Categories:

• Headlines
• Alumni
• Chef's Corner
• College News
• College Performances
• The Departments
• Poet's Corner
• Puzzles and Games
• Sport
• Staff News
• Student News
• Student Successes
• Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat
• The Gallery

Archbishop Peter Smith seems relaxed as he puffs on his cigarette, a habit that has become fondly associated with him by Catholics within the archdiocese. Born in Battersea to a Catholic mother and a non-practising Anglican father, Peter Smith never thought he would enter the priesthood.

“I remember being asked at school and saying certainly not! Looking back, if I’d said yes, I may have just been carried along with it.” Peter Smith’s life was to take a different direction.

“I didn’t feel I was bright enough for university. My brother had joined the Bank of New Zealand in London, and I wasn’t sure what to do.” That was until he saw an advertisement, simply reading “Coutts and Company – require Clerks.” 

“I read it and thought that’ll do me!” Peter Smith applied and became a clerk for the company, and even moved higher up the ladder. However, he realised that “it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life”. At the time he was meeting with school friends who had embarked on university life, and told him how wonderful it was.

“I had second thoughts, and applied to read law at Exeter University. I went with great apprehension, as nobody had gap years then and I had spent a year working.” Archbishop Peter says he has very fond recollections of his time at the university, and recalls his application interview fondly. “I remember the Dean asking me why I had selected Exeter as my first choice. For some reason I replied that although it wasn’t the best for law, it seemed like a lovely part of the country to spend three years!”

Peter Smith did consider becoming a barrister, but whilst spending a weekend with his friends, the topic of vocation to the priesthood was raised. After much thought, he called up the University Chaplain and asked “How do you know if you have a calling?” to which the Chaplain replied “I`ve always thought you’d make a good priest!”

“I was still hesitant, and I had doubts. I didn’t think that I was holy enough, but I decided to try my vocation. I wanted to put it to the test.” 
However, Archbishop Peter’s decision did not go down well with his father. “He went berserk, and thought I’d gone mad! My brother wasn’t really interested, and my mother told me she always thought I would, which came as a great surprise to me. The Catholic side of my family was delighted, but my father’s father was dead against it” 

Peter Smith’s doubts about his calling remained, and twice he asked to leave the seminary, but was persuaded to stay on. He would spend six years at St John’s Seminary at Wonersh. He went on to study at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas in Rome, where he gained his Doctorate in Canon Law.  He was ordained in 1972 and did pastoral work for two years before returning to St John’s Seminary to teach canon law, becoming rector of the seminary in 1985.  In March 1995, Father Peter Smith was appointed Bishop of East Anglia by Pope John Paul II.

After six happy years in East Anglia, Bishop Peter Smith was to encounter a major change in his life. He received an urgent phone call whilst visiting the shrine of Our Lady at Walsingham, informing him “The Holy Father wants you in Cardiff”.

On the face of things, it did not appear a very desirable job. Archbishop John Aloysius Ward had resigned amid outcry within the Church over his failure to act decisively in two cases over paedophile priests. After being appointed as Archbishop of Cardiff, Peter Smith commented at the time in an interview with the BBC “Child abuse is a dreadful wrong and there is no justification for it. Steps have been taken to address the problem, and bishops are intent on getting rid of it. I think before these cases arose we didn’t have a full understanding of how manipulative and devious these paedophiles could be, as they wormed themselves into positions where they could reach children. Most people trust their priests and there have been less than half of 1% involved. This is still too much but we have our team in place to watch closely.” He also added “I want to help people to bind up the wounds and bring healing. I think it is so important, it’s not done easily, it takes time and a great deal of effort, and it takes patience.”

And under Archbishop Peter, the diocese has once again begun to thrive. He told me “I’ve had a very interesting and enjoyable seven years, and Wales is a lovely place. I feel faith is alive as far as the Church is involved.” When I asked Archbishop Peter how he felt about the Archdiocese covering both England and Wales, he told me; “I’m delighted to have a patch of Old England like Herefordshire. I do sometimes get caught when Wales play England though; when people ask for my opinion, I end up saying I want the best team to win!”

Archbishop Peter has been a vocal figure for the Catholic Church in voicing his opinion over key ethical issues that demand media coverage. “The Church absolutely supports adult stem cell research. It is perfectly moral to research adult stem cells, but not embryos. We should never treat embryos as a commodity, because they have all the elements that become a human being. It is a human life with potential, not potential human life.”
 
Archbishop Peter also commented that he found it illogical that scientists only research up to twelve weeks and not beyond, “as it is either a human life or it’s not”. The Archbishop stressed that the Church was very keen to find cures for conditions such as cystic fibrosis, but that it must be done ethically. “There is no evidence whatsoever that anything really useful has come out of embryonic stem cell research, whereas we have seen huge advances with adult stem cells.”

Archbishop Peter also stressed the Catholic Church’s view on euthanasia. “We have no right to kill a human being. We should never soften the law on assisted suicide, and we will continue to fight for that.” However the Archbishop feels that many fail to understand the full Catholic teaching. “Many think that we believe you must keep the body going by any means, but this is not the Catholic view. It is immoral to kill somebody off, but there comes a point in terminal illness where treatment becomes futile, and it is not then wrong to refuse treatment. It’s the principle of double effect.”

I asked the Archbishop for his opinion on influential atheist writer Richard Dawkins, who has been damning in criticisms of the Roman Catholic Church and religion in general. “I think that Richard Dawkins is the Catholic Church’s best friend!”, Archbishop Peter says. “He upsets people and he is so outrageous it’s to our benefit. He is not subtle enough, and thinking atheists know that he goes too far”. I then asked the Archbishop how he felt that Catholics should react to criticism like Dawkins’. “If we react over emotionally to criticism of the Church, we make matters worse. We have to be able to see faith is reasonable. The Church is coherent in its social teachings, and Catholics should be more confident in expressing their faith. When we’re presenting the Gospel and the Church’s social teaching, we must be able to argue our case with reason and to argue it reasonably. As we are told in the first letter of Saint Peter, you must give reasons for your hope, but always with respect.” 

Archbishop Peter continued, “The Church wants people to flourish. The Church can come across as negative, but if we believe that society is going astray, we must speak out against it. The gospel message is of joy, and we must understand what it means to be truly human and the true purpose of human life. The model of this is Jesus Christ, because that is who we proclaim, with all the implications that come with that. Jesus gave us the unconditional love of God through freely giving his own life, and by doing that gave us all the hope of life and love.” 
 
The Archbishop was also formerly chairman of the CDAC, a body that advises the BBC and Independent Broadcasting over their coverage of religion. He describes the BBC as portraying religion as a “patchwork quilt”. “Some programmes are very good and balanced, but some don’t understand the teaching or the topic. The trouble is that people want a good headline. It’s not lies, but not always the whole truth.” 
 
I wanted to pose the question on the existence of natural evil to the Archbishop. Whilst covering the topic in my Theology lessons, many thought it was the greatest argument against the existence of God. “Natural evil is ultimately a mystery. Some will say that is a cop-out, but because we believe in original sin, then something must have affected the whole of the natural world and the relationship between God and everything that he created. God does not impose evil upon us, and moral evil is easier to understand, because of free will and the fact we tend to have a self-centred nature.  It is difficult to see where natural evil fits into a merciful and loving God, and we all struggle to understand it. I think we will only understand it when we come face-to-face with God. We see with climate change the effect of our actions, and what our children are going to inherit. Although nature is essentially good, something somewhere along the line went wrong. It is a puzzle with no easy ultimate answer.”

I concluded the interview by asking the Archbishop the best way for young Christians to live their lives, and inspire others. “Our task, young, middle-aged or old, is to live the Gospel every day. Living it in our own lives is much more effective than anything we can say. When others look at us, they should see something of the Gospel in us. We must live it and be fully alive! None of us are perfect, but that is our daily struggle.”