The Tablet Interview
Compassionate conservative
A year ago Bernard Longley was installed as the ninth Archbishop of Birmingham, widely seen as the second see of England and Wales. A man of gentle demeanour and traditional English courtesy, he nevertheless is absolutely firm in his vision of the Church and its teaching, as Elena Curti discovered
irmingham’s Christmas season is in full swing, and the city council that once celebrated Winterval has swung decidedly the other way. There is a life-sized crib beguiling shoppers even dur- ing a snowstorm at the German Christmas market. Nearby at the art gallery, schoolchildren are being guided around a Nativity trail of mas- terpieces from its collection. A room is dedicated to Newman memorabilia and pho- tographs of the beatification Mass at Cofton Park. One shows the Archbishop of Birmingham, Bernard Longley, beaming as he presents a first edition of the Apologia to Pope Benedict. The Pope’s visit last September crowned a momentous first year in the archdiocese for Archbishop Longley. In January he went to Rome for the bishops’ five yearly ad limina, returning there six months later to receive the pallium. Now he has begun putting his administrative stamp on the archdiocese, with a new dean for the Cathedral of St Chad’s as well as a private secretary. As he tells me when we settle down to talk in his large and rather impersonal office at Archbishop’s House, exactly one year after arriving in Birmingham, he feels at home there. For the first time in many years he will be host- ing his 83-year-old father and also his aunt for Christmas. His father, he explains, has been a major influence on his life: a man who prac- tised his faith quietly and regularly took his son to Mass. As he talks about his life, his conversation is sprinkled with fond recollections of other guides too: friends and mentors who have fos- tered his love of music and his interest in ecumenism, and determined his career path in the Church. Archbishop Longley believes that his sense of Catholic identity was all the stronger because his mother was Anglican (she became a Catholic when her son was ordained a priest).
B 8 | THE TABLET | 11 December 2010
He was raised in Bolton in what he describes as an ordinary English working-class family with Irish roots. After a fine Catholic gram- mar school education at Xaverian College, Manchester, and the Royal Northern College of Music, he gained a choral scholarship to New College, Oxford. At first he had doubts whether as a Catholic it would be right for him to join an Anglican choir and he sought reassurance from his parish priest. Fortunately, the priest gave his bless- ing and he became one of only two Catholic choristers, acquiring through the New College choir the habit of singing the daily psalms. His sense of vocation was already there when he decided to read English at Oxford. Instead of opting for his home or college
turf, he decided to train for the priesthood in the then fairly recently established Diocese of Arundel and Brighton. Someone of his intel- lectual calibre might have been sent to the English College in Rome, but because he was new to Arundel and Brighton he was advised to attend the diocesan seminary of Wonersh. He was ordained to the priesthood by his then bishop, now Cardinal Cormac Murphy- O’Connor. The cardinal appointed him later to teach at Wonersh where he remained for nine years, a period he describes as formative in his life. He then became an assistant general sec-
retary at the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, taking up the position of secretary of the Department for Mission and Unity before being chosen by the cardinal in 2003 to serve as one of his auxiliaries in Westminster at the relatively young age of 47. It was from the cardinal that he learned the knack of spot- ting and developing a person’s potential. It is fair to conclude that Cardinal Murphy- O’Connor was keen for his auxiliary to succeed him at Westminster and that his rec- ommendation led to Longley’s name being mentioned in connection with the top job in England and Wales early last year. Sources at
the time said he was horrified at the idea. When I ask him about this it provokes gales of laugh- ter and some hesitation. “I was frankly shocked at that time. To think that as an auxiliary bishop in Westminster with seven years’ experience … and I suppose that, for myself, I thought that, er … any moves in the future would be gentler steps. I was not equally shocked when I was asked if I would come to Birmingham. With Westminster I think the Holy Spirit got it right.” In the end, the long-time favourite Archbishop Vincent Nichols was appointed to Westminster and soon afterwards Longley succeeded Nichols in Birmingham, considered England’s second see. Like his mentor, Archbishop Longley is a
genial figure with a reputation for pastoral sen- sitivity. One suspects it is for this quality that Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor selected him to negotiate with a group of lesbian and gay Catholics who wanted a regular Mass cele- brated for them, their families and friends. For some years the Mass had been celebrated in an Anglican church in London’s Soho and the cardinal felt it should be in a Catholic church instead. It was settled in 2007 that the Soho Masses Pastoral Council should be formed and would be responsible for organ- ising a monthly Mass at the Church of the Assumption in Warwick Street. Conservative Catholics opposed to the Mass regularly gather outside to protest but Archbishop Longley has stern words for them. “The Church does not, as it were, have a moral means-testing of people before they come to receive the sacraments and it is very easy to jump to and come to the wrong con- clusions about people when you don’t know them. I don’t know whether the people out- side have made attempts to meet the people who are going to the Masses in Soho,” he says. I question whether those protesting are mak- ing assumptions about those people’s lifestyles, to which the archbishop replies: “I would
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