Realm, The

Aidan Nichols tackles the current issues of church and state, religion and society, and what mission might mean today. This is a challenging and compelling message. He argues that any hope of converting our increasingly secular society has to be led and underpinned by a profound change in our culture. This is about more than art and literature; it encompasses every aspect of our lives and our country, from individual virtue to public law. Nichols calls for a recovery of a distinct Christian identity and a confident faith which seeks to provide a common purpose for the realm, rather that being diffident or subsumed into the wider secular culture. He describes how Catholic Christianity provides the best foundation for the culture of an England re-made.

' En route to describing the goal of England's conversion, I have something to say in these pages about culture and civilisation, history and literature, ethics and philosophy, and even politics and economics. That is necessary if Catholic Christianity is to be proposed not as an occupation for individuals in their solitude, but as a form for public life of society in tis overall integrity. Of course most people will disagree with my aim, never mind my methods. That is why this is 'an unfashionable essay'.'
From the Preface

FR AIDAN NICHOLS is a Dominican friar of the Priory of St Michael the Archangel, Cambridge. He is John Paul II Memorial Visiting Lecturer at the University of Oxford and Fellow of Greyfriars, Oxford.