You mentioned a minute ago state-to-state communication between the UK and the Holy See. I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about backdoor diplomacy and how the Holy See can be useful to the UK in influencing how things get done?

## Francis Campbell

Dominant western thought: is it the main threat? I don't think it is and I don't think secularism is a threat to religion. In fact Charles Taylor's book, 'The Secular Age', which won the Templeton Prize, is a fantastic illustration of where secularism came from. Secularism is not possible unless it is part of religion - it's come of that trajectory. I think intolerant secularism - as much as intolerant religion - that's the threat. Now I don't want to pit the two - you know, these two ideologies, religion and secular ideology against each other. There is a fascinating, possibly one of the most fascinating encounter written up in a book - I can't say I could understand everything in the book but it was fascinating the bits I could understand! - that dialogue between Joseph Ratzinger and Jürgen Habermas, I think it was in April 2004 in Munich, and it was published. Here was someone in the shape of Jürgen Habermas, the leader of the Frankfurt School, sitting down and saying - he describes himself as tone-deaf to religion but he can see the value to faith and the value of that dialogue, and Joseph Ratzinger sitting down with him. Now, if I have a fear, my fear is that the ability to have that conversation is lost because you have a growing divide and people pass in the night having parallel conversations: that's the biggest threat. You know, secularism has existed as long as religion has existed and there always has to be that ability to have a conversation, and to discover a grammar. The beautiful thing about Ratzinger and Habermas in that dialogue is that that's what it's about, it's about a grammar. In relation to - I'm going to take these two questions together - the young British Muslims and the staff diversity in the diplomatic service. The Foreign Office doesn't monitor the religion of its staff. It's not an issue on appointment. Anyone of any religion can be British ambassador to the Holy See. We did have a convention until 2005 that a Roman Catholic could not become ambassador to the Holy See. This was the only religious proviso the Foreign Office had in its service. Now I've been asked this question often - should my successor be a Catholic? My view on that is this, that I would be very uncomfortable, and I say this also with my accent - I would be very uncomfortable going from a situation where a Catholic could not apply to a situation where only a Catholic could apply. That too would be wrong. So the answer to your question: Can anyone from any religion do this job? The answer is yes! That is there. In relation to the question about the religious diversity of the Embassy, I say again our office is tiny! For the first four years I was the only UK-based diplomat and we had one-and-a-half local staff who were Italian. But again it is not something in our recruitment, it is not something that we would be asking questions about or trying to determine. What we would hope when somebody applies for a job to work at the Holy See - we would only look to see that there is some degree of familiarity or understanding of religion because it is quite a complicated sort of world to get to grips with, and I think a certain background or disposition towards understanding faith and politics would help.