British public life must not be a "God-free zone", said the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor warned on Thursday that the country is heading towards being a "world devoid of religious faith" and urged Catholics to prevent this from happening by engaging in a deeper relationship with God, according to The Guardian. He made his comments during a lecture at Westminster Cathedral.

The Cardinal also expressed concern about the "considerable spiritual homelessness" in Britain, where even if people wanted to believe they felt faith was not an option.

"Many people have a sense of being in a sort of exile from faith-guided experience," said Murphy-O'Connor. "This is the effect of the privatisation of religion today: religion comes to be treated as a personal need."

He denounced attempts to "eliminate the Christian voice" in the public square, and said modern culture has painted religious commitment as a "step back from being independent and mature".

But Christians are partly to blame for modern atheism, the Cardinal acknowledged.

"What did we do to generate unbelief? We need to examine what we might have done to give people a misleading idea of God," he said. "Faith in Britain might be improved by a deeper grasp of the mystery of God on the part of our believers."

He also called on believers to hold better and more respectful dialogue with non-believers rather than reject them because of differences.