Archbishop Leo Cushley addressed Edinburgh City Council, Thursday 13 December, and used the occasion to re-propose the harmony of faith and reason and to urge those engaged in public discourse to embrace reason as a common language which can facilitate robust but respectful debate in the public square.

“Hence, my Christmas wish – or rather Advent prayer – this morning is for a renewed appreciation, an intellectual rediscovery if you like, of the irreplaceable role of reason within Western culture and, especially, within civil society,” said the Archbishop.

“It is reason that equips each of us with a common language, one that both permits and facilitates public discourse between those with differing – and often competing – conceptions of the common good. It is reason that helps common dialogue to remain respectful, even if it becomes robust. In short, it is reason that keeps civil society civil.”

Archbishop Cushley was welcomed to the City Chambers by Lord Provost Frank Ross. The two had a cordial discussion before making their way to the meeting of the City Council where the Archbishop delivered the council’s monthly “Pause for Reflection”.

“As the Council dreams about what the City may look like in 2050,” he said, “perhaps we could take a fresh look at at the Royal Mile as a place where we will see again truth and charity walk and talk hand in hand, to the benefit of all those participating in the conversation.”

“May you, your families, and this city of ours enjoy a very happy, blessed and peaceful Christmas, and a good new year when it comes.”

The Archbishop’s full address to Edinburgh City Council, 13 December 2018, is reproduced below in full:

Lord Provost, Deputy Provost, Bailies, Councillors, dear friends,

Thank you for the invitation to be with you here this morning. It is, indeed, a great honour.

As you know, in just under a fortnight, these Council Chambers – in concert with the rest of this great city – will fall silent upon Christmas Day.

The Christian story tells us that this great public holiday commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, God made man, two millennia ago in the Judean city of Bethlehem. “Et Verbum caro factum est … and the Word was made flesh” as St John writes in the prologue of his Gospel.

As any good classicist could tell us, the Latin verbum is rendered in the original Greek as λόγος or Logos from which ‘Word’ is but the most plausible English derivation. And why is any of that of any significance? Because in the ancient world, Logos also denoted the principle of order or knowledge in the Universe.

“All entities come to be in accordance with this Logos,” said the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus in the sixth century BC. Indeed, it was he who coined both the term and the concept of Logos.

Thus, from the first century onwards, there emerged a new Western culture rooted in a Christian proposal that faith, reason and science co-exist in harmony, one with the other. Credo ut intellegam, intellego ut credam, as the Medieval Schoolmen would say. Not only do I believe in order to understand but, crucially, I also understand in order to believe.

Hence, my Christmas wish – or rather Advent prayer – this morning is for a renewed appreciation, an intellectual rediscovery if you like, of the irreplaceable role of reason within Western culture and, especially, within civil society. It is reason that equips each of us with a common language, one that both permits and facilitates public discourse between those with differing – and often competing – conceptions of the common good. It is reason that helps common dialogue to remain respectful, even if it becomes robust. In short, it is reason that keeps civil society civil. Let me give you two very Edinburgh examples, found right here on the Royal Mile.

If you go about 150 yards in that direction, just outside the High Court, you’ll find sculptor Sandy Stoddart’s neo-classical statue of David Hume. The 18^th century philosopher had little sympathy for what he called “mummeries” of the Catholic religion. However, while serving as Secretary at the British Embassy in Paris, Hume visited the Scots College – a seminary for the training of Catholic priests – several times to revise the text of his History of England. There he struck up what seems to have been a very genial and respectful relationship with the college rector or principal, John Gordon. Indeed, according to the historian Michael Turnbull, Hume once asked Gordon if he had anything he wanted him to send to London in the diplomatic bag to which Father Gordon replied that he had none, “except a Papal Bull to create a Scots bishop”. Turnbull writes that “Hume gleefully indicated that he would be delighted to oblige.”

Now from the statue of Hume, take yourself 700 yards or so down the Royal Mile until you reach the Canongate. There at number 13 St John’s Street is the site of the former home of Lord Monboddo, the 18^th century judge and philosopher. It was there in the 1780’s that the poet, Robert Burns, would meet one of my episcopal predecessors, Bishop John Geddes. A firm friendship quickly ensued.

The intellect and humanity of the Catholic bishop seemed to prove attractive to Burns. Meanwhile, Geddes was struck by the “uncommon genius” of the Ayrshire bard such that he purchased no fewer than five copies of the Edinburgh edition of Burns’ work for the Scottish seminaries on the continent.

In conclusion: Like our own forebears – Hume and Gordon, Burns and Geddes –we would do well to identify and to grasp the opportunities afforded us, to explore with our fellows, the great questions that face all the human beings that will ever live: why are we here?  What ought we to do with our life?  And, as we share a common destiny and a common mortality, there surely needs to be a public space where the perennial questions of human existence are aired without prejudice or rancour.

As the Council dreams about what the City may look like in 2050, perhaps we could take a fresh look at at the Royal Mile as a place where we will see again truth and charity walk and talk hand in hand, to the benefit of all those participating in the conversation.

May you, your families, and this city of ours enjoy a very happy, blessed and peaceful Christmas, and a good new year when it comes.