35: Don't be ashamed of being Catholic

Episode 35: Nigel explains something of his father's now-completed faith journey. From his own experience, he shares rich insights on justice, truth, Catholic social teaching, and 'reinserting Christianity into the public debate'.


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Transcript

 You are listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro. My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways, we're living our faith today. Pope Francis has used the image of a caravan. A diverse group of people travelling together. On a sometimes chaotic journey together. That's an image that has helped shape this podcast. I hope you'll feel encouraged and affirmed and maybe challenged at times. I am too in these conversations. 

So listeners, I'm looking forward to today's conversation. I'm being joined by Nigel. Hello, Nigel. 

Hello, Theresa. 

And I think there's gonna be lots of really interesting material to have a little talk about today. So why don't we start, Nigel, with your childhood as I often do. Were you born into a Catholic family?

Well, yes, I was. I was born in Essex to a Catholic mother and an Anglican father. In those days, that's the 1950’s. In the normal way, my father agreed that any children would be brought up as Catholic, and that's what happened. I went to Catholic schools. I'm told that my mother used to take us children to Mass. And one day when I was maybe 3 or 4, I refused to go to Mass because Dad didn't come with us. And when my mother told him that, he said, Well, I'd better come then. And I think he came from that day on for the rest of his life. So he came to Mass with us but he didn't become a Catholic for -  until, in fact, the age of 80. It's an interesting thing how that came about because we were very used to the idea that Mum is Catholic and Dad is Anglican. And it became a sort of, you know, a bit of a family joke in a way. We said Dad would only become Catholic if they let him be Pope. We kinda made a joke of it. And one day, we did that at the dinner table, and he said, with a bit of seriousness, he said, You know what? None of you have ever really asked me to be Catholic. That gave me some pause. I thought, Well, he's right. We just - it would be too embarrassing, too personal in a way to ask him seriously and directly. But that set me on a train of thinking, and I did encourage him. I gave him, some things to read, and I think a rosary. Well, then a priest came to the parish who also took an interest in him in that respect. It was still quite difficult. You know, he was 78, 79 at that point, but he'd been Anglican all his life. He felt in a sense when I asked him about it, there were a few issues he was not a little bit uncomfortable out with the church, but he also felt a sense of betrayal, I think. He'd been baptised, confirmed as an Anglican, and that worried him a little bit. Anyhow, I tried to deal with all those issues. And in the end, I wrote him a letter. It was too difficult to say it all face to face, tried to answer his concerns. Ultimately, that led to him going to see the parish priest. He didn't really have much time for formal instruction because the priest was about to retire, and he wasn't very keen on doing the RCIA. So I'm sorry to tell you that the only formal instruction he had, apart from coming to Mass for 50 years, was two questions from the parish priest. Do you believe what it says in the creed, and do you accept the Pope as the head of the church? And my father said yes to those two questions, and he was received the following Sunday. That's not a perfect model of being received into the church, is it?  But that is actually what happened. And for the remaining 16 years of his life, he died in August last year, he was very happy as a Catholic. My mother was astonished. She couldn't believe that after, I don't know, 50 years of marriage, he had finally become a Catholic.  And then he got, as I thought he would, he got quite keen on it. He threw himself into everything that he did. So sure enough, when he became a Catholic, he would see, read in the bulletin, you know, Stations of the Cross. So, well, should we go to that? Or whatever. Yes let's go to that. He liked to go to things and play a full part in whatever he joined, so very much valued having become a Catholic. And I was very pleased that he was able to receive the last rites of the church about a week before he died. 

I just let you tell that whole story, Nigel, because it's just so amazing. I'm glad that you've come from a background where one parent was Anglican and one parent was Catholic because I don't think we've had that before amongst our guests. People have either come from a family where both parents were Catholic or they've become a Catholic later in life. So that's a little first, a very common situation, actually, but a little first for podcast listeners, so I'm really glad about that. But then this amazing journey for your father over all those years, becoming a Catholic. You've packed in there so much of your own support for him in the ways that you were able to that I think will really resonate with listeners. Thank you for sharing all of that.

You're welcome. 

I'm astounded how quickly you've brought out such an amazing story there from your own experience. Thank you. 

I'll just add a couple of things to that. One is that, yes, he wasn't, you know, really interested in theology or academic kind of argument, but two things, I think two people he was impressed by were Cardinal Hume and Pope John Paul the second. And I think he felt they were both men of great integrity and spirituality, and I think that also had played its part in leading him to the idea of being Catholic. 

Now that's interesting. Let's just see if we can unpick that a little bit. What was it that spoke to him of integrity? 

Well, I think, to be honest, you know, the Catholic Church tends to be a bit clearer about its doctrine than, let's say, the Church of England. And perhaps what I'm really saying is he was less impressed by some of the leadership in the Church of England, which does change a bit and is a bit less definite about some of its teaching. So I think that was probably what it was, a consistency. And I think with Cardinal Hume especially, there's a sense of a man of great spirituality, which is evident to see. I think he would admire people who were clear about what they believed and what they taught and kept to it. 

That's really helpful. Thank you. And then if we may return to you, Nigel. So you said you went to Catholic schools, and then I'm gonna skip on a little bit. Well, we might just ask actually, while you were at school, was your faith - was it something you were aware of being a Catholic, or was it just sort of the sea you swam in? Was your faith important to you?

I think it was, actually. This is a pretty vague recollection, but I do remember my confirmation. I have a feeling that I thought to myself, I think I just will believe this somehow. There was some sort of either will, or decision, or sense that yes, I will believe this and I will continue to believe it, but I won't give it up. In a way, I think that has stayed the same. I won't say there have been some incidents along the way, but generally, I think I've had this sense that it's right and it's true, even if it's a bit inconvenient sometimes. So I didn't have great crises of doubt and so on. And I think I quite happily went to a Catholic secondary school. They had Mass in the chapel every morning, Jesuit Foundation School in Hornchurch. And I used to go to Mass, you know, now and again on weekday mornings. We had weekly Mass of the whole school. Benediction every Friday afternoon. Sometimes the teacher would come in and make the sign of the cross, you say the Hail Mary before a class. So Catholicism was woven into the school. All the others were Catholic. It was easy if you like to be Catholic. I don't think we all talked about it a great deal. We had discussions, I suppose, in the later years. What's interesting is, this is the seventies: Religious knowledge classes, RE, was hardly taught in the sort of way that it might be taught according to a syllabus. Most of the classes were kind of discussion sessions. What's on the mind of the 4th Form today, the chaplain would say. I don't think there was even an option of doing a Religious Knowledge O-level. So on the one hand, that's rather bad, isn't it? So I didn't really have a systematic appreciation of Catholic theology. On the other hand, it was sort of good because what I discovered about it, I discovered for myself. I remember discovering my mother's and, indeed, my grandmother's prayer book in a drawer at home from the, what, the 1930s, 1940s, all these amazing prayers and indulgences, and a whole treasury, let's say, of Catholicism of which I hadn't really come across before. I wasn't taught it. I don't think I was even taught the Angelus, for example. So I kind of felt I discovered that for myself, and therefore, it wasn't being, you know, thrust down my throat. And at home, we didn't have, as people sometimes tell you, you know, the family rosary every night at 7 o'clock. My family was never like that. So I didn't feel pressure from home or from school to be a great devout Catholic. But I was - I found myself interested in what I discovered, and it was my own journey. And I think I guess I enjoyed the autonomy of that. Without that pressure, I think I then got more interested in going a bit more deeply into things.

I can hear that. That's really interesting. Having grown up in an environment where you were, you know, looking at your faith for yourself and also around lots of Catholic people and having opportunities to talk and to pray and be part of the practices of Catholic faith: What was it like then going to work where, I presume, you were meeting people who were not from a Catholic background, perhaps for the first time? 

Well, can I actually talk about university before work? Because I think that's probably quite helpful in a way. Of course, it's there that I really came across people from a non- Catholic background for the first time. I went to university and, you know, went to the Catholic chaplaincy, became part of that. There was a process of maturity, I think, at university in terms of faith. And I remember when I first went there being very open- minded. In the 1st week you come across the Christian Union, probably in any university, evangelical, Protestant, Christian Union, pretty hard line, pretty anti-Catholic actually, but quite strong, you know, forceful. And so I think I thought, Well, I must be friends with everybody and everybody's sort of on the same page, must be nice to everyone and went to a few of their things, I suppose, and wondered what I thought about it. Yeah. I think I was feeling a bit unsure about the proper relationship between being Catholic and other Christian denominations. I think my faith really for adulthood was shaped by two particular sermons given at the Catholic chaplaincy by the then chaplain Father Christopher Jenkins. And he gave one sermon about the Christian Union, and he pointed out very forcefully and almost polemically the difference between being Catholic and being, let's say, an Evangelical Christian. He was fed up, frankly, I think, with Catholic students coming to him and saying, Oh, Mass is a bit boring. I like going to the Christian Union where we have a lot of singing and, you know, hallelujah, and that's where I find my faith. And he said, No. A lot of non-Catholic beliefs are simply not true, and even the most poorly educated Catholic student knows whole depths of theology that others don't. Don't be ashamed of being Catholic. Be proud of being Catholic. It was an extraordinary sermon. I've never heard anything like it before or since. But it was a forthright affirmation that it matters being Catholic. Not all churches are the same. Not all Christian denominations believe the same thing. And, you know, the church teaches with the authority of the apostles and all the rest of it. So that's really the first time I'd ever heard that, and it had a big effect on me. And the second sermon was somewhat similar. It was particularly about intercommunion, receiving communion between Catholics and Anglicans as people were encouraged to do it. College chapels, they always say, everyone welcome to communion; Catholics can come. And he was explaining why Catholics ought not to join in communion with Anglican fellows. Because although it's nice and it seems trendy and neat in a way, when you really think about what the Eucharist is, you're symbolising something which is, which is not true. You're symbolising a unity by receiving communion together. You are symbolising and taking an action based on a reality that's not there. It's a bit of theatre. So real ecumenism is, he said, in John Paul the second and the Archbishop of Canterbury, when John Paul came to the UK about that time actually, they did, you know, a lot of things together and a prayer service together, but they did not receive communion together. And the real work of ecumenism was slogging it out on the table with theologians at the, what was then called, ARCIC, Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission, to debate and resolve, insofar as it were possible, issues about the Eucharist authority in the church and so on. So I think those two sermons - and they were printed, and I have copies of them - still quite important to me.  I still quote great chunks of  - which I've just done.

That is really interesting, Nigel, because both of those things, some guests have spoken in the same kind of way, certainly about finding truth in the Catholic church over other churches. But some guests have also been in a different place on the ecumenism area that you're talking about. There's something there for listeners to really think about and see what resonates, and I'm gonna think about that too. I think that's very sound. That sermon that you heard all those years ago that is still, you know, through us talking today, still reaching people and giving people something to think about, That's really helpful.

Thank you. 

I think there's something about your university experience then that has really affirmed you in your faith before you go out into the really big wide world of work then. So what was that like? 

Well, that was fine. I went from university to Bar School in London and did bar exams and then qualified as a barrister. But then pretty early on, joined the Foreign Office as a legal adviser, so that's the diplomatic service working for the government as a legal adviser. I was, you know, interested in, very much interested in, human rights and was involved in Amnesty International at university and in my first years in London. I was chair of the lawyers group, I think, in 1987, although very young. I had more time than others. And, of course, when you think about human rights, you don't really think about working for governments. Governments are normally the enemy. 

The bad guys. 

Yeah. They are the bad guys. Nevertheless, I wanted to do international law, public international law, that is the law of states, United Nations, treaties, law of the sea, all that kind of international scene was the kind of law I wanted to do. 

I've got twp questions already. One is about, you know, what your faith brought to that, values that you'd grown up with and things. But I also want to just think about in this time when there are so many conflicts around the world. I mean, we think there are more than before, but who knows? I'm wondering what insights you might have into the role governments can play in resolving those or preventing them happening. I don't know. But can we start with, as a Catholic person then, affirmed in your faith going into the world of international human rights, how did that look? Was it something you talked about at work? 

Yes. To some extent, I think. And I guess it's actually quite obvious, isn't it, the connection when you think about it, almost, who is against human rights? But I think in the seventies, it was still relatively new. Amnesty was relatively new. You know, there's obviously a connection between ideas of human rights and ideas of justice. And so for people with a bent towards thinking about justice and ethics, then human rights has an obvious appeal. It retains that appeal, perhaps even more so now. And I think international law has some of the same attraction. Some law could be fairly technical, I suppose, whereas international law is extremely ambitious in its scope. It's trying to get nations to behave in certain ways when, of course, nations are sovereign. Unless they're bound by a treaty, they're often not bound to do particular things, just as they're not bound to appear before international courts unless they consent. International law aims to regulate relations between states, and that's quite everyday things like postal services, let's say, or airline services. But, of course, it also ultimately is about - the biggest issue is the use of force. The way states set about going to war in the first place. And if you do go to war, then regulating conduct in warfare and humanitarian law, the Geneva Conventions and so on. It also regulates, you know, law of the sea and even outer space. So it's a very wide ranging and ambitious type of law, and I think it does attract a certain - I wouldn't say everybody's an idealist - but I think there's something about that when you start to study it, for me at least, as I learned about it and could've related it, I suppose, to my own idea of justice. And on the whole, you know, international law makes sense as a matter of justice. Of course, the difficulty is getting states to comply with it. Well, that's your second point, I think. And, of course, well, that's what I dedicated 27 years of my life to, is advising the British government. I think one of my colleagues once said that, you know, our job was to uphold the sanctity of treaties. That's a rather, elaborated way of saying it, but in a sense, it's true. Trying to advise on what the law is and by all possible means, try and ensure that the government accepts that advice and acts accordingly. And in the British context, at least in my time there, that was not too difficult a job. I think the culture was very much a law-abiding culture. The idea that you must consult the legal advisers and don't do it unless you check with the legal advisers was quite ingrained in the culture. And there were very few occasions, I think, when there was a real clash of giving advice and it being rejected. Now that's not the case in every country. I wouldn't fancy being Putin's legal adviser, and I certainly wouldn't fancy being Donald Trump's legal adviser. I suspect Trump has a very limited respect for international law, let's put it that way. You know, if a head of state really is very happy to ride roughshod over international obligations, that's quite a yeah... That's a very difficult situation. At least we don't expect it from the US. 

Given that, Nigel, how do you how do you feel as a person living in these times, seeing the potential for international law being eroded in ways that it wasn't before? Do you feel afraid or irritated, angry?

I think I feel some concern. I think I’ll just add a little bit of qualification that international law doesn't always get things right. And there are sometimes situations where applying the letter of the law might lead to an unjust result. So I think there is still an underlying idea of justice. One hopes that the two principles of law and the principles of justice coincide. So that could give you an example, which I was thinking about yesterday. Apparently, there are 9 or 10,000 Islamic State Fighters being detained, I think, in Northern Syria, if I’ve got that right. So what will happen to those fighters? Well, of course, in terms of international law or human rights law, well, either they're prisoners of war and should be released at the end of the conflict, or they're criminals and they should be tried and duly charged. Well, with 9 or 10,000 IS fighters, you're not gonna have 10,000 criminal trials at the Old Bailey. So does international law say you should let them go? And off they go on their merry way to who knows what. So I'm not saying there's always a neat answer, and sometimes there may be a rather awkward connection between doing what seems sensible and obviously right and the letter of the law. So that's a slight qualification. Generally, international law is a sensible framework that tries to have states relating to each other in a regulated way rather than simply the this law of the jungle, the strongest prevailing of the weakest. 

Okay. Rather than all of us are children of God and, you know, we all have human dignity and those kind of principles that I suppose the Catholic Church would uphold. I'm struggling to put into words those values in a way that just highlights how the values of our faith would accord with international law that's being done well. 

Yes. And, of course, there's a, in terms of human rights, there's a religious underpinning for many people in the concept of human rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. Whilst it was agreed by a whole bunch of states, you know, it has certain philosophical underpinnings and religious underpinnings. That's really why most, a lot, of people believe in human rights because they think it's actually an articulation of their faith in in a secular document. So, yes, those ideas, human dignity is at the heart of the concept of human rights, and fairness and equity, I guess, are the underpinnings of international law on the whole, at least in the modern system. 

And maybe this brings us on a little bit to your work with the Catholic Union. Tell us a bit about what that looked like. 

After 27 years at the Foreign Office, I left in 2015. And then after a while I started volunteering with this organisation called the Catholic Union of Great Britain. I'd been a member of it before, and it's basically lay Catholics engaged in politics and public life. I always felt when I was working at the Foreign Office, and was going to meetings, that I perhaps could help, so I became a volunteer. And that really evolved into discussion about having a professional post in the Catholic Union. It was otherwise largely run by volunteers. And so the job evolved, if you like, which I was invited to fill, and I became Director in 2017 and continued for 7 years until April last year. I mean, our work is things like making submissions to government and to parliament, lobbying, advocating the Catholic viewpoint on issues of the day, legislation or policy, and also education, having lectures and webinars, working with other Catholic organisations to promote the Catholic viewpoint, giving lay Catholics opportunity, I guess, to feed in to the political life of the country, taking part in public affairs, whether by standing for election themselves or by writing to their MPs or taking part in the debate in the public square. 

That's really helpful. It looks to me in our current times, there are more and more things where our viewpoint as Catholics - seems to be a gap is widening somehow between our view as Catholics and some things that are now happening in public life. I don't know quite how to word that better. Is that what it seems like to you, or is it just it's always been like that? 

We can take the obvious headline issues, life issues. The picture there is not very rosy. Obviously, we got the debate on assisted dying at the moment. We don't know how that’s going to come out, but it was unfortunate that the first vote was lost. So, yes, in many ways, one can trace a development that moves away from Catholic positions on the sanctity of life. I suppose one can pick and choose a little bit.  Insofar as the death penalty is part of the Catholic position on the sanctity of life, then it moves in the other direction. Most states in the world, or many states, now do not impose the death penalty, and some regard it as a matter of human rights as well. So it's not entirely one way. And, of course, there's many other issues apart from the life issues stemming from Catholic social teaching about the nature of society and care for the poor and vulnerable and so on, which I guess in many ways - the underlying assumptions are similar to those of Catholic social teaching about there being a need to protect the poor and the vulnerable and so on, even if the exact policy details about how you do that and what you could afford to do is a matter of debate.

And I'm also thinking, while you're talking, actually, that in some ways, the church is evolving too and moving itself on. I'm thinking of LGBT issues, for example, where on the one hand, there is a gap, but on the other hand, the church is not fixed on where it is in that debate. Well that's what I think anyway. I think the church is moving there. You know, it's a bit simplistic, isn't it, to think that Pillar A is where the church is, and Pillar B where society is, keeps moving. Actually, we're all moving, aren't we, I suppose, over time?

I think there's a number of movements which are not all in the same direction. You know, the other thing people talk about a lot is the increasing, you know, the secular nature of society and the world. I'm not sure if that's entirely right, actually. It's a very easy thing to agree with. If someone says our society becomes so secular, yes. There's many ways in which you can see that. But on the other hand, you know, there's certainly a lot of people looking at it at a global level. I think the faith is actually increasing in terms of numbers globally. It is a bit disappointing if society consciously divests itself of its Christian framework. I hate the idea of crucifixes being taken down in certain places and well, I just say this, that there's a great difference between a Catholic church and a non-denominational prayer room in an airport. Community prayer, basically a plain room with a cupboard with a bible and a Quran and a mat and so on. For some, that's a sort of ideal, that's a sort of vision of a secular society. I don't find that a very attractive vision, but it's true we don't have the same level of general acceptance of Christianity that there was, I guess, years ago. Yeah. I suppose I just dwell more on the positives, not dwell too much on the negatives, and do what we can to maintain what we've got and keep reinserting Christianity into the public debate within the public square. I talk to people and point out churches or the saints or references to the, sometimes specifically the Catholic, heritage of our country. Very happy to tell people, if in case they don't know already, about the 1000 years that England was a Catholic country before the Reformation. 

It is important to recognise that, you know, rather than feeling negative, actually, we can still go to Mass. I'm here doing a podcast and reaching Catholic people so that we can be a community, you know, continuing to grow and share our story. I just wanted to talk about the Jubilee a little bit, talking about feeling positive, bring us onto hope and the year ahead. I've talked a little bit with guests about this Jubilee and the theme, Pilgrims of Hope, and I'm wondering how are you interacting with this Jubilee year? 

On a very practical sense, I'm planning to go to Rome in October, I think. If all goes to plan, I will be doing the Jubilee activities of going through the Holy Doors. I'll follow whatever other activities are available as well. 

And I know there's something around the Jubilee - There's the theme, Pilgrims of Hope. I've talked with some guests about what gives us hope, but there's also this ancient Jubilee reset of justice, isn't there? I wonder whether that speaks to you a little bit. Is there some way in which you can see we may be able to reset something for justice in, I don't know, internationally is perhaps a big claim, but in Britain? 

What comes to mind is the idea of the Jubilee debt campaign, I think, from the year 2000, which I think is being, you know, talked about again. That seems to be the most practical way of actually taking some action. As for more generally, well, I think that's very difficult, really. But in specific instances, I don't know if there's any particular ideas that would be, in any sense, a reset. I mean, you know, there's gonna be a public inquiry now about the recent murders in Southport. In a sense, if that results in a change in the law, that could be an element of justice. I think about the Post Office scandal, a very tangible example of injustice. But I just want to say something which just occurred to me that I am also going, it's not exactly a Jubilee event, I don't think, but I'm going on a pilgrimage to Turkey in May, which does mark a different anniversary. It's the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, 325, and the Nicene Creed, which we all recite every week at Mass. So I'm going to Turkey and we'll visit Nicaea, which I think is now called Iznik. The pilgrimage is called the Seven Churches of Asia; the first seven councils of the church. So we visit Constantinople, Ephesus, Chalcedon, Nicaea as it then was, and we'll be learning about those early meetings of the church where they really decided Christian doctrine, the Catholic faith that we have today. 

That sounds really interesting. Wow. Yeah. What a great opportunity.

Yeah. Then we'll be hearing more about that 1700th anniversary. I've been trying to think if there's a word for the 1700th anniversary. I've come up with Decaheptacentenary. 

We'll see if that catches on. I'll try that as a hashtag when I'm advertising the episode. Listen, it's been really good to talk, Nigel. You've got some really great insights there that I think people will appreciate having a chance to hear from you. So thank you for sharing so much about your life and your thoughts in these current times. I'll put some links in the episode notes to some of the organisations that you've mentioned. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been really interesting to talk, Nigel. 

Thank you, Theresa. I've enjoyed it. Thank you so much.

Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic this time. I hope today's conversation has resonated with you. A new episode is released each Wednesday. Follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms. Rate and review to help others find it. And follow our X, Twitter and Facebook accounts @KindsofCatholic. You can comment on episodes and be part of the dialogue there. You can also text me if you're listening to the podcast on your phone, although I won't be able to reply to those texts. Until the next time.