The claim to the title "Christian"

I am prompted to reflect on the claim to the use of the title "Christian" by some recent events. On two occasions recently, the Christian symbol of the Cross has been displayed at political demonstrations in London, thereby appropriating to the intentions of those demonstrations the title "Christian". In the United States, the Turning Point movement, essentially political in character, has used the Christian faith of its founder to appropriate a Christian character to the movement. There is also the claim to identify Britain as a Christian country, expressed eloquently by Danny Kruger speaking in the House of Commons:

When I speak of the Church of England today, I am not speaking about the internal politics of the Anglican sect; I speak of the common creed of our country, the official religion of the English and the British nation, and the institution—older than the monarchy, and much older than Parliament—which made this country.

I have three observations:

1. Beware of a use of the term "Christian" in way that leaves an exact meaning unexpressed. In this usage it might refer to anything from structured Christian bodies, such as the Episcopalian Church in the United States or the Church of England in Britain, to completely independent congregations via networks of Evangelical (mega-) churches. In this usage, exactly who or what is the "Christian" that is referenced? If we are not careful, the use of the term has such wide range of possible references that it becomes empty of substantial meaning.

2. Beware of a politics that is, first of all and in principle, a politics but which then wishes to add to itself the descriptor "Christian". This remains first and foremost a politics and, even if its advocates might profess a Christian faith (but see point 1 above), that does not allow the political stance in itself to be called "Christian". As might be said on the London Underground, we need to "mind the gap" and not permit the "Christian" claim of such a politics to establish for it an unwarranted credibility.

3. There are politicians who profess a Christian faith and, on the basis of that faith, advocate for certain positions in their public life. This, however, is a somewhat inverse of the position described at point 2 above. See the words of Pope Benedict below.

But rather than trying to create a politics that wishes to claim a title of "Christian", Pope Benedict XVI and, more recently, Pope Leo XIV have advocated for a "healthy secularity" in the world of culture and politics.

Pope Benedict XVI, speaking in Westminster Hall during his visit to the United Kingdom in 2010:

The central question at issue, then, is this: where is the ethical foundation for political choices to be found? The Catholic tradition maintains that the objective norms governing right action are accessible to reason, prescinding from the content of revelation. According to this understanding, the role of religion in political debate is not so much to supply these norms, as if they could not be known by non-believers – still less to propose concrete political solutions, which would lie altogether outside the competence of religion – but rather to help purify and shed light upon the application of reason to the discovery of objective moral principles. This “corrective” role of religion vis-à-vis reason is not always welcomed, though, partly because distorted forms of religion, such as sectarianism and fundamentalism, can be seen to create serious social problems themselves. And in their turn, these distortions of religion arise when insufficient attention is given to the purifying and structuring role of reason within religion. It is a two-way process. Without the corrective supplied by religion, though, reason too can fall prey to distortions, as when it is manipulated by ideology, or applied in a partial way that fails to take full account of the dignity of the human person. Such misuse of reason, after all, was what gave rise to the slave trade in the first place and to many other social evils, not least the totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century. This is why I would suggest that the world of reason and the world of faith – the world of secular rationality and the world of religious belief – need one another and should not be afraid to enter into a profound and ongoing dialogue, for the good of our civilization.

 Pope Leo XIV speaking to a working group on inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue:

European institutions need people who know how to live a healthy secularism, that is, a style of thinking and acting that affirms the value of religion while preserving the distinction — not separation or confusion — from the political sphere.  In particular, it is worth noting the examples of Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer and Alcide De Gasperi.

Jubilee of the World of Work

 A Jubilee for workers was due to take place during the days 1st-4th May 2025, but was not able to take place following the death of Pope Francis. On 8th November 2025, a celebration of a Jubilee for Workers will take place.

In September 1981, Pope St John Paul II issued his Encyclical Letter Laborem Exercens, dedicated to the principles of the idea of human work and to discussing the contemporary problems relating to human work.

From the beginning therefore [man] is called to work. Work is one of the characteristics that distinguish man from the rest of creatures, whose activity for sustaining their lives cannot be called work. Only man is capable of work, and only man works, at the same time by work occupying his existence on earth. Thus work bears a particular mark of man and of humanity, the mark of a person operating within a community of persons. And this mark decides its interior characteristics; in a sense it constitutes its very nature.

Starting from an analysis of the teaching of the Book of Genesis (Gen.1:28) - "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it" - John Paul II presents work in both its objective and subjective senses. He first suggests that work is something characteristic of the human person that identifies the human person apart from other creatures. The objective sense of work lies in the nature of the actual tasks undertaken, and John Paul outlines how this has changed over time, developing from a largely manual form of work to an increasingly mechanised form.

Understood in this case not as a capacity or aptitude for work, but rather as a whole set of instruments which man uses in his work, technology is undoubtedly man's ally. It facilitates his work, perfects, accelerates and augments it. It leads to an increase in the quantity of things produced by work, and in many cases improves their quality. However, it is also a fact that, in some instances, technology can cease to be man's ally and become almost his enemy, as when the mechanization of work "supplants" him, taking away all personal satisfaction and the incentive to creativity and responsibility, when it deprives many workers of their previous employment, or when, through exalting the machine, it reduces man to the status of its slave.

This development towards an ever more technological form of work, viewed in its objective sense, brings to the fore the question of work in its subjective sense:

Man has to subdue the earth and dominate it, because as the "image of God" he is a person, that is to say, a subjective being capable of acting in a planned and rational way, capable of deciding about himself, and with a tendency to self-realization. As a person, man is therefore the subject of work. As a person he works, he performs various actions belonging to the work process; independently of their objective content, these actions must all serve to realize his humanity, to fulfil the calling to be a person that is his by reason of his very humanity. ...

...the basis for determining the value of human work is not primarily the kind of work being done but the fact that the one who is doing it is a person. The sources of the dignity of work are to be sought primarily in the subjective dimension, not in the objective one.

...This does not mean that, from the objective point of view, human work cannot and must not be rated and qualified in any way. It only means that the primary basis of the value of work is man himself, who is its subject. This leads immediately to a very important conclusion of an ethical nature: however true it may be that man is destined for work and called to it, in the first place work is "for man" and not man "for work". 

 From this starting point, John Paul goes on to discuss in detail the contemporary situation of the world of work. But this reflection itself can already prompt individuals to look at their own experience of work, and ask how they can try to achieve that agency with regard to their work that will allow them to more effectively act as a subject rather than a slave of their work. And it also brings to the attention of those fortunate enough to be able to work that long term unemployment represents an undermining of the dignity of the person.

Jubilee of the World of Education

The Jubilee of the world of education will take place in the days 27th October - 1st November, with the declaration of St John Henry Newman as a doctor of the Church to take place during the concluding Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV. A wide range of events are organised for the days of this Jubilee, as can be seen by following the link above. Perhaps of particular note is an International Congress that marks the 60th anniversary of the Declaration on Christian Education Gravissimum Educationis.

The then Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education issued a document Catholic Schools in March 1977.  That document suggests a two fold integration as the intention of the work of a Catholic school, an integration of faith and culture and an integration of faith and life:

n.49 (cf n.38-39, 44). The specific mission of the school, then, is a critical systematic transmission of culture in the light of faith and the bringing forth of the power of Christian virtue by the integration of culture with faith and faith with living.

In his Apostolic Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Pope St John Paul II described the identity of the Catholic university, as both university and as Catholic:

12. Every Catholic University, as a university, is an academic community which, in a rigorous and critical fashion, assists in the protection and advancement of human dignity and of a cultural heritage through research, teaching and various services offered to the local, national and international communities. It possesses that institutional autonomy necessary to perform its functions effectively and guarantees its members academic freedom, so long as the rights of the individual person and of the community are preserved within the confines of the truth and the common good.

13. Since the objective of a Catholic University is to assure in an institutional manner a Christian presence in the university world confronting the great problems of society and culture, every Catholic University, as Catholic, must have the following essential characteristics:

"1. a Christian inspiration not only of individuals but of the university community as such;

2. a continuing reflection in the light of the Catholic faith upon the growing treasury of human knowledge, to which it seeks to contribute by its own research;

3. fidelity to the Christian message as it comes to us through the Church;

4. an institutional commitment to the service of the people of God and of the human family in their pilgrimage to the transcendent goal which gives meaning to life".

Together, schools and universities are perhaps the main, though not exclusive, ways in which the Church is present in the world of education.

St John Henry Newman, to be declared a Doctor of the Church on the closing day of this Jubilee, perhaps summarised all of this for his own times in a sermon entitled "Intellect, the Instrument of Religious Training":

Here, then, I conceive, is the object of the Holy See and the Catholic Church in setting up universities; it is to re-unite things which were in the beginning joined together by God, and have been put asunder by man. ... I wish the intellect to range with the utmost freedom, and religion to enjoy an equal freedom; but what I am stipulating for is that they should be found in one and the same place, and exemplified in the same persons. ... It will not satisfy me if religion is here, and science there, and young men converse with science all day, and lodge with religion in the evening.  ...I want the same roof to contain both the intellectual and moral discipline. 

Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies

 A Jubilee dedicated to Synodal Teams and other participatory bodies in the Church is being held 24th - 26th October 2025. It is being held under the aegis of the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops. I should, perhaps, declare a certain bias in my own sense of the process of Synodality to which this particular Jubilee refers - see An Aside on Synodality. An explanation of the working of the Synod of Bishops (in general, not just referring to the current Synod on Synodality) can be found here: The Synod. It is possible to recognise in the changes introduced by Pope Francis the pattern of preparatory, discussion and implementation phases that are a feature of the Synod on Synodality and which now would apply to every meeting of the Synod. 

One of the features of the Synodal process that may have been experienced in parishes, and will be the subject of one of the workshops at the Jubilee, is that of Conversations in the Spirit: see here and here. 

Watching the video clip, its three rounds reminded me of the "See, Judge, Act" of Cardinal Cardijn's Young Christian Workers (YCW). There is an account of one such Young Christian Workers meeting that has a specific family connection. During the section meeting one week my mother apparently could only think to mention that she had received a pay rise. This was during the "See" part of the meeting, when each member of the section mentioned some activity since the previous week's meeting. It became apparent that another girl in the group, who worked in a different factory, had not had a pay rise. This triggered a chain of events in which my mother introduced this girl to her trade union, and then to the establishment of the union in what had previously been a non- union factory. In due course, mother received a letter from the Secretary of the local branch of the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers (NUTGW) thanking her for the work she had undertaken to get the union established in that factory. 

We found that letter amongst mother's things after she died ... and there then followed a chain of research into the whole story, both from the point of view of that particular YCW section (I have some letters from mother's then YCW colleagues, including from the girl she first recruited to the NUTGW) and the situation of the cotton industry at the time. 

This particular "Conversation in the Spirit" took place in ....  1942.

I have only just realised that Pope St John XXIII explicitly referred to the "See, Judge, Act" methodology in his Encyclical Letter Mater et Magistra of 1961 (nn.236-237), and we might see that as a foreshadowing of the practice of Conversation in the Spirit:

There are three stages which should normally be followed in the reduction of social principles into practice. First, one reviews the concrete situation; secondly, one forms a judgment on it in the light of these same principles; thirdly, one decides what in the circumstances can and should be done to implement these principles. These are the three stages that are usually expressed in the three terms: look, judge, act.

It is important for our young people to grasp this method and to practice it. Knowledge acquired in this way does not remain merely abstract, but is seen as something that must be translated into action.

Jubilee of Roma, Sinti and Travelling Peoples

 A Jubilee of Travelling Peoples is being marked in Rome on 18th October 2025. The main event looks as if it will be an extended meeting with Pope Leo XIV, followed by the opportunity to make a pilgrimage through the Holy Door at St Peter's Basilica. It seems particularly appropriate for this meeting to be taking place as part of Jubilee with the theme "Pilgrims of Hope", given the itinerant traditions of the different travelling peoples.

In England, the major gathering of Travelling Peoples each year is the Appleby Horse Fair. This takes place in early June each year and represents a massive undertaking on the part of the local community as it welcomes tens of thousands of visitors to what is a small market town.

The Marian shrine of Lourdes also welcomes an annual pilgrimage of travelling peoples (in French, "gens du voyage"), usually during August. Though the shrine itself is accustomed to welcoming large numbers of pilgrims, the accomodating of the many caravans of the travelling people requires the same sort of co-operation of the local authorities that takes place in Appleby.

On 26th November 1965, Pope St Paul VI visited an international encampment of travelling peoples on pilgrimage from all over Europe on the outskirts of Rome. The weather was awful, with persistent rain, but this appears not to have dampened the enthusiasm of those who welcomed the Holy Father. Pope Paul opened his homily with this greeting:

Our greeting to you, perpetual pilgrims; to you, voluntary exiles; to you, refugees always on the road; to you, travellers without rest! To you, without your own house, without a fixed home, without a homeland, without a public society! To you, who lack qualified work, lack social contact, lack sufficient means!

When Pope Benedict XVI met with gypsy pilgrims in June 2011 he reminded them of this earlier meeting with Paul VI: 

You have come to Rome from every part of Europe to express your faith and your love for Christ and for the Church — which is a home to you all — and for the Pope. The Servant of God Paul VI addressed these unforgettable words to Gypsies in 1965: “In the Church you are not on the fringes of society but in some respects in its centre, in its heart. You are in the heart of the Church”. Today too I repeat with affection: you are in the Church! You are a beloved portion of the pilgrim People of God and remind us that here “we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come” (Heb 13:14). 

In his turn, Pope Francis met with a pilgrimage of gypsies undertaken to mark the 50th anniversary of that first meeting with Pope St Paul VI:

Many of you come from afar and have undertaken a long journey to come here. Welcome! I thank you for wishing to commemorate together the historic meeting of Blessed Paul VI with the nomadic people. Fifty years have passed since he came to visit you in the Camp at Pomezia. The Pope spoke to your grandparents and parents with fatherly care, saying: “Wherever you stop you are considered a bother and a stranger [...] Here not so; [...] here you find someone who loves you, esteems you, appreciates you and assists you”. With these words, he spurred the Church to a pastoral commitment with your people, encouraging you too at the same time to trust her.  

An aside on Synodality

 Rightly or wrongly, and perhaps the latter rather than the former, I have found it difficult to really grasp what has been intended by the term "synodality" and the extensive efforts in its regard at the different levels in the life of the Church. I have found it difficult to truly differentiate it from the idea of "co-responsibility" of which Cardinal Suenens might be seen as an advocate in the years shortly after Vatican II. I have also found it difficult to place "synodality" in relation to the "ecclesiology of communion" that might be seen as a balance to the idea of "co-responsibility". Perhaps some care should be taken, however, in summarizing like this in order to avoid falling for the perceptions that might accompany these different terms rather than the realities intended by their respective authors.

Be that as it may, I was intrigued by the terms in which Pope Leo XIV recently encouraged those taking part in the Jubilee of Consecrated Life to continue to engage with the synodal process. He chose to cite a paragraph from Pope St Paul VI first Encyclical Letter, Ecclesiam Suam. That paragraph (n.113 in the English version at the website of the Holy See, n.117 in the Italian) describes a third "circle" of dialogue that Pope Paul suggests for the Church:

We address Ourself finally to the sons of God's house, the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church of which the Roman Church is "mother and head." How greatly we desire that this dialogue with Our own children may be conducted with the fullness of faith, with charity, and with dynamic holiness. May it be of frequent occurrence and on an intimate level. May it be open and responsive to all truth, every virtue, every spiritual value that goes to make us the heritage of Christian teaching. We want it to be sincere. We want it to be an inspiration to genuine holiness. We want it to show itself ready to listen to the variety of views which are expressed in the world today. We want it to be the sort of dialogue that will make Catholics virtuous, wise, unfettered, fair-minded and strong.

After this citation, Pope Leo went on to say (my own translation from the Italian):

It is the description of an exciting mission: a "domestic dialogue" that today is also entrusted to you, and to you in a special way, for an ongoing renewal of the Body of Christ in its relations, in its processes, in its methods. Your life, the very way in which you are organised, the often international and intercultural character of your institutes, place you in a privileged condtion to be able to live each day values such as reciprocal listening, participation, the sharing of opinions and abilities, a shared search for ways according to the voice of the Spirit. 

Can I, after all, assimilate the idea of "synodality" to that of "dialogue"? 

Jubilee of Marian Spirituality

The inclusion of the teaching of Vatican Council II on the Virgin Mary as a chapter in the Constitution on the Church, rather than as a separate document in its own right, suggests to us that every aspect of the Church's life has in some way a Marian dimension. In this light, a specific Jubilee dedicated to Marian spirituality, to be marked in the days 11th-12th October 2025, appears either to be unnecessary or to represent a celebration of the Church's life as a whole. 

The invitation to the Jubilee is described as follows:

All members of the movements, confraternities and various Marian prayer groups are particularly invited to this jubilee event.

The orginal statue of Our Lady of Fatima will be present in Rome for the Jubilee, and is a particular focus for the events of the Jubilee. The invitation, and the presence of the Fatima statue, place the focus on that aspect of the Marian life of the Church that might be covered by the term "popular piety". It is worth recalling that, as Pope Francis suggested in Evangelii Gaudium nn.122-126, the various expressions of popular piety should be seen as an inculturation of the Gospel, as a way in which a people embed a presence of their Christian faith in their daily lives and in the daily lives of those among whom they live. Different forms of Marian spirituality can easily be recognised as precisely this way of embedding Christian presence in a culture.

One element of the Marian spirituality being marked by this Jubilee is pilgrimage to Marian shrines. Some shrines, such as Lourdes and Fatima, have gained an international reach. Many countries have a national shrine to the Virgin Mary where devotion might reflect something of the local character of the people or of the place. Not infrequently, such a shrine will reflect a founding grace which gives to the devotion expressed at that shrine a specific character. The National Shrine for England at Walsingham, for example, offers a sense of the house of Nazareth as a distinctive aspect of its spirituality. There are also more local devotions such as the Lancaster diocesan shrine at Ladyewell, which has a particular historical context proper to that part of the country.

A second element is that of prayer groups, often based in meeting to pray the Rosary, with a specifically Marian devotion. Such prayer groups may arise with a certain spontaneity and may not have the specific connection to a place that belongs with a shrine. But nevertheless, for those who take part in them, they represent an embedding of their faith in their everyday lives.

Viewed from the point of view of the Church's liturgical life, these examples of popular Marian piety should both derive from the liturgy and lead back to it. Whilst seen in isolation they may appear to exist in parallel to the wider life of the Church, they are lived authentically when they are inserted into that wider life. The many different formulas contained in the Collection of Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary and celebrations that occur in the universal and local calendars manifest this relationship between the Liturgy and devotional life.