Magna Carta praised

Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney says Magna Carta, 800 years old this year, is “a very religious document”, writes Mark Brolly. Preaching in St Mary’s Cathedral on 2 February at the Red Mass marking the start of the legal year, Archbishop Fisher said: “The first right recognised in the Magna Carta was religious liberty; the ‘ecclesia Anglicana’ was to be free to enjoy her liberties ‘unimpaired’.” He pointed to the beheading for their faith “even of children” in Syria and Iraq, the burning of churches “sometimes with entire congregations inside” in Nigeria and Pakistan, and exclusion of religious voices from public life by “totalitarian secularists” as challenges for us today.