Author: Ruth Gledhill, Religion
Correspondent
Publication: The Times, UK
Date: September 6, 2001
Christianity has almost been vanquished
in Britain, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor told a gathering of priests
yesterday.
Christ was being replaced by music,
New Age beliefs, the environmental movement, the occult and the free-market
economy, the Archbishop of Westminster said. In a candid and unscripted
passage of his speech, the Cardinal also spoke of the damage and shame
brought to his church by the scandal of paedophile priests.
His analysis of Britain's spiritual
decline echoed the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, who last
year said: ''A tacit atheism prevails. Death is assumed to be the end of
life. Our concentration on the here-and-now renders a thought of eternity
irrelevant.''
But the Cardinal, leader of 4.1
million Roman Catholics in England and Wales, went much further. The extent
to which Christianity informed modern culture and intellectual life in
Britain today had been hugely diminished, he told the National Conference
of Priests in Leeds.
''It does seem in our countries
in Britain today, especially in England and Wales, that Christianity, as
a sort of backdrop to people's lives and moral decisions - and to the Government,
the social life of the country - has now almost been vanquished.''
Increasing numbers of people now
gained their ''glimpses of the transcendant'' from involvement in music,
New Age movements and green issues. ''I could go on about this and talk
also about the rise in New Age and occult practices and the search being
made by young people for something in which, or someone in whom, they can
place their complete trust.''
People were seeking transient happiness
in alcohol, drugs, pornography and recreational sex, the Cardinal said.
''There is indifference to Christian
values and to the Church among many young people and, indeed, not only
the young. You see quite a demoralised society, one where the only good
is what I want, the only rights are my own, and the only life with any
meaning or value is the life I want for myself.''
In an apparent condemnation of both
Thatcherism and ''new'' Labour, the Cardinal gave warning of the excesses
of the free-market economy and consumerism. ''When we live in a culture
which says 'What I have got is what I am', we are in big trouble. Whilst
I understand that - to some degree - we are all consumers, this is something
we all enjoy a bit, it's quite clear that a sole reliance on the market
place does in the end actually prevent people from taking their destiny
into their own hands.
''There are many today who think
that to believe in God is to limit one's freedom.''
Confronting the problem of priests
who have sex with children, the Cardinal warned the Church against ''apathy''
and ''negligence''.
''All I want to say about this is
quite clear and simple. I do not try to make excuses for the past. Yes,
we must recognise the depth and the extent of the damage done to the Church
and its mission in these cases.''
He said priests, and especially
bishops, had not been sufficiently aware of the ''insidious'' and ''pathological''
nature of child abuse and had not treated all allegations with the seriousness
they merited.
