Cardinal Vincent Nichols on Gaza, ISIS and Charlie Hebdo

posted on: Jan 28, 2015

“There are aspects to Israeli policy and behaviour that do immense damage in the eyes of the international community”

One of the most senior figures in the Catholic Church in the UK, Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols, recently met with major business leaders in London to discuss the reputation of business in Britain and its relationship with society. During the meeting, the chief executive of one of the biggest corporations in London commented to the Cardinal: “We’ve got to get out and wash some feet. Like your Pope.”

It was a reference to Pope Francis’ connection to people and how he epitomises the best of humanity, explains Nichols. “The people who are the heartbeat of the church are the people who are praying in the cathedral at the moment; they’re the people that work in the soup kitchen, or the food bank; they are the people who say the rosary quietly at home because their child is sick or who light a candle, who reach out to God in the concrete circumstances of their lives.”

“[Pope Francis] calls it the faith of the people; the faithful people. He keeps going back and back and back and saying this should be our focus, this is the true criteria in our faith. If you want to see faith, don’t look in the grand halls of the Archbishop’s house or in the Vatican: look at people as they live their lives, with what he calls popular devotion. Where the heart is full of faith and expresses itself — that’s where you see some real greatness. And you could say that of the community in Gaza as well.”

The community in Gaza and the human dignity they possess is a subject Nichols returns to a number of times during the interview. We meet in the Archbishop’s house, next to Westminster Cathedral (notoriously mistaken for a mosque by UKIP), three months after the Cardinal returns from his first visit to the Strip. He recalls a bombed city with families who are surviving in the wreckages of buildings, their washing strung between concrete pillars. Hospitals had been destroyed and half the mosques targeted:

“We know the reasons, and the reasons I can’t dispute, but the effect is that there is a Muslim community that’s had half of its gathering places for prayer destroyed,” he reflects. “There was very little evidence of continuing economic activity that could support that population. It seemed to me, therefore, that Gaza as a society is being impoverished at a very radical level.”

Source: www.middleeastmonitor.com