Cormac Murphyoconnor

Why won’t Theresa May respect the status of our 3m EU immigrants?

There are many reasons why a majority of people in the UK voted to leave the European Union. Among them was certainly not a wish to be inhospitable and uncooperative with our fellow Europeans (Leading article, 23 July). Now it is even more important that EU nationals in Britain should have their status respected and not be used as a bargaining point in future relations with Brussels. Nor should we forget the considerable contribution that so many of them make to our national wellbeing. Furthermore, what about the two million or so UK nationals living and settled in many parts of Europe? Are they to be ignored and their security put at risk for no valid purpose? Paradoxically, Brexit should encourage us to be better Europeans and foster mutual generosity and understanding in every way possible.

Let’s renew the EU

From the time of the French revolution, the Catholic Church has always encouraged relationships between nations that draw them together rather than divide them. It is for this reason that the Church has always been broadly supportive of the European Union, although with reservations. There will be many Catholics on both sides of the coming referendum. Many of us have concerns about recent developments in the EU, such as the official removal of the reference to the continent’s Christian history from the European Constitution a few years ago. The more general push towards secularisation troubles us, too. Recent popes have questioned the tendency to regard the goal of the EU as the optimisation of market forces. They have challenged Europe to rediscover its roots and to renew itself and reconnect with its citizens, and to realise that a narrow EU will eventually atrophy and die.

My parish church in Rome

One of the great joys of my life has been to spend nearly 14 years living in Rome, first as a student and then as Rector of the Venerable English College. I suppose the best way to know a strange city is to walk everywhere. As a student, I rarely took public transport and would remember at night my day’s walk, piazza by piazza, church by church, from Pantheon to Forum to Colosseum. Those years were in many ways a delight and I can honestly say, only slightly tongue-in-cheek, that I learnt nearly as much from viewing the city of Rome as from my studies in the Gregorian University.Nowadays the responsibilities of being a cardinal may seem to outweigh its pleasures, and visits to Rome are usually on administrative matters; but there is one particular source of delight which never fails: the visits I make to what is technically my ‘parish church’ in Rome.

We need to be saved

Hell exists, says Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, but so does hope. Choices have consequences, and by making the right choices we move towards GodBefore very long, I would imagine, together with my fellow-Cardinals, I will be going to the Vatican for the election of the successor to Pope John Paul II. The election takes place in the most precious jewel of the Vatican Museum, the 15th-century domestic chapel of Pope Sixtus IV, known as the Sistine Chapel. Here, twice a day, the Cardinals assemble and one by one place their vote in a silver urn for the one whom they truly believe is the best person to assume the mantle of Peter. The event itself is dramatic, but made more so by the surroundings. Thirty years after painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo was asked to paint the Last Judgment.

Thursday

Why won’t Theresa May respect the status of our 3m EU immigrants?

Why won’t Theresa May respect the status of our 3m EU immigrants?

Thursday

Let’s renew the EU

Let’s renew the EU

Saturday

My parish church in Rome

My parish church in Rome

Saturday

We need to be saved

We need to be saved