How is life, now that you have left parliament?
Absolutely wonderful. It feels like I left 20 years ago, rather than two months ago.
How is the coalition faring without you?
I’d rather we didn’t have one. I think we gave away too much in order to get it. Coalitions are bad news — you never know what you are voting for. Coalitions are built on traded manifesto promises. If, for example you were a Liberal Democrat who specifically voted Lib Dem because you had a moral objection to Trident, and it was the only mainstream party offering you no Trident, well, then, bad luck. And if you were a Conservative who specifically voted Conservative in order to get rid of the Human Rights Act, then bad luck. But I do not see that we had any choice, given the economic situation.
Are there particular concessions which bother you?
Well, the Human Rights Act is a very obvious one. I’ve yet to see how it pans out on inheritance tax, but that’s another. I think we just have to see. A headlong rush into electoral reform is not sensible and is a distraction. We have an economy to get right and there shouldn’t be much that distracts us from that.
Does this government, to borrow a phrase from Alastair Campbell, “do God”?
Well, Eric Pickles has said he will do away with the nonsense of playing down Christianity and funding any activity unless it’s a church one. So one of the earliest coalition pronouncements was, from my point of view, a very good one. The change away from the last Labour government has brought in a greater recognition of the role of the church.
Do you feel that religion is pushed to the margins in British public life?
It has been for a very long time. Under the last government we saw a raft of law, principally equality law, which specifically set out to crush religious freedom and to crush freedom of conscience. There is an immense difference between being told that you must not discriminate against something and being told that you must promote it. The last government failed to preserve that distinction.
Which particular issues concern you?
Catholic adoption agencies, for example, had to either place children with homosexual couples or close. Now some actually did close; they were placing the children who were hardest to place — that was the job of Catholic adoption agencies. So that very, very vital role disappeared. It’s almost an article of faith now that you can’t exercise Christian conscience.
Were you upset by the row over Christian bed-and-breakfast owners being told they had to accept homosexual guests?
. . . even if the B&B is your own house. Chris Grayling, when he was shadow home secretary, said there should be a distinction between having a say over what goes on in your own house and if you are running a large hotel where anybody comes and goes. When he said that, the result was demotion [to below the rank of shadow cabinet minister].
With about half of the population being non-believers, what role should religion have in public life?
You’ve picked one statistic. If you actually look at the census results and all the rest of it, most people do classify themselves as Christian. And we do still have an established church. If we deny our culture and become nothing and everything, that weakens us. Our state ceremonies have a religious foundation. We have compulsory religious education. And the Church should be a moral guardian. We have in this country a long Christian heritage and Christian culture and we shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to give that up.
The latest British Social Attitudes Survey suggests that at least half the country isn’t religious . . .
Half the country won’t be practising, but when you get events like 9/11, the first thing that happens is the churches fill up. People may say they’re not religious, and when Richard Dawkins says he’s not religious he actually means it; so would Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry. But when people who are shrugging say they’re not religious, they mean they’re not attached to a particular church, they’re not practising at the moment. They may not necessarily mean that they discard the concept of God altogether.
If we are in a position where the majority, or a very large minority, of the population are not practising Christians, is it necessarily the best thing to define ourselves as a Christian country?
Well, yes it is. You can’t get away from the fact that our culture and our heritage is that way, and if we just deny it all and become nothing and everything we shall lose our character. That actually weakens a country: it can weaken a country very, very badly not to have a clearly defined character. I also think, for example, that if you disestablish the Church of England that would be a very dangerous step. It would inevitably lead to the dissolution of the monarchy — I mean, not by the middle of Tuesday afternoon, but that’s where it would lead. So I think there are all manner of reasons for keeping the church at the centre of society, and the established Church in this country is Anglican. And I would die in a ditch for its establishment. Sadly, the people I wouldn’t expect to find in the ditch beside me would be the hierarchy of the Church of England.
What’s your opinion of the Pope’s intervention on the Equalities Bill?
The Pope was absolutely right to comment. A lot of his flock are feeling under pressure. We think we’re being neglected, and I see no reason at all why the head of the Catholic Church shouldn’t give us some comfort by making an announcement.
His intervention with the government of another country is acceptable?
Well, of course. The Vatican is a state, and we all have diplomatic relations with the Vatican. It’s not some isolated little cult somewhere, it represents 17.5 per cent of the world’s population. And that’s just the Catholics — there are all the other Christians on top of that.
Are the rumours true — are you about to become Britain’s ambassador to that state?
No. That is pure speculation from the press. Your profession loves speculation. [She laughs]
True! To return to the Catholic Church — is it in crisis, given the abuse scandal and so on?
No. Obviously, this is serious. One child abused is too many. But in, for example, America, which bore the brunt of the first very big scandal, 2 per cent of its priests actually faced allegations — and that doesn’t mean they were actually proved. So it isn’t as if there is abuse going on in every parish. Unfortunately, as I say, one abuse is enough. It’s something that the Church has to get on top of; I think it is something the Church is getting on top of. But why just pick on the Church? This happens in teaching, it happens in children’s homes, it happens just about everywhere that you can mention. The overwhelming majority of abusers are secular, married men.
You converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in the 1990s, with a period of agnosticism in between. What caused the shift?
I left the Church of England because there was a huge bundle of straw. The ordination of women was the last straw, but it was only one of many. For years I had been disillusioned by the Church of England’s compromising on everything. The Catholic Church doesn’t care if something is unpopular. As far as the Catholic Church is concerned if it’s true it’s true, and if it’s false it’s false. The issue over women priests was not only that I think it’s theologically impossible to ordain women, it was the nature of the debate that was the damaging thing, because instead of the debate being “Is this theologically possible?” the debate was “If we don’t do this we won’t be acceptable to the outside world”. To me, that was an abdication of the Church’s role, which is to lead, not to follow.
Do you welcome the formal discussions that are going between the Anglican Church and the Catholic Church over conversion?
The rejection of Rowan Williams’s amendment in the last few days — which would mean that conscientious objectors would not have had to answer to a woman bishop — means that you’ve now got a group of objectors with nowhere to go. Because that has happened, I think the likelihood of a split in the C of E, along the lines of the one we saw in the early Nineties, is more rather than less likely. If it happens, what I sincerely hope is that the Catholic Church in this country is better geared up to cope with it than it was last time.
Last time, I think the view was, “Well, this isn’t going to happen for another five years”, so nobody had put anything in place. What happened depended entirely on what parish you were in. So in some dioceses the priests were fast-tracked through if they were wishing to become Catholic priests. The laity were put through the following Easter; everything was fast-tracked. In other parishes, the bishops didn’t like it, dragged their feet, didn’t want to receive Anglicans, and Rome finally gave guidance, but only after there’d been a long period of muddle. I just hope that this time, if there is a split, that the Catholic Church has got its house in order, rather than trying to react piecemeal. It was a mess last time, a serious mess.
Are you optimistic that the Church will be more supportive this time round?
I think the very fact that the Pope has, as you mentioned, opened up this dialogue between the two churches should make the path easier. I think he’s done this because he can see the split coming just as well as everybody else can. It’s not a split I’m wishing on the Anglican Church, because I want everyone to be spiritually happy where they would prefer to be, but if it does happen then I would hope that we are better geared up than last time.
Is the priesthood the only field from which you feel women should be exempt?
I despair when people say, “But you’re a successful woman.” I do not stand in persona Christi at the point of the consecration. That is what we’re talking about — we’re talking about a woman standing in the person of Christ. You might as well ask a man to stand in the person of the Virgin Mary. It’s something that’s been brought about purely in response to the modern pressure for equality. And that’s fine: I believe in equality, from the Prime Minister down through the country. But the Church is a thing apart and always should be.
What did you learn from your agnostic period?
My faith was much stronger when I came back because it was more hard-won. That is a fairly common experience of people who hold a view and then change it. They are normally very much stronger and more convinced than people who’ve always grown up with that view.
Do you understand secularism better now?
I understand well enough where people who do not believe are coming from. What I do not like is militant secularism, whereby anything is acceptable as long as it’s not Christian.
Is the growth of secularism a worry?
I think secularism was always going to be a very difficult force to cope with and I think people have seen it coming for some time. Its benefit for religion has been that it’s united us much more. Somebody once asked me how I got on with Ian Paisley when I converted to Catholicism, and I said, “Well, actually, we get on extremely well because we’ve got a common foe.” I think it’s meant that Christians, instead of agitating over each other, have actually started to look outwards and have banded together. Secularism has no central goal, it’s just promoting endless relativism. That’s why there is a huge moral drift in the country: everybody is infallible except the Pope, if you like. Crazy. Once you say there’s no such thing as truth, everybody can make up their own mind, then truth becomes irrelevant, because it cannot be true both that God exists and that God does not exist: it’s impossible for both statements to be true. One statement is true and one is not.
Does Britain’s religious plurality concern you?
I don’t have a problem with other people having different faiths; my problem is if we confuse respecting that with surrendering our own faith. That’s what we have been doing as a country for a couple of decades. We’ve been saying, “Oh we mustn’t do that, because it might offend other faiths.” Well, actually, other faiths just scratch their heads in disbelief.
Who are your heroes?
William Wilberforce is one — not just because of the abolition of slavery, but because he stuck at it when everything was against him. So, if you like, what I respect in Wilberforce is the sheer moral resolution.
Where is home?
Home is Dartmoor. Beautiful, beautiful wild Dartmoor.
Is there, or was there, a plan?
God has charge of these plans, but my plan at the moment is to enjoy retirement.
So your plan doesn’t include, say, an ambassadorial role at the Holy See?
Good try, but I’m not being drawn.
What would you like to forget?
Nothing. Even bad things are lessons learned.
Are we all doomed?
We can be saved. But it’s up to us.
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