As the UK’s first Roman Catholic Prime Minister gets his feet under the table, articles continue to appear about the impact his Catholic faith might have on the way he does the job.
An article appeared in the Guardian a week or so ago, by Guardian associate editor, Julian Coman, who reflected on the shared experience of he and Andy Burnham as Catholic altar boys, and the common culture of northern Catholicism in which they had grown up. He talks about a distinctive world view based on the social teaching of papal encyclicals in the 1980s and the sermons of the then Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Derek Worlock, who, according to the article, “emphasised fraternity, solidarity and mutual obligation”, observing in 1990, “I am my brother’s keeper. And he’s sleeping pretty rough these days.”
This is set in distinct contrast to the prevailing Thatcherism of the day, based on self-reliance and the Protestant work ethic which Mrs T inherited from her lay-preacher father. Of course she famously said ‘there is no such thing as society’, coming from a Protestant emphasis on individual responsibility.
Burnham’s much-quoted citing of his chief influences as ‘Everton FC, the Labour party and the Catholic church’, indicate, claims the author, “a quite different sensibility; one which finds meaning and truth in relationships and social institutions, and is at heart convivial.”
Sometimes it is great to be an Anglican because we can step aside from the apparent disputes between Catholicism and Protestantism. Except we can’t – because both sides of the argument find their adherents within our theologically and politically broadly based church!
Read Julian Coman’s article in the Guardian here.
Picture above: Liverpool’s Catholic Cathedral. Photograph © Andrew Dunn, 4 December 2005. http://www.andrewdunnphoto.com/. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.