Longley says Church must not view world as hostile

The Church must stop looking at the world as hostile to Christian faith, the Archbishop of Birmingham has said, writes Christopher Lamb.

Delivering a homily for local political leaders, Archbishop Bernard Longley said that one of the principal aims of the Second Vatican Council of reaching out to the world in dialogue still needed to be realised.

“Fifty years on, we still need to look at the world not as an enemy that is indifferent or even hostile to the message of the Gospel, but as the place where God’s salvation has already reached into people’s lives through the love of his Son Jesus Christ,” the archbishop said at the annual Civic Mass at St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham, last Sunday.

“As a demonstration of our Christian faith, we need above all to find ever fresh ways to show the love of God for the world he made and cherishes.”

His remarks appeared to strike a different tone to that of the Bishop of Shrewsbury, Mark Davies, who in a pastoral letter this month said that Christians in Britain at times experience antagonism to their faith. 

Last week, The Tablet reported that Birmingham had axed the Nativity trail, organised by the city’s art gallery, which featured religious paintings and was praised by the archbishop and other Christian leaders. The trail had been stopped due to funding cuts. 

In his homily, Archbishop Longley did not mention the Nativity trail, but instead noted the presence of the crib in Birmingham’s city centre in the German Market as a “powerful reminder of God’s love come into the world”.

He pointed out that faith must be linked to action and praised the “generous outreach” of the work of faith communities in the city. He singled out the Anawim project in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, which supports women caught up in prostitution and drug abuse, run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity and the Father Hudson’s Society.