Roman Catholics, ‘How is authority dispersed within the Catholic Church?’
“Obviously in the authority of bishops and priests. But what rights have lay people within the Church? And those are fair questions.
“But what the Catholic Church would ask of the Anglicans is, ‘Where is the focus of your authority?’
“And I think that is the major difficulty for the Anglican Church today. The clarity of the focus of authority within the Catholic Church is a great gift to us and it’s made very clear from the difficulties that the Anglican Church is experiencing at the present time.
“The Catholic Church has no joy in any break up of the Anglican Communion. That’s nothing to be pleased about. Therefore we’ve got to help them in any way we can through our dialogue with them.
“At the same time we should make sure we experience the gifts that are given to us in the Church – communion, mission and authority – in a very special way.”
How does Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor see the Church of the future?
“That’s a very big question,” he said. “I think that the priest, the lay people, have a much larger part to play.
“It seems to me in the future the formation of lay leadership to work with the priest, who has an indispensable role, is very important.
“One of the things I will be speaking about when I visit Australia is what in fact do we mean by dioceses or parishes for the future of the Church. It is a very big question, but a vital one.
“What are the priorities of each diocese in developing the faith and mission of its people?”
* Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor will speak on the topic: “Communion and Mission: The local Church in a shifting contemporary landscape” at the Francis Rush Centre in Brisbane on September 2 at 2pm. Admission is $15 each. For more information and registrations, e-mail the Faith and Life vicariate at fl@bne.catholic.net.au or phone (07) 3336 9323.
