The full text of the lecture is below the fold.

Tonight I am minded of my first official visit to a seminary shortly after arriving in Rome. I was invited to the English College - the oldest English institution outside of England - and the Rector took me on a tour of the Church. He pointed to a grave on the left aisle and said, "Oh look, Ambassador: here rests one of your pre-reformation predecessors, Cardinal Bainbridge." I looked and then asked the somewhat obvious question, "'Why is he buried here?" The kind Rector replied, "Oh, he died here while on his first visit to the College." I said, "Really?" The Rector answered, "Yes he was poisoned by one of my predecessors." I hope I'm on safer territory tonight, but I am conscious that I'm giving the Thomas More Lecture and it is the 5th of November! But I think the choice of date was mine rather than Monsignor Mark's.

My thanks to Monsignor O'Toole, the staff and students of Allen Hall, for their kind invitation. My thanks also to the members of the audience who braved London's November weather to be with us.

We are now well over four years into the Papacy of Pope Benedict XVI and this evening I want to talk about the main themes that have emerged in that period. All the time, I will be doing so as someone whose professional job it is to assess and analyse the Papacy from the standpoint of a British Ambassador. It is therefore appropriate for me to focus on the public policy issues which are of importance to the UK. But much of the Pope's time is taken up with issues which pertain to the internal life of the Catholic Church. These issues do not fall within the professional remit of an ambassador or the scope of tonight's talk, but they are nonetheless important when speaking of the Papacy.

At times tonight I might surprise you with some of the issues which we focus on at the Holy See. At other stages I might disappoint as perhaps some of the hotter religious issues fall off the table of the British Ambassador as we think they are best left to the intra-religious field whether it be internal to the Catholic Church itself or the Catholic Church's relations with other Churches. Tonight, I want to do three simple things. First, to say something about the person of Pope Benedict XVI. Second, something about the structure within which he fulfils his international mission. And finally, something about four aspects of that international mission; the religious and the secular; international development; climate change and disarmament. At the end of this exposé, I hope you will have more questions than when you arrived and I hope we will have time to deal with those questions after the talk.

Now why is it important to look at the international themes of this Papacy four years in? For a start, if Ruth, Catherine, Riazat, Paul and their colleagues here tonight are right - and sometimes (though not always) they are - then we might have Pope Benedict in the UK within the year. Of course, I couldn't comment on that! But more fundamentally, in the Papacy we have one of the world's key opinion formers. It is an office that is instantly recognisable across the world and whether one is a Catholic or not, the Papacy attracts attention like few other global offices. As we know all too often that can bring both positive and negative critiques. But to illustrate that point - today in late 2009 - it is a fact that the world's largest TV audience for any event was Pope John Paul II's funeral in 2005. That same event brought together the largest gathering of world leaders.

But what is my thesis tonight? It is this. In Pope Benedict XVI we have a Pope who keeps coming back to a number of themes which are important for him. Probably the most central is the very nature between the secular and religious in the Western tradition. Other issues flow from that central theme and find tangible application, for example on climate change or disarmament. The Pope has also taken some very innovative steps in the area of international development financing and as such has placed the Holy See at the cutting edge of policy making. We will return to these issues later, but for the moment the question has to be asked why certain themes have come to the fore during the Papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. I believe that the answer rests with the very person of Benedict XVI - the era in which he was born and raised and the formative years of his childhood and youth.

Pope Benedict - like his predecessor - saw first hand how fragile society actually was. That ingrained in him - as it did with his predecessor - the need for society to have fundamental values which guard against its corruption by evil forces. He is alive to the dangers of relativism and all too aware of the risks to a moral order based on popularity. For the Pope, justice needs a stronger foundation than mere popularity. Society needs to have deep roots to be strong enough to withstand the gales which arise from time to time in our history. To get at Benedict today - at the things that are of fundamental importance for him - we have to step back to his earliest and most formative years. Those earliest - most formative years - were at a time when Germany was in the hands of the Nazi regime. Forgive me if this point is too opaque, but let me use an illustration. I want to recall something that brought this point home to me, but it relates to the life of John Paul II.

In the early to mid 90s, I had the privilege of living in Krakow as a Tempus Scholar while studying at the Jagiellonian University. On one day, I found myself tracing the roots of John Paul II in Krakow and ended up standing in front of his parents' grave in the military graveyard. It was a moment and a time when I understood more clearly how we are in so many ways a product of our time, for there around the Wojtyla family grave is the history of 20th century Europe represented in the many war dead of the World Wars, Poles, Germans, Russians and British. Later I recalled George Weigels's line about John Paul being a man who had lived through all the 'isms' of the 20th century. Even in the Wojtyla family grave one could see that history etched on his family's life. I have heard it said that a good biography is not one that tells the life of the subject, but one that can do that while at the same time telling the parallel story of the wider society. I think John Paul's life was very much like that.

But so too is Benedict's. He is alive to issues which many of us are not. Sometimes when reading his writings one finds a parallel with those writers of the post-war period like Jacques Maritain or the German philosopher Theodor Adorno who famously wrote 'There can be no poetry after Auschwitz'.(1) Their experiences of the Second World War stripped them of their complacency. They no longer took for granted what earlier generations had. And closer to home - and in this period of remembering - the war generation were defined along similar lines - conscious of the need to preserve and never to be complacent about peace. Such people, whether they be Maritain, Adorno, or Benedict are not disciples of the automatic on-ward progressive march of history, because they have seen first hand what a society - at that time the world's most educated and advanced society - could do to itself and its minorities. Maritain, Adorno and Benedict in their writings, are alive to the vulnerabilities at the very heart of our order. In the case of Benedict, that challenge to our complacency is always there in his prose and he is probably the last of that generation who is in a global leadership position who can personally attest to the horrors of what man can do to man.

So where does that leave us? It should bring us to a point where we can better understand the man who is Pope Benedict XVI and the context in which he was formed. But before we move to the illustration of the Pope's views on the nature of the polity, climate change, disarmament or international development we must first say something about the structure within which he operates - the Holy See - because it is the central platform on which he carries out his mission and international policy.

Back in 2006, following many changes at our embassy to the Holy See - I sat down to look at the Holy See afresh to re-examine what it was and how it could be better explained in 21st century foreign policy circles. I came up with the following three points.

First the Holy See is a hybrid of the global and the local. The Holy See is a global opinion former. While the Vatican, which is the headquarters of the Holy See, is exceedingly small in physical size, the Holy See is a sovereign entity with an unusually large global reach. The Catholic Church is a force on the world stage: a global religious institution with over 1.1 billion adherents (17.5% of the world's population); reach into every corner of the planet through its 500,000 priests, 800,000 sisters/nuns, 219,655 parishes (2); serious influence in as many countries as are in the Commonwealth, a privileged status as interlocutor with the two other Abrahamic faiths - Islam and Judaism - and two generations of intense experience in inter-faith dialogue and many centuries of co-existence.

Today, 177 states have diplomatic relations with the Holy See. The Holy See itself has a highly respected diplomatic corps with sharp eyes and ears which gets far closer to the ground than any ordinary diplomatic corps, through its network of bishops in each region and clergy in each locality.

Second, the Holy See is a respected interlocutor which pursues a policy of neutrality. Added to its global reach is the Holy See's central role in the wider/global intellectual and moral debate where religion and public policy are joined. The Holy See is taken seriously in the religious world and in particular in the world of ideas. The Holy See is a key stabilising influence in the global faith/politics debate. This global presence, and the experience it brings, means that the Holy See's thinking on a wide variety of themes and areas, far beyond the normal foreign policy subjects, carries weight.

Third, the Holy See is a hybrid of state and religion. The Holy See is the world's oldest organisation. It is perhaps also one of the most complex and interesting when it comes to governance and decision-making. On the one hand, in matters of doctrine and episcopal appointments it is very centralized, yet in other areas it follows a very well practiced model of subsidiarity, which devolves power to the most effective level. It is both a state and a religion. That is part of its uniqueness. It has a direct connection to between a fifth and sixth of the world's population, including over 11% of the UK population.

With these characteristics - global and local; global opinion former; respected interlocutor; state and religion; - it creates a potentially significant force in global diplomacy. But the Holy See is not about projecting global power, but projecting global ideas and it is on some of those ideas that we will focus our attention tonight. But before moving to those ideas a type of Post Script. The UK does not agree on all issue with the Holy See, indeed there are areas where there are quite different opinions. But those differences are very rarely about the end objective, but on the means to reach that objective and that is a key distinction. I do not know of a single diplomatic relationship which we have where there is a direct alignment of view - and our relationship with the Holy See is no different. If there were a direct alignment I would be out of a job.

Now let us move to those global ideas that have emerged in the Papacy of Pope Benedict XVI. Tonight, I have selected four themes which we can briefly focus on. They are the secular and religious, international development, climate change and disarmament.

Faith and reason: secular and religious
As I said, the experience of war-time Europe is at the very heart of the Pope's writings on Europe and of the need to heal the rupture between the secular and the religious. For the Pope, the greater co-operation between European states following the war was about building enduring peace and preventing future wars. But it was also about the order of society and the proper relationship between the religious and the secular. Benedict does not see an opposition between the enlightenment and Christianity, but compatibility. He writes, 'the fathers of European unification took as their point of departure a fundamental compatibility between the moral heritage of Christianity and the moral heritage of the European Enlightenment.'(3)

One of the major themes of this Papacy is to heal the rupture between faith and reason ushered in at the time of the Enlightenment and developed in the centuries since. Pope Benedict does not see faith and reason as enemies, but as allies. He does not see the Enlightenment as alien, but as something which itself grew out of faith. He comes out of a tradition - developed by Anselm of Canterbury - that does not see contradictions between faith and reason or philosophy and theology. But Benedict sees risks for a Europe that is cut adrift from its roots and history. He warns against 'the separation from all ethical traditions and the exclusive reliance on technological reasoning and its possibilities.'(4) Benedict says that rationality is an essential hallmark of European culture. He writes, 'yet this rationality can become devastating if it becomes detached from its roots and exalts technological feasibility as the sole criterion. The bond between the two great sources of knowledge - nature and history - is necessary.'(5)

Pope Benedict's aim is to heal the rift with the enlightenment - not to turn the clock back. For Pope Benedict religion and reason need each other. He acknowledges that when he says, 'there are pathologies of religion, as we can see, and there are pathologies of reason, as we can also see.'(6) Pope Benedict says that "Faith in God, the idea of God, can be manipulated, and then it becomes destructive; this is the risk that religion runs. But reason that cuts itself off from God completely and tries to confine him to the purely subjective realm loses its bearings and thus opens the door to the forces of destruction." He says, "Whereas the Enlightenment was searching for moral foundations that would be valid - even if God did not exist - we must invite our agnostic friends today to be open to a morality - as if God did exist."(7)

Benedict returns to this theme - of the proper respect between faith and reason - time and time again. Benedict has said, 'There can be no peace in the world without genuine peace between reason and faith, because without peace between reason and religion, the sources of morality and law dry up.'(8) Writing in his most recent Encyclical and the first dedicated to social concerns, Pope Benedict said, 'Secularism and fundamentalism exclude the possibility of fruitful dialogue and effective cooperation between reason and religious faith. Reason always stands in need of being purified by faith: this also holds true for political reason, which must not consider itself omnipotent. For its part, religion always needs to be purified by reason in order to show its authentically human face. Any breach in this dialogue comes only at an enormous price to human development'. The Pope is not a lone voice - nor are these voices confined to people of religious faith.

The philosopher Jürgen Habermas - and doyen of the Frankfurt School - echoed that point when he said, "it remains the case that liberal societal structures are dependent on the solidarity of their citizens. And if the secularisation of society goes off the rails, the sources of this solidarity may dry up altogether. That could well slacken the democratic bond and exhaust the kind of solidarity that the democratic state needs, but cannot impose by law. This would lead to the transformation of the citizens of prosperous and peaceful liberal societies into isolated nomads acting on the basis of their own self interest, persons who used their subjective rights only as weapons against each other."(9) The philosopher, Alasdair Macintyre characterizes this as Thomistic ideals coming up against Rousseauist ideals and he says this lack of a common language or ability to reach consensus could lead to a Nietzschean amorality of total chaotic relativism. (10)

And so what is the solution to this divorce between faith and reason? Professor Charles Taylor, writing in his award winning book The Secular Age, said that "Western modernity, including its secularity, is the fruit of new inventions. It should not be depicted as a rupture, but as an evolving story of human history with the secular and the religious dimensions not juxtaposed, but emerging from the same story." (11) Pope Benedict reinforces that point when he says, "It seems to me obvious today that secularism in itself is not in opposition to the faith. I would even say that it is a fruit of the faith because the Christian faith was a universal religion from the very start and consequently could not be identified with any single State; it is present in all States and different in these States. It has always been clear to Christians that religion and faith are not politics but another sphere of human life.... Politics, the State, were not a religion but rather a secular reality with a specific role... and the two must be open to each other."(12) Remember what I said earlier about projecting global ideas not power. Those ideas are now finding resonance in the political sphere. President Sarkozy said recently, 'secularism should not be a denial of the past. To uproot is to lose meaning; it is to weaken the foundation of national identity and to drain even more the social relationships that have such a need for memorable symbols'.(13)

So for Pope Benedict XVI there is a need for a "healthy secularity", based on collaboration, respect and dialogue. The Pope said, "Only in these conditions of healthy secularity can a society be constructed in which diverse traditions, cultures and religions peacefully coexist.' He said, 'to totally separate public life from all valuing of traditions, means to embark on a closed, dead-end path."(14)

International development
That brings us to our next theme tonight - International Development. The Holy See is a crucial partner to the international community if we are to deliver on the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. To this end, the Pope and Prime Minister exchanged letters in June and July 2008 and did so again at the start of this year's G20 Summit in London in April. The Pope wrote to the Prime Minister to remind leaders of the industralised world not to forget the plight of the poor in the developing world.

But the Holy See's contribution is not just in the policy sphere. The Catholic Church alone is reckoned to be the world's second largest international development body after the UN. More than 50% of the hospitals in Africa are operated under the auspices of faith-based organisations, with the Catholic Church in Africa being responsible for nearly one quarter of all health care provision. (15) In education too the Catholic Church provides around 12 million school places in Sub Saharan Africa each year.

The UK has worked closely with the Holy See to develop the International Finance Facility - IFF - which is a novel way to use the capital markets to front load development spending. As Chancellor, Gordon Brown went to the Vatican in 2004 to launch the concept. At that time, Pope John Paul II gave the concept his full moral support. In November 2006, Pope Benedict XVI went one step further and gave it his full practical support when he bought the first Immunisation Bond. The Bond raised over $1.6 billion to spend on health and immunisation programmes in 70 of the poorest countries. The funds raised will prevent five million child deaths between 2006 and 2015, and more than five million future adult deaths by protecting more than 500 million children in campaigns against measles, tetanus, and yellow fever. Pope Benedict's participation from the very outset helped spread the global message about the Bond and make it the success that it is.

Climate change and the environment
Our third theme tonight is climate change. The need to tackle climate change is something Pope Benedict has returned to repeatedly over the past four years. It was prominent in his most recent Social Encyclical - Caritas in Veritate. The Pope wrote, "Let us hope that the international community and individual governments will succeed in countering harmful ways of treating the environment. It is likewise incumbent upon the competent authorities to make every effort to ensure that the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations: the protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate obliges all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet. One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most efficient use -- not abuse -- of natural resources, based on a realization that the notion of 'efficiency' is not value-free."

On the Pope's visit to Australia in July 2008, the Pope said, "it is appropriate to reflect upon the kind of world we are handing on to future generations....The wonder of God's creation reminds us of the need to protect the environment and to exercise responsible stewardship of the goods of the earth." In another speech during his visit to Australia he said, "I do not claim to enter into the technicalities that politicians and experts must resolve, but rather to provide an essential impetus, to make the responsibilities visible so that we may respond to this great challenge: to rediscover the Face of the Creator in Creation, to rediscover in the Creator's presence our responsibilities for his Creation, which he has entrusted to us, to form the ethical capacity for a lifestyle that we must adopt if we wish to tackle the problems of this situation and if we really want to reach positive solutions."(16)

But on climate change too the Holy See has led on practical steps. The Vatican City State is the world's first carbon neutral state through offsetting its emissions and installing solar panels. It also recently announced plans to build Europe's largest solar farm on 740 hectares to the north of Rome. That solar farm will produce enough energy to power over 40,000 homes and exceed the EU's renewable energy targets of 20 percent of demand by 2020. The UK is working with the Holy See in building up our South America Climate Change Network, which aims to raise awareness of climate change ahead of the UN Copenhagen Climate Conference to be held next month. And more recently, the Prince of Wales and the Pope discussed how the Vatican could co-operate on the Prince's Rainforest Project and perhaps replicate the success of the Pope's purchase of the IFF Immunisation Bond with the purchase of a Rainforest Bond.

But as important as those practical steps are, the real influence of the Holy See rests in its moral weight. Climate change is a curious mix of moral cause and strategic interest and the moral dimension is crucial in addressing climate change. Why? Because action can be motivated in any number of ways; some will be persuaded by self-interest through the economic or scientific evidence. But historically it has always been the moral argument that shifts the momentum toward political and social action in righting a wrong.

Disarmament
This brings us to our final theme of the night - disarmament. Last December in Oslo, the UK signed the Cluster Munitions Treaty. In reaching agreement on the Cluster Munitions, the Holy See played a vital role in getting the international community to build the necessary consensus to achieve a breakthrough. Over 100 states signed up to the Cluster Munitions Treaty. The Holy See was among the first to do so. Again, on 30 October this year, the Holy See was key in getting 153 states to vote in favour of a resolution at the UN General Assembly on moving ahead with an Arms Trade Treaty. The resolution was passed with only one state voting against and 19 abstaining. That vote last Friday in New York brought us a step closer to what Pope Benedict XVI called for in 2008 when he said, "I exhort all persons involved in the sale or traffic of arms, with interests that are often extremely lucrative, to ask themselves what are the consequences engendered by their behavior." He continued, "may the international community commit itself in this field together with the local authorities so that peace in all countries will gain ground every day."(17)

The UNDP estimates that up to one thousand people a day - mostly children and women - are killed because of the flow of illicit arms. And in the last three years it is estimated that over 2.1 million have died from armed violence. From the very outset the Holy See has been a strong supporter of the Arms Trade Treaty. In 2006, the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace said, "the many millions of victims in conflicts over the last 60 years have been caused by conventional, and especially, by light weapons. Moreover, the absence of effective monitoring systems on arms trade has a negative impact not only on peace processes, reconciliation and post-conflict reconstruction, but also on the stability of institutions and on sustainable development. Indiscriminate sale or transfer of conventional weapons is an inseparable part of problems connected with international terrorism, illegal trafficking of precious or strategic resources and the most abject manifestations of organized crime such as trafficking of human beings or drugs".(18) And in his recent Encyclical - Caritas in Veritate - Pope Benedict wrote, 'Violence puts the brakes on authentic development and impedes the evolution of peoples towards greater socio-economic and spiritual well-being.'

But why are we interested in working with the Holy See on disarmament issues? As with climate change and international development it is not just the practical efforts that are important, but also the moral voice which helps to propel those global ideas. Morally there is an urgent need to find a solution to the problems caused by the unregulated trade in conventional weapons. 2010 is a very important year for disarmament and Arms Control talks and we will also see the Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The Holy See has much bring to bring to the debate - not only through its moral perspective, but also through its global diplomatic spread - which could again bridge the divide in the talks.

Conclusion
In conclusion, we have looked at the man, the structure and the policy. All three are essential to understanding the Papacy of Benedict four years into his Pontificate. In summary, his early life is directly connected to many of the themes he addresses today whether it is his commitment to disarmament, the need for global solidarity to fight poverty, or the very nature of how our societies manage the interplay of the secular and the religious. Pope Benedict does not see faith and reason at odds with each other, but as allies.

There can be a tendency today to jump to conclusions in this fast paced world and to assume that we know what the other is saying. With the Papacy, as with any other major leadership office there is always the risk that it will be misunderstood. That seems to be the price of having a place in the public square whether one is a religious or a political leader. In our culture the benefit of rapid communication is a double-edged sword because often it is driven by the quick and the brief - twitter being an obvious example. But that can often be at the expense of depth which realises that ideas have consequences. Pope Benedict - and his predecessor - saw first hand during the inter-war years what can happen when ideas are not properly grounded in reason and faith. They understood the relationship of ideas to what came after. They understood the real risks of being complacent about the very foundations of society. Ultimately, that experience is central to understanding the Papacy of Pope Benedict XVI as much as it was to understanding the era of John Paul II. Pope Benedict XVI engages us to focus on the fundamental values which are essential to a more humane society.

In diplomacy it is our task to provide a context - an understanding - and then to build bridges. Our task is not necessarily to turn one entity into the other or to erode essential difference, but simply to build relations. We can only do that if we understand a person, their context and their beliefs. Tonight, I hope this has helped to provide some insight into the Papacy of Benedict XVI.

Thank you for your attention.

Endnotes
1. Cultural Criticism and Society, 1951
2. Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2006
3. ibid, p 39
4. Josef Ratzinger, 'Europe Today and Tomorrow', Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2007, p 42
5. ibid, p 43
6. Josef Ratzinger, 'Europe Today and Tomorrow', Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2007, p 93
7. ibid , p 96
8. ibid, p 93
9. Jürgen Habermas cited in 'Habermas and Ratzinger, Dialectics of Secularisation', (Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 2006, page 35
10. Alasdair Macintyre, 'After Virtue, University of Notre Dame Press; 2nd Edition (August 30, 1984)
11. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, Belknap Press 2007
12. Pope Benedict XVI, interview on way to France, 12 September 2008
13. President Sarkozy, speech in Rome, 20 December 2007
14. Pope Benedict XVI, message to new Ambassador to San Marino, 13 November, 2008
15. Mixed Blessings: US Government Engagement with Religion in Conflict Prone Settings, Centre for Strategic Studies, Washington DC, July 2007, page 9
16. Pope Benedict XVI, Visit to Australia, July 12 2008
17. Pope's address to the new Ambassador from Cameroon, Vatican, 16 June 2008
18. Statement from the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, OCT. 11, 2006

Here's the abstract: "Remembrance Day needs to be re-imagined to make it more inclusive, more truthful and more meaningful for future generations, says this report. This would include an honest acknowledgement that some did "die in vain", an end to "selective remembrance", a positive stress on peacemaking, and making Armistice Day a bank holiday. The report follows the death of the 'last Tommy', Harry Patch from World War 1, who sadly described current patterns of Remembrance Day as "just show business". Remembrance has been 'cheapened' by a failure to back up words with action, particularly when it comes to successive Government's care for war veterans, but also the lack of resources put into peacebuilding. The report traces the development of Britain's remembrance tradition and makes a series of proposals about how Remembrance Day might be updated and made more accessible. It also includes reflection on the meaning and practice of 'memory', not least from a Christian theological standpoint."

Also taking part in our discussion, which begins shortly after 9am on BBC Radio Ulster, is the philosopher Alan Haworth. Alan is an expert on political philosophy; his textbook Understanding the Political Philosophers: from Ancient to Modern Times (Routledge 2004) is now used in many courses. Tomorrow, we'll ask him to talk about John Stuart Mill's essay "On Liberty". Mill's essay was published in November 1859, so this is an opportunity to mark that significant anniversary (which the essay shares with Darwin's On the Origin of Species) and also to examine Mill's contribution to our understanding of freedom. Alan wrote a short analysis of On Liberty for the British Humanist Association, which was recently sent to all MPs and peers.

We will try to examine the relationship between "remembrance" and "freedom", and explore how various understandings of liberty were, and are, implicated in debates about war and conflict.

Harry Patch's biographer, Peter Parker, also joins me tomorrow to talk about his new book. The Last Veteran: Harry Patch and the Legacy of War.

Money quotes from his Evening Standard interview:

'My own faith is there, it's not always the rock that perhaps it should be. I've a sort of fairly classic Church of England faith, a faith that grows hotter and colder by moments.'

'I suppose I sort of started life believing that one's individual faith was important, but actually the institutions of the church were less important.'

'I do think that organised religion can get things wrong, but the Church of England and the other churches do play a very important role in society.'

'I think that it's perfectly possible to live a good life without having faith, by which I mean a positive and altruistic life, but I think the teachings of Jesus, just as the teachings of other religions, are a good guide to help us through.'

What do we make of that? He creates space for all faiths, even humanism, and sees religious beliefs as conversation partners -- optional guides, which can be useful from time to time. Religious groups have an important societal role, but they are open to criticism too. And, perhaps most importantly, a political leader should feel feel to talk about his own attitude to religion.

He was careful to deny that he has a 'direct line' to God. After George W Bush, few politicians would speak comfortably of that kind of prayer-line. Cameron's media strategy contrasts with Tony Blair's discomfort about public expressions of faith -- even though, ironically, it is Blair who is clearly the more strident religious believer. Gordon Brown's comments on faith usually involve references to his father's work as a Presbyterian minister and the biblical roots of Christian Socialism, which tend to give the impression, rightly or wrongly, that Brown is more interested in the social and political implications of faith than faith itself.

Cameron has offered intimate aspects of his personal narrative to the public in this interview, and we can expect a great deal more of that as we approach the general election. This is further evidence of a drift towards the American presidential election model, where personal narratives are more important than manifesto commitments.

Cameron presents himself as a religious everyman figure: he has questions, he has doubts, but faith keeps returning, at key moments of his life, as an available anchor. Many people in Britain can relate to that kind of non-confessional faith, where religious belief is less like a marriage and more like an important friendship.

10= Peter Meadows, Bible Society - 0
10= Bents Garden Centre - 0
8 Rev Pam Smith - 24.69
7 Bishop of Croydon, Rt Rev Nicholas Baines - 25.59
6 Martin Beckford Religious Affairs, Daily Telegraph - 34.62
5 William Crawley, Religious Affairs, BBC Radio Ulster - 43.59
4 Bishop of Willesden, Rt Rev Pete Broadbent - 85.12
3 Ruth Gledhill Religious Affairs, The Times - 100.13
2 Rev Peter M Phillips, St Johns College, Durham - 103.49
1 Stephen Goddard - 175.43

I've a theory that Stephen Goddard has outperformed everyone else because his name includes the word "God", which may have registered extra content on the TweetPsych analysis. That's my story, anyway! In my case, I write about religion, ethics, science, politics, the arts, books, and the X Factor, and those relativities may have reduced my proportionate tweeting score for religion stories. Ahem.

Some texts lend themselves more naturally to Brendan's treatment than others. You may like to suggest candidates for the most difficult Bible verse to translate into Lego, and I'd enjoy seeing some of your favourite examples of completed dioramas.

Dr Michael Neary, the Archbishop of Tuam, has criticised those involved in encouraging people to believe there would be an apparition at the Knock shrine today. (Read the archbishop's statement here.)

Below the fold, I have published the full text of the press release we have received from the organisers of today's "event".

A letter published in the Irish Times (on Saturday 17 October), from Thomas Cotter, a biochemistry professor from University College Cork, offers an alternjative explanation of the dancing sun at Knock:

Madam, - The sun "dancing" in the sky at the Marian shrine in Knock, Co Mayo, reported by a small fraction of the large crowd that gathered there last week (Home News, October 12th), is very unlikely to be due to any supernatural events.

A more likely natural explanation is as follows. On the day in question it was cloudy and when the sun is viewed through thin cloud it often appears as a bright thin disc. Any alteration in the density of the passing cloud can cause the sun to appear to "shimmer or dance" due to alterations in the sun's apparent brightness and dimness as seen through the passing clouds. As the sun brightens it appears to advance and as it dims it appears to go back or recede. Water droplets or atmospheric dust in the cloud can also cause the sun also to apparently change colours.

If the sun truly danced in the sky, scientific observatories worldwide would have recorded it, but they did not! A little more common scientific sense is needed here before invoking supernatural explanations for what are after all just natural events.

- Yours, etc,

Thomas G Cotter, PhD MRIA
Professor of Biochemistry
University College Cork.

A Further New Apparition of Our Lady predicted to take place next Saturday October 31st 2009 in Knock's Basilica Church according to visionary Keith Henderson who is also said to have received messages from Our Lady in the aftermath of the recent apparition in Knock. "Our Lady will appear in the Basilica Church at Knock next Saturday October 31st2009" claims Keith Henderson, a secondary visionary who works closely with Dublin based renowned spiritual healer and visionary Joe Coleman.

Joe Coleman, previously forecast that the recent 'apparition' in Knock on Sunday 11th October at behind the Apparition chapel at Knock, Co Mayo, which was attended by over 8,000 people. Many people have since published photos of the apparition in the media - where many claim to have seen the sun 'dancing in the sky', change colour, flash with a dark ring and other colours around it - for a total of 15 minutes. Coleman also made similar predictions this year including one which took place on 13th September 2009 in Knock and the other in Kerrytown shrine near Dungloe, Co Dublin on Tuesday 29thth Septemberwhere 14 local people claim to have witnessed the Donegal phenomenon where they said they saw crosses flash in the sky for a reported full hour.

Message Keith Henderson received from Our Lady at Knock on October 11th 2009:

"I want to thank all my children for coming to Knock today especially those who come with an open heart. I want all my children to convert back to my church. There is only one religion and that is my religion. Some of my priests do not show compassion to my children. I want all of my priests to start showing compassion to all of my children especially those who convert back to my church. I want to bring more peace to Ireland north and south. Thank you to all my children for responding to my call today."

Message from Our Lady for Saturday October 31st 2009:

According to Keith Henderson: "She wants our Lady's statue, brought into the church with her visionaries walking behind her. She asks for one of her priests to recite the rosary in her Church at 3pm. When the rosary is finished Mother says she will make herself known to all of her children who come to her with an open heart. She will give her visionary Keith a message for all of her children in the church. She said the message will be announced in the Church by her visionary Keith Henderson. Our Blessed Lady says that her priests will accommodate her visionaries this time."

Prior to the last apparition in Knock, on October 11, 2009, Joe Coleman received a message he claims came from Our Lady as follows: "Our Lady wants all her children to go to confession and to get reconciliation from her son Jesus and to be able to experience the purse essence of god's love which he has for all his children. This apparition is to communicate a message to all religions and those who no religion and she will communicate many more times before Christmas at Knock with other messages. She has asked that the Catholic Church listen to her again and she has asked me to call out to the clergy and pray for them to help them show more grace and mercy to her children. She wants to bring faith, joy, peace and happiness back into our lives in these terrible times we are all experiencing."

The video shows Scientology spokesperson Tommy Davis walking out of a TV interview with Martin Bashir after Bashir repeatedly asked him about Scientology's alleged belief in a space alien overlord named Xenu. Davis said he found the question offensive, and denied that such beliefs play any role in Scientology, but he left the rhetorical door open earlier in the year when he appeared to accept that the Xenu legend originates in the writings of Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard. (Listen to Hubbard talking about the legend in a 1968 lecture here. And this is L. Ron Hubbard's handwriting.)

Some critics of Scientology say the religion's views on space aliens may appear ludicrous, but their alleged stance on 'disconnection' is no laughing matter.

'In a gesture which dramatically parallels the recent "come-and-join-us" invitation from the Pope to disaffected Anglicans, the Rationalist Association has opened its door to thousands of can't-quite-decide agnostics. A spokesperson for the RA (publisher of New Humanist) pointed out that many agnostics had been unhappy for years about the manner in which their uncertainty about God's existence played into the hands of religious apologists. New recruits to the RA were given some reassurances. "We are," said the spokesperson, "not at all averse to agnostics maintaining some traditional forms of speech, such as 'You can't help feeling that there is something up there', but obviously they'll be expected to gradually forsake their uncertainty about who made the world." In a further gesture of conciliation, the spokesperson confirmed that new recruits would not initially be expected to recognise the infallibility of Richard Dawkins.'

That's how Noam Chomsky responded today, during our conversation about politics and religion. (LIsten to the interview here.) While Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens challenge the claim that religion has made any constructive contribution to the world, Chomshy lauded the sacrificial work of the murdered Archbishop Oscar Romero and the social critique of liberationist theology.

When I asked him for contemporary examples of religion making a positive contribution, he told me this: "The Catholic Bishops Conference in the United States comes out with statements that are so progressive that the press won't report them. The Pope's new year messages are often not reported because they would be considered so far 'to the left' (whatever that means in the US spectrum)."

Though himself an atheist or agnostic, Chomsky opposed both the tone and the focus of the new atheist movement. Here's another excerpt from today's interview:

Chomsky: "I'm not impressed with it, frankly. And I don't think they address the concerns, feelings and commitments of seriously religious people. Yes, they do address the concerns of people who think the world was created ten thousand years ago, but they're not going to listen to these arguments -- not in the arrogant form in which they are presented. Discourse is possible. And if people want to believe in, say, a future life, or a divine figure, that's their right. What does bother me much more is, for example, reading publications from the Hoover Institute at Stanford University which describe Ronald Reagan, their divinity, as a 'colossus' striding over the country whose spirit looks over us like a loving ghost.

Crawley: "Good Lord."

Chomsky: "Yeah, I'm almost literally quoting. When secular figures are turned into divinities, they way they are in Peian Yang or Stanford University -- that I don't like."

We also talked about pacifism and the justification of war. Noam Chomsky denied that he was a complete pacifist. He supported the Allied military response to Hitler, and when pressed he accepted that the British intervention in Sierra Leone was justified. But, in general, he said, the case for war is a very hard sell, and governments turn to military action much too easily, without fully exhausting peaceful means.

Noam Chomsky was speaking to me, ahead of his visit to Belfast next week. He'll be giving this year's Amnesty International Lecture on Friday evening. That event has been sold out for quite some time, but the lecture and audience event will eventually be screened online on the Amnesty website.

You can read both surveys in full here.

Ken is standing in front of an original poster for his film Savage Messiah. During our conversation, we talked about Ken's BBC days, working with Hew Weldon on Monitor, his break into cinema, and the themes and values that colour his films. He talked about the Catholicism that informs and infuses his work, his sense of the spiritual, and the ultimately "puritanical" approach to sex and sexuality evidenced in his films.

Ken recently made a 20-minute short, Boudica Bites Back, which was screened last night, starring his wife Elize.

This was his first visit to Belfast, but I hope it won't be his last. I suggested that he might make a short film in the city, at this key stage in our history. In fact, the liminality of our current historical moment could be a fascinating area of exploration for a filmmaker renowned for engaging with liminal states and spaces. Ken and Elize loved the idea. Watch this space.

His performance on last night's programme has been widely described as 'shifty', and he certainly looked uncomfortable as he tried, unsuccessfully, to wriggle his way out of every quotation of his own words. At times, Nick Griffin even appeared to giggle at his own bizarre arguments as he deployed them, and was prepared -- for reasons passing understanding -- to applaud and laugh at well-delivered attacks on his own views. He was clearly enjoying the attention.

Critics say the leader of a party that fans racism should be given no air time, even if that party has some measure of electoral support. Some members of the government have been critical of the BBC's editorial decision to invite the BNP leader to appear on a programme which permits the public to examine his views. The BBC says it is not the responsibility of a public service broadcaster to censor the BNP.

What we witnessed last night was a politician in trouble as he faced an audience that wasn't buying what he had to sell.