|TOP|The formal programme of spiritual renewal of the Westminster Diocese has been brought to a close by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, reports The Good News.

The programme was launched by the diocese in a bid to strengthen the relationship between clergy and laity and equip believers so that “together we can take responsibility for the values and mission of the Church”.

“This is not the end but the beginning,” the Cardinal told the more than 800 members of Core Communities and faith group leaders at Westminster Cathedral earlier in the month.

Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor also pledged that his forthcoming White Paper on the future of the diocese he would help to enable greater collaboration between clergy and laity.

“I want to give you the tools, the skills, the encouragement, the opportunity,” said the Cardinal.

“Your lives matter,” he added. “You speak for the light. Through you, the Church is built from below.”

|QUOTE|The Cardinal said in his homily at the Mass held to mark the end of the day-long Core Community Congress, that the spiritual renewal programme, ‘At Your Word, Lord’, had been launched in the diocese “amidst considerable scepticism and predictions of failure.”

He added that despite the scepticism, however, the weekly meetings of 20,000 people in small groups all across the diocese had transformed Westminster.

“Our diocese will never be the same again,” he said.

Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor continued: “Today it is contrast that counts. We need to ask: Do the people in our churches really give the impression that they are people of faith, that they are free, that they are happy in the Lord? Because if not, why should anyone believe us?”

He said people wanted to know what difference faith makes as “they look at our lives in order to know what Jesus Christ looks like”.