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Julian Coman’s article about Andy Burnham resonated with me, as I share his belief in compassion, social responsibility and concern for those who are struggling (Like Burnham, I was an altar boy. His Catholic upbringing is shaping the way he governs, 1 August). Where I differ is in the suggestion that these values are rooted primarily in Catholicism.
I grew up in inner-city Manchester during the Thatcher years, in a low socioeconomic working-class community facing unemployment, poverty and drug misuse. My parents were not religious, but they instilled in me a humanist outlook based on empathy, fairness and our shared responsibilities to one another.
The same values were reinforced at my primary school. In a diverse inner-city neighbourhood, children from different backgrounds learned side by side. Looking back, religion barely featured in our day-to-day lives at school. Faith was generally considered a private matter. What united us was a simple understanding that everyone deserved respect, fairness and kindness. We learned to see one another not as representatives of different beliefs, but as fellow human beings with a shared stake in our community and society.
It was an inclusive environment that left me comfortable and confident in Britain as a diverse society. Through our families, teachers and local community, we came to appreciate the secular institutions that bound us together: the NHS, social housing and the welfare state. Children whose families had lived here for generations learned alongside those whose families had arrived more recently, but there was a shared understanding that these institutions represented something valuable, something to be respected, strengthened and improved. Civic responsibility, inclusivity and social justice were not religious lessons; they were human lessons.
Those values shaped me, too, but they came from a secular humanist upbringing, my community, and Britain’s civic institutions. The compassion that Coman admires in Burnham may well have been strengthened by his Catholic upbringing, but compassion, solidarity and social responsibility are not the preserve of any one faith or worldview. If there is a moral tradition worth celebrating, it’s the broader human one: the belief that we flourish not alone, but through our obligations to one another, regardless of faith.
Lorna Peters
Manchester
Julian Coman’s article was encouraging. The faith communities I know are all deeply involved in politics, justice, homelessness work and much more. At a recent local Labour party meeting, there were two Methodists (I was one), several Catholics and a couple of Quakers.
Coman mentions the Methodist worldview that Margaret Thatcher inherited from her father. But Mrs Thatcher didn’t know her Methodist roots. Our founder, John Wesley, said: “The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness but social holiness.” So when she said “there is no such thing as society”, she was denying her Methodist roots. Much worse, though, was that she was wrong and set in train the rise of individualism.
Rev Richard Parkes
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire
Julian Coman has it pretty much spot-on. “The problem with Christianity is that no one has ever really tried it,” as my wise mother, Peggy Brown, always said.
While I continue to disappoint myself in that regard, perhaps Andy Burnham will succeed in being the first to preserve integrity and hope in the fire of political separatism and selfishness.
John Brown
Hartford, Cheshire
Andy Burnham is Britain’s first lifelong Roman Catholic prime minister. Tony Blair converted to Catholicism while in office and Boris Johnson, though baptised a Catholic as a baby, converted to Anglicanism at a later stage in his life.
For hundreds of years – after the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, until the Repeal of the Penal Laws in the early 19th century – Roman Catholics in Britain were stripped of economic, political and religious power. They could not hold civil or military office. They could not get educated, vote or practice a profession. Until 2013, a British royal could not marry a Catholic and, in fact, the monarch today still cannot be a Catholic.
But now, in 2026, we have a Catholic prime minister, who has said his Catholic upbringing means a lot to him. If this upbringing is shaping the way he is governing, we might see a focus on the common good and the influence of the social teachings of the Catholic church, including the need to put the poor and vulnerable first, the dignity of the human person, the dignity of work, the worker and the rights of workers, the call to the family and community, the work towards peace and solidarity in the world, and the care for the stewardship of God’s creation.
Let us wish Andy Burnham luck in his endeavour to create a just and equitable society.
Julia O’Shea
Kilcummin, County Kerry, Ireland
