An Introduction to Persecution Examined by Bishop Philip Mountstephen

crime. After the murders (in the event he has to kill her half-sister as well) he finds, like the doctor, that he feels ill, he can't think, he can't function and he avoids his mother and sister. Indeed, we come back to Adam and Eve in Genesis. After they stole the apple, they hid from the Lord God and were cast out of the paradisal Garden.

Thus runs the argument that sin is in reality bad for you, and leads to illness. You can also begin from the other side and consider illness first. Is it always a bad thing? I remember another homily at another Mass that addressed this. I forget the context and the readings of the day, but the priest said that the Lord might not always send us good

things. Sometimes he might send us difficulties; sometimes he might allow us to become ill, for example, but it might be for the greater good that we become ill. This struck me as sensational because in the world of healthcare to say this is heresy; illness is the universal enemy and always bad. No one would question that maxim. Yet the priest said that illness might be sent for the greater good.

It happened that I left the church at the same time as he did, and I ventured to say that I liked his homily. I caught him by surprise and I saw for a moment that he was pleased. But that wasn't the right thing to say. I should have said why I liked it. For myself, I think it possible that an illness can save someone from a blindly unhappy life, and can bring a sense of meaning, a clearing of the way. Sometimes families can be brought together, love expressed, at the bedside of a gravely ill patient. Looking again to literature, Dickens has many of his male characters pass through illness as a sort of redemption before they get the girl, and live on happily in wedded bliss. Dick Swiveller in The Old Curiosity Shop, Eugene Wrayburn in Our Mutual Friend (though he, plot-spoiler-alert, has to be nursed back from a lifethreatening murder attempt) and Arthur Clennam in Little Dorrit are three such figures.

What is our Government’s Attitude?

Philip Mountstephen is the Anglican Bishop of Truro, who last year led an Enquiry into the persecution of Christians worldwide and the attitudes of the UK Government towards it. He spoke about the experience and his findings to the Catholic Union and here he introduces his talk, the main content of which will appear in the next editions of Oremus.

I had an unusual start to my Christmas last year when I was rung up by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who asked me if I’d be willing to lead a review of the way the Foreign Office, the FCO, had addressed - or otherwise – the persecution of Christians. It became clear that this was a request from the Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, himself, who was very moved by the issue and clearly concerned both about the human stories of those caught up in persecution, and worried too that the FCO, frankly, just wasn’t doing enough about it. To be honest it was terrible timing for me, not having even started in Truro, but it's a really important issue too, so I said yes.

And so we set up the Review, with a punishing six-month window in which to report. In the UK in recent years we’ve had some huge judicially led Public Inquiries, such as Savile, Leveson and Chilcot – but this was definitely not one of those. If they were full MRI and CAT scans, then we had a thumb and a thermometer: we have taken the temperature, we have felt the pulse. But actually, as doctors know, you can tell a lot just by doing that and while I wouldn’t go to the stake over every jot and tittle of the report I am nonetheless confident in the broad thrust of our conclusion and our recommendations.

But why was it needed? Over five years ago The Times published an editorial entitled Spectators at the Carnage. It began like this: ‘Across the globe, in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, Christians are being bullied, arrested, jailed, expelled and executed. Christianity is by most calculations the most persecuted religion of modern times. Yet Western politicians until now have been reluctant to speak out in support of Christians in peril.’ Well, happily, Jeremy Hunt was willing to speak out, and so we set the Review up. In some ways it seems as if the persecution of Christians has come out of clear blue sky. It was a real issue in the days of the Cold War when Christians and Churches in some contexts in the Soviet bloc experienced significant pressure. Post-1989, however, it seemed to recede – only to creep up on us by degrees in the intervening period.

There are two striking factors behind its re-emergence. First, where once it seemed only to be located behind the Iron Curtain, it has re-emerged now as a truly global phenomenon. But it is not a single global phenomenon: it has multiple triggers and drivers.The second striking factor is that because the reemergence of Christian persecution has been gradual, and has lacked a single driver, it has to some significant extent been overlooked in the West. And the Western response (or otherwise) has been tinged by a certain post-Christian bewilderment, if not embarrassment, about matters of faith, and a consequent failure to grasp how for the vast majority of the world’s inhabitants faith is crucial to how they see themselves and to how they behave. Faith and belief are simply not a leisure pursuit as we see it thought in this country, but are fundamental markers of identity, both individual and communal.

Entering into Holy Week

Philip Arkwright

Westminster Cathedral Choir’s latest CD recording is a programme of music from the richest of liturgical seasons: Holy Week. Timed for release with the start of Lent, the new CD takes in music from Palm Sunday and the Chrism Mass through to the great liturgies of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The new album is the first that the Cathedral Choir has made on the new record label Ad Fontes, founded by Buckfast Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery in Devon. The label aims specifically to promote and record the highest standard of choral and organ music from the Roman Catholic tradition. This rich heritage of repertoire – from the earliest Gregorian chants through to choral music of the present day – is represented on the new disc.

The Cathedral Choir’s staple diet of plainsong and polyphony – for which it is justly famous – includes masterpieces of the Renaissance by William Byrd and Tomás Luis de Victoria, alongside ancient Gregorian chants, including Pange lingua and Adoro te devote. These are woven together with later choral works, such as Anton Bruckner’s electrifying Christus factus est, and Maurice Duruflé’s Ubi caritas. Four of the Cathedral’s illustrious former Masters of Music – all of whom have contributed to the Church’s treasury of sacred music – are also represented on the recording; George Malcolm’s Ingrediente Domino – sung during the procession of palms on Palm Sunday - opens the disc. Unrecorded works by more recent holders of the post are included in the music for Maundy Thursday, and the sequence culminates in a setting of St John Henry Newman’s poem Praise to the Holiest in the height by Sir Richard Runciman Terry, the Cathedral’s pioneering Master of Music.

Many takes go together to make up the final recording

In a departure from their previous recordings, the Choir took the opportunity to travel to Buckfast Abbey to make the CD. For chorister Ethan Uggoda, this was a new experience. He writes: ‘Buckfast Abbey stands tall at the edge of Dartmoor National Park, surrounded by the sea of green in the beautiful Devon countryside. Last Spring, we travelled to these tranquil surroundings to record a new CD of music for Holy Week. This was the first album I had ever recorded with the Cathedral Choir, and the relentless repetition of the recording sessions was surprising to me. The number of attempts it took to get some pieces perfectly right was different from what we are used to in London, where we sing daily to a live congregation. The recording took four days, with two recording sessions each day. Although at times the process was tiring, we had great fun making it. In between the sessions we made the most of our surroundings and had nature hikes, climbed trees, swam in the stream and even had a ride on a steam train. It was a wonderful week away and I hope it will be the first of many such recordings!’

The new CD is accompanied by a booklet containing full-page photos from the recording sessions and the Cathedral archive, notes on the music, and an essay by Peter Stevens, the Cathedral’s Assistant Master of Music, which places the pieces recorded on the disc specifically into the context of Holy Week at the Cathedral. The Choir’s new album, Vexilla Regis – A sequence of music from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday, is available to purchase now from the Cathedral Shop or from the website www.adfontes.org.uk, where more information about the recording, including preview tracks and promotional video, is available. Philip Arkwright is Director of Music at Buckfast Abbey

The Cathedral Night Shelter

‘They are all sons and daughters of God, but different forms of slavery, sometimes very complex, have led them to live at the limits of human dignity’ – Pope Francis

James Coeur-de-Lion

The Winter Night Shelter has been running in Cathedral Hall for several years now and began again in December 2019. It has been a delight to serve those in desperate need of support by providing them with meals and a place to stay. Working with a wonderful volunteer support team who take great joy in this ministry to the guests that arrive to our shelter, we break up into three teams, to look after the evening, night time and following morning.

The volunteers give so much of their energy and time to help set up, provide food and most importantly to engage with the guests. The fundamental part of being present in the Night Shelter is to have an encounter with the guests. This begins with recognising that in every human being there we see our Brother, our Sister. When each of the volunteers encounters the guests in this way, they are able to communicate at a far deeper and more meaningful level where heart speaks to heart. It is not merely the day-to-day understanding of what is happening for each guest, but more about who they are, where they are from and what they would like to aim towards. In this way, we are able to make a closer encounter, a more personal one where we become more than just passers-by in the life of each guest, but rather a Brother or a Sister.

I am overwhelmed by the generosity of the volunteers who assist with the Shelter. It reminds me that in a world which at times finds many seeking their own interest, there are even more souls who desire to be Christ-like, to offer themselves in being present with those most in need in society – a self-giving love which asks nothing in return. One of the volunteers, when asked what experience they felt in the work they were undertaking, said how lovely the guests were and

how she had shared common interests with one of them in particular. She was also pleased to hear how many of them were doing their best to find employment, with the help of St Mungo's outreach co-ordinators.

Due to the varied backgrounds of the guests, we pay particular attention to their emotional state when they arrive, in order to provide them with their personal space. This is something the guests appreciate very much. One of them has mentioned how safe, comfortable and happy they feel at the Cathedral Shelter and how having a place to stay each night has given them time to reflect and plan for their next steps in life. In this month, Pope Francis has asked us specifically to remember that: ‘Christ came into the world to bring love, justice, peace, and freedom’; and this is what we desire to bring to our Brothers and Sisters when we encounter them at the Cathedral Night Shelter. James is the Sub-Administrator’s Assistant and therefore involved in a number of aspects of Cathedral life.