London, England, Dec 8, 2008 / 23:46 pm
Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster and head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, has penned a newspaper editorial examining the phenomenon of secularism. Granting that secularism has led to some increased acceptance of Catholics, he criticized the new intolerance directed against those who maintain pro-life and pro-family views.
Writing in The Independent, the cardinal noted that religious belief presently tends to be treated as “a private eccentricity” rather than as “the central and formative element in British society that it is.”
Saying that atheism has become more vocal and aggressive, the cardinal said the phenomenon of secularization has helped religious believers realize “what we have in common as Christian believers is infinitely more important than what divides us.”
This common ground extended to all three monotheistic faiths, the cardinal continued.