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Public life cannot be 'God-free', says cardinal

British public life cannot be a "God-free zone", the head of the Roman Catholic church in England and Wales warned tonight.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor said he was unhappy about attempts to "eliminate the Christian voice" from the public forum. He urged Catholics to prevent the country from becoming a "world devoid of religious faith" through a deeper engagement with God by praying, studying and performing charitable acts.

In a lecture at Westminster Cathedral the cardinal observed there was "considerable spiritual homelessness" and, even if people wanted to believe, they felt faith was no longer an option.

"Many people have a sense of being in a sort of exile from faith-guided experience. This is the effect of the privatisation of religion today: religion comes to be treated as a personal need. You cannot banish religion to the church premises. There are social currents that want to isolate religion from other forms of knowledge and experience in order to marginalise it."

Full story at The Guardian.