When Andy Burnham began his term as the United Kingdom’s 59th prime minister on Monday, he made history in becoming Britain’s first Catholic-born prime minister. Source: NCR Online.
Mr Burnham also made history for taking office in an unusual way after the resignation of his unpopular predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer.
Hundreds of years of restrictions following the English Reformation and institutional bias meant Catholics did not achieve high political offices until relatively recently, and Mr Burnham’s move into the role marks a major shift.
Some may argue former prime ministers Tony Blair and Boris Johnson beat Mr Burnham to this spot in history. But Mr Blair converted to Roman Catholicism, the faith of his wife and children, after he left office.
Many observers speculated that he did not do so earlier because it might have affected delicate negotiations over the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. Johnson, baptised a Catholic, had left the Church for the Church of England.
Mr Burnham has said on several occasions that his values were shaped by his faith, though in 2015, he said he’s “not particularly religious now”.
Back in 2009, he recalled that important influences on him were, in order: the Everton FC soccer team, the Labour Party and the Catholic Church.
Constitutionally, his Catholicism matters, too.
The law still decrees those “who profess the Popish religion” cannot “possess or enjoy the Crown and Government of this Realm,” stemming from England’s split from Rome during the reign of Henry VIII, leading to the creation of the Church of England.
After a brief interlude with Catholic Mary I, who appointed a Catholic to the role of chief minister to the crown — as the country’s top job was then called, over 500 years ago — the Church of England became fully rooted in the life of the country as the established church under Elizabeth I.
Today, the monarch still pledges to uphold the Protestant religion at his coronation. And according to a UK Parliament research briefing, if the prime minister is Catholic, some jobs related to Church of England appointments may have to be delegated to another government minister who is part of that Church.
Mr Burnham, 56, has said he was shaped by the Catholic Church. Last year, he spoke of its influence during his lecture for Theos, the religion-meets-politics think tank. He told the audience there was a need to move from a crisis of trust to “a culture of encounter”, a phrase he attributed to the late Pope Francis, whom he met at the Vatican two years earlier.
FULL STORY
How Andy Mr Burnham’s religious roots shaped Britain’s first Catholic-born prime minister (By Catherine Pepinster, RNS via NCR Online)
