Lady Warsi Gets Rapturous Reception at Vatican for Speech on Faith

By Tom Kington in Vatican City

Lady Warsi’s call to fight “intolerant secularism” and “give faith a seat at the table” in the UK was given a rapturous reception at the Vatican on Tuesday when she spoke to an audience of trainee Catholic diplomats.

The Muslim cabinet minister’s speech kicked off a visit by six UK ministers to the Vatican which will culminate on Wednesday with a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI. The group is lodging in quarters used by cardinals at conclaves.

Warsi quoted from Benedict’s speech about putting religion back on the political agenda that he made at Westminster Hall during his UK visit in September 2010, adding that the pope had personally congratulated her after she said governments should “do God”.

On Tuesday the Vatican said it was “really happy” Warsi had come to speak. It gave her a page one slot for an opinion piece in its daily newspaper, and the Holy See’s future diplomatic corp was out in force to hear her.

“We are right behind her,” said Father David Charters, a British student at the academy. “Recognising the Judeo-Christian roots of British cultural heritage is our bread and butter.”
Father Mark Langham, a British priest working at the Vatican’s Council for Christian Unity who was in the crowd, agreed. “What she is saying links up with the pope’s well-pitched invitation at Westminster Hall to see what faith has to offer and take advantage.”

Cardinal Francois Mamberti, the Vatican’s secretary for foreign relations, who will be shepherding the UK ministers around the Vatican’s corridors, was measured in his praise. “Her opinions respond to our point of view – they form part of a shared patrimony.”

Warsi dwelled in her speech on her Muslim upbringing by her Pakistani parents in the UK’s Christian culture, an experience which she said had taught her “that being sure of who you are is the only way in which you will be more accommodating of others”.

“Only when you realise that the Other does not jeopardise who you are can you truly accept and not merely tolerate the presence of difference,” she said. Sending her daughter to a Christian school had reinforced her Muslim identity, she said.

Interfaith dialogue did not work where “faiths are dumbed down in order to find common ground”, she said, blaming a “well-intentioned liberal elite who are trying to create equality by marginalising faith in society”.

“One of the arguments of the liberal elite is that faith and reason are incompatible. But they don’t realise, as the Holy Father has argued for many years, that faith and reason go hand in hand.”

The speech strongly backed some of the campaigns that Benedict has made central to his papacy, including his defence of the “unrenounceable Christian roots of [our] culture and civilisation”, which, Warsi added, “shine through our politics, our public life, our culture, our economics, our language and our architecture”.

Religion had caused bloodshed, she admitted, “but trying to erase this history or blind ourselves to the role of religion on our continent is wrong”.

Picking up on a long-time Vatican complaint, Warsi lamented the fact that there was “not even a word about Christianity in the preface of the European constitution” because of “what the Holy Father called ‘the increasing marginalisation of religion’ during his speech in Westminster Hall”.

By asserting that “for centuries, Christianity in Europe has been inspiring, motivating, strengthening and improving our societies,”

Warsi echoed Benedict’s claim that religion was an ally of freedom and an enemy of tyranny.

Warsi said the Catholic church had been instrumental in toppling communism and securing peace in Northern Ireland.

She said the UK government was now firmly behind “giving faith a seat at the table in public life.”

guardian.co.uk