A senior Government Minister has promised Pope Benedict XVI that Britain is committed to defending religious freedom in the face of a “deeply intolerant” militant secularism that, she said, is taking hold of western societies.
Sayeeda Warsi (left), a Muslim, said Europe should counter the threat of the secularism that exhibits “similar traits to totalitarian regimes” by becoming “more confident and more comfortable in its Christianity”.
The Cabinet Minister Without Portfolio, and a co-chairman of the Conservative Party made her remarks initially in an article published in the Daily Telegraph on the first day of a two-day visit by a UK government delegation to the Vatican. The trip was more than “a Valentine’s Day ‘love-in’ with our Catholic neighbours,” wrote Baroness Warsi of Dewsbury. “This is about recognising the deep and intrinsic role of faith here in Britain and overseas.”
She said that she wanted her address to the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy to “ring out beyond the Vatican walls” because “to create a more just society, people need to feel stronger in their religious identities and more confident in their creeds”.
In her address she said the Pope was right to highlight the increasing marginalisation of religion during his September 2010 speech in Westminster Hall, London. 
“I see it in United Kingdom and I see it in Europe,” she said. “Spirituality, suppressed. Divinity, downgraded. Where, in the words of the Archbishop of Canterbury, faith is looked down on as the hobby of ‘oddities, foreigners and minorities’. Where religion is dismissed as an eccentricity because it’s infused with tradition. Where we undermine people who attribute good works to their belief and require them to deny it as their motivation.”
She said: “Our response has to be simple: holding firm in our faiths, holding back intolerant secularisation, reaffirming the religious foundations on which our societies are built and reasserting the fact that for centuries Christianity in Europe has been inspiring, motivating, strengthening and improving our societies.”
In her article for the Daily Telegraph, the Baroness had earlier made the point that “the societies we live in, the cultures we have created, the values we hold and the things we fight for all stem from centuries of discussion, dissent and belief in Christianity”.
“These values shine through our politics, our public life, our culture, our economics, our language and our architecture,” she wrote. “You cannot and should not extract these Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can or should erase the spires from our landscapes.”
She added: “My fear today is that a militant secularisation is taking hold of our societies. We see it in any number of things: when signs of religion cannot be displayed or worn in government buildings; when states won’t fund faith schools; and where religion is side-lined, marginalised and downgraded in the public sphere.
“It seems astonishing to me that those who wrote the European Constitution made no mention of God or Christianity.”
‘Deeply intolerant’
The minister, the first Muslim female to hold a Cabinet post, said that one of the “most worrying aspects about this militant secularisation is that at its core and in its instincts it is deeply intolerant”.
“It demonstrates similar traits to totalitarian regimes – denying people the right to a religious identity because they were frightened of the concept of multiple identities,” she said.
“That’s why in the 20th century, one of the first acts of totalitarian regimes was the targeting of organised religion.”
Baroness Warsi said she would give Pope Benedict “my absolute commitment to continue fighting for faith in today’s society”.
The Baroness led a delegation of seven ministers, including Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson, and Michael Moore, the Scottish Secretary, to mark the 30th anniversary of the restoration of full diplomatic relations between the Vatican and the UK.
They were joined by Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster (left) before they met the Pope and Vatican officials to discuss a range of policy issues.
After the meeting with the Holy Father, the Vatican and the Coalition Government issued a joint statement, saying that they had “agreed on the urgent need for action to strengthen the universal commitment to religious freedom as a fundamental human right, and to its practical application with a view to promoting respect for all religions in all countries”.
“The Holy See and the British government look forward to working together to combat intolerance and discrimination based on religion, wherever it is manifest,” the statement said.
Afterwards, Archbishop Nichols thanked Baroness Warsi. “Peoples of faith in the United Kingdom can rejoice in the messages from this historic visit and we Catholics, in particular, can take great encouragement to be more confident in our faith and in its contribution to the well-being of our society through all we say and do,” the Archbishop said.
(Photos: Mazur/CatholicChurch.org.)