the time I've been in this job they often call through Rome to relay to the Vatican what they've picked up at the grass roots basis. But you mentioned Gaza very specifically and I'm very conscious that there are two Catholic schools in Gaza and there are a number of Catholic social infrastructure projects in Gaza and I think their presence there - there is a very very very small Christian population in Gaza - but their presence says something very strong about inter-faith dialogue. And I think they need to stay there, but it's not always easy in terms of their security. At one stage one of those schools was attacked but I think it is important and it is a tremendous sign and a tremendous signal that that presence remains there. So I think that comes back to that text in the speech about that grass-roots activity where a micro-activity works through to some kind of stronger macro-message. That third question is more like a lifetime's research project but I think there is something there. There would be a lot could be said. You will be familiar with 'Paths to Modernity' it is called - the English edition, or the US edition, it has two different names - but Gertrud Himmelfahrt comes at this in the way she talks about the difference in the United States to the Enlightenment - it's because the Enlightenment in the United States was based upon Scottish and English Enlightenment and it's a freedom for religion; the French Enlightenment she would say was a completely different construct when it came to religion, but it was not a freedom for religion, it was a freedom from religion. So I think there is something in that. But I am struck - you know, in this job I have seen President Sarkozy come to the Vatican and the French separation of Church and State is probably one of the strictest constitutional separations of Church and State you can find in the Western world. But to witness President Sarkozy taking his canon's throne in the Basilica of St John in Rome! We had conversations about this with the French ambassador and he just said, you people just don't understand French laicité! It's one of those fascinating things that French society has some very strict separations but then you have symbols like this where this relationship, this tradition has continued where the French President takes on the offices of the French king and one of these is honorary canon to the Basilica of St John in Rome which is under the protection of France.

Throughout your lecture you have used the words 'dominant Western thought' and in the Enlightenment 'dominant Western thought' has systematically portrayed religion in a negative way. Well of course it is not just religion that dominant Western thought has portrayed in a negative way. Other peoples, other cultures, other traditions, other languages are depicted in a negative as well. Would you say the real threat to faith is the 'dominant Western thought'? And the second question I'd like to ask is, do you foresee the time when you will be replaced by a young British Muslim diplomat?

There was an initiative, I think about three years ago, by a number of very prominent Muslim scholars who approached the Vatican with the King of Saudi Arabia to start talks about getting to know each other a bit better: I was wondering what has become of that? I was also going to ask you does your staff have diversity of religious background?