Cardinal Vincent Nichols has set out what Christians should demand of their Government ahead of May's General Election.
In the article for the Daily Telegraph the Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster, who travelled to Iraq to meet Christian refugees earlier this month, said that the future Government must be ready to “speak and act” in defence of persecuted religious groups.
“Any reluctance by a UK government to speak and act in this way, especially on behalf of Christian communities facing unprecedented persecution, would be particularly significant. It would undermine the mutual trust between our foremost religious faith and our public representatives that is so necessary for the wellbeing of our society,” he wrote.
Elsewhere he argued that society has a duty to respect the rights of believers – and that freedom of religion was a basic human right – but stressed that this freedom must not be used as a pretext to violate the freedoms of others.
This rational approach to religion was a bulwark against fundamentalism, he added.
“Religious fundamentalism and secularist ideology are joint contributors to a dangerous spiral of mistrust and antagonism that makes lasting solutions more difficult to attain,” he concluded.
He also called on the future Government to work in respectful partnership with religious groups and in particular to recognise parents’ right to access faith education and “for the meeting of spiritual needs in public services.”
“The harassment of those who have wished to provide services in accordance with their beliefs, when alternative services are readily available, has been understandably seen as the pursuit of an ideology and not of the common good,” he noted.
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