Archbishop Nichols interview

Archbishop Nichols, who is in Rome with some of the Bishops of England and Wales for their Ad Limina visit, has given an interview to Phillipa Hitchen of Vatican Radio.

Zenit has the translation of the interview.

Here's one of the questions and the Archbishop's response:

Q: Great Britain is perhaps today one of the most secularized societies in Europe. You said recently that it "has sold her soul to scientific learning and to materialism heedless of religion." And yet, there is also an intense thirst for spirituality.

Archbishop Nichols: British society is quite complex and some key institutions -- often the universities and at times the machinery of government in its legislative activity -- concentrate almost exclusively on factual data and I don't think that this reflects the common feeling. I think that in this country an uncertainty is emerging about the type of society we desire, about what are the true values to pursue and about what profound identity to construct and sustain. Religious faith helps us to live in this uncertainty, because it gives us an openness to the transcendent and to the full awareness that we do not know or control everything.

As Church we seek to participate fully in the public debate on these topics. This means that at times we must speak with the statistics in hand. Sometimes, instead, we must try to enter the debate with rational reasoning, rather than that of faith: This is the case of the present debate on assisted suicide. Other times we must again seek to show the role of religious faith in the public arena. Hence, we must operate at different levels.

In the interview, Archbishop Nichols was also asked was about relations with the  Anglican Communion,  following  Anglicanorum  Coetibus.