The media and the online ecosystem have been alive with polarised headlines and images depicting more widely the fragmentation and social upheaval – particularly heightened since the covid-19 experience – throughout England and in the United Kingdom.
As is common these days, there are vastly different narratives straining to account for the current crisis. I have found that one commentator, the former physician and prison psychologist who uses the nom-de-plume, Theodore Dalrymple, has been prescient in identifying over several decades many of the deeper cultural issues that have fed as tributaries into the present institutional and social problems, which he sees as resulting in a crisis of democracy.
In 2008, that still prodigious and unintentionally controversial English writer and Catholic theologian, Fr Aidan Nichols OP, published among his many works a surprising little book (which is now quite hard to find new) entitled, The Realm: An Unfashionable Essay on the Conversion of England.
In this short-chaptered essay, Fr Nichols contends that if England is to be “re-made” it needs to rediscover its deeply ingrained Catholic identity. He also holds out hope of integrating some of the fragments of an almost-lost faith into the enduring “form of Christ”, acknowledging that this will also include the faithful from the rich ethnic mix which makes up the contemporary English world.
Fr Nichols outlines the many aspects of English life that need to be re-evangelised: “culture and civilisation, history and literature, ethics and philosophy”. He argues that this project will be difficult, since our post-secular and globalised world of which England is a key part has to contend with the challenges of the loss of “human substance”, the exile from place, the fracturing of human relationships, the narcissism of enculturated “individual aggrandisement” and many other existential pathologies which beset its people.
He opposes the “best self” privatisation type of cultural reform, and states that this is necessary “if Catholic Christianity is to be proposed not as an occupation for individuals in their solitude but as a form for the public life of society in its overall integrity”.
Despite the depressing grind of the news cycle and the deepening despair of many, from time to time there are tiny shoots of hope, even among the often glumly grim English folk.
The UK’s Catholic Herald, along with most other news sources, has reported that at this year’s Easter Vigil there is to be a surge of adult baptisms and conversions throughout the English Catholic dioceses.
The Catholic Herald’s Thomas Edwards reports that:
“Westminster Diocese alone will receive 500 adults into the Church this Easter, half of whom are catechumens, meaning they are not baptised and will receive the sacrament of baptism along with the other sacraments of initiation. The number represents a 25 per cent increase on the previous year.”
He notes that other dioceses are witnessing a similar rise with a notable contingent of young men from Gen Z (18-25 year-olds) – that generation of school leavers through covid-19 and entirely raised in the hyperactive universe of digital media.
Many are keen to know what has touched these young men. Some suggest that they have been reached by global internet evangelisers such as Bishop Robert Barron and Fr Mike Schmitz with his massive podcast hit The Bible in a Year.
Others point to the revival of the liturgical, philosophical and cultural traditions of the Church and the remarkable popularity of pilgrimage and ancient Christ paths and sites.
Bishop Mark O’Toole of Cardiff, Wales noted that both converts and reverts “use the words ‘coherent’ and ‘consistent’ when describing their reasons for joining the Catholic Church”.
In a study entitled A Quiet Revival conducted by the UK’s arm of the Bible Society, as reported in The Church Times, found that:
“In 2018, four per cent of the 18- to 24-year-olds reported that they attended church monthly, compared with 16 per cent in 2024. For men, this increased from four per cent to 21 per cent, and, for women, from three per cent to 12 per cent.”
Another small shoot of hope, fitting for this Holy Week and once again in England, concerns the fate of a once wrongly identified painted panel by that most luminous of artists, the Tuscan Dominican friar Blessed Guido di Pietro – better known to us as Fra Angelico (1395-1455).
Fra Angelico was beatified by Pope St John Paul II on October 3, 1982, also bestowing on him the title of patron of artists in 1984. In Fra Angelico there was a unity of thought, life and art.
It was not only that Fra Angelico broke new ground by forming an almost perfect bridge between the traditional iconic style in religious art of the earlier centuries with the naturalistic interests of the early Renaissance. It was, as Pope John Paul II confirmed, “because of the perfect integrity of his life and the almost divine beauty of the images he painted, to a superlative extent those of the Blessed Virgin Mary”.
The news about what we might call the “English Crucifixion” is that after remaining in an arm of the Baring family and unknown for 200 years, the gilded early crucifixion panel called The Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John the Evangelist and the Magdalen, and traced to the brush of a young Fra Angelico in the 1420s, was presented to Christie’s for auction.
A foreign buyer offered to pay 5 million UK pounds for the emotionally charged piece. However, that would mean the precious work would leave England entirely.
In a very short time, with a campaign temporarily to bar the removal of the painting while a “champion” could be found, under huge pressure Oxford University’s Ashmolean museum and over 50 private donors banded together to raise the funds to buy the work for a reduced rate.
This prompted The Art Newspaper to report with excitement: “A remarkable early crucifixion scene by one of the great masters of the Italian Renaissance, Fra Angelico, has been saved for the British nation after the Ashmolean museum in Oxford raised £4.48m to acquire it.”
Is it a case once again of a long distant Christian memory prompting such an energetic rescue?
In several press releases late last year, the Ashmolean announced its successful “saving” of the panel. It announced that through a remarkable cooperation: “At the Ashmolean, The Crucifixion will also serve as a teaching resource for the University of Oxford where it will be of particular interest not only to the History of Art and History departments but also to the Department of Theology and Religion as well as Blackfriars Hall, the Dominican community established in 1221 located next to the Ashmolean.”
The Museum’s Director of Western Art, Professor Jennifer Sliwka announced: “The idea that this innovative and beautiful work by one of the greatest painters of the Italian Renaissance will continue to inspire and to move visitors to the Museum for centuries to come fills me with joy and I am hugely grateful to the funding bodies and individuals who have made this possible for all our benefit.”
With the excellent high resolution images available of this precious work, may it serve our readers as a Visio Divina for this Holy Week.
Thanks also to all who joined and assisted with this week’s TMC supporter/information webinar, especially the young off-camera team of Gabriel Tipnis, Isabelle Lindsey, Augustine Italiano and Nicole Yap.
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Wishing you all the graces of this Paschal week!
Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre
