UK minister calls for Europe to combat wave of 'intolerant secularisation'

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, the first Muslim woman appointed to a British cabinet, called on Europe to be "more confident in its Christianity".

LONDON // A call for Christians in Europe to defeat the wave of "intolerant secularisation" was issued yesterday by the first Muslim woman appointed to a British cabinet.

On an official visit to the Vatican, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi called on Europe to be "more confident in its Christianity" in a speech that had echoes in Prime Minister David Cameron's recent call to the Church of England to lead the fight against "moral collapse".

Baroness Warsi will lead a delegation of seven British ministers in an audience with Pope Benedict XVI today.

She told staff and students at the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, a college in Rome that trains priests to serve in the Vatican secretariat or diplomatic corps, that "in order to encourage social harmony, people need to feel stronger in their religious identities - more confident in their beliefs".

She added: "In practice this means individuals not diluting their faiths and nations not denying their religious heritages. If you take this thought to its conclusion, then the idea you're left with is this: Europe needs to become more confident in its Christianity."

The minister, who warned in a speech last year that prejudice against Muslims had "passed the dinner-table test" and had become socially acceptable, said that it was a myth to think that "we need to erase our religious heritage" to protect minorities.

She said the Pope had been right to warn of the "marginalisation" of religion when he visited Britain last year.

"I see it in United Kingdom and I see it in Europe: 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 is infused with tradition."

Baroness Warsi, who is co-chairman of the Conservative Party, the senior partners in Britain's coalition government, argued that Christian roots "shine through our politics, our public life, our culture, our economics, our language and our architecture".

"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."