22 December 2022
Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric has hit out at the ‘woke’ rewriting of Christmas carols.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols said preserving traditional songs was more important than ‘sensitivities which come and go’.
His comments came after a Church of England carol service sparked outrage by featuring an ‘inclusive’ version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.
The updated verses of the 17th-century carol included the lines ‘God rest you also, women, who by men have been erased’ and ‘God rest you, queer and questioning’.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols has spoken out against the 'woke' rewording of Christmas carols
The version, which was written by an American minister, was sung on Monday during the Mayor of Charnwood’s carol service at All Saints with Holy Trinity Church in Loughborough, Leicestershire.
Asked about the controversy yesterday, Cardinal Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, replied: ‘I think what Christmas does, it tells us the importance of ritual.
‘Ritual helps us to step outside of our own little bubble, connect with something that we have received, inherited, and that we hope to pass on.
'I think those values – of a continuation of musical repertoire, of the ability to sing together, of looking at the rituals that have been fashioned over centuries – for me, those are probably more important than particular sensitivities which come and go.’
Cardinal Nichols also insisted there was ‘no shortage’ of churchgoers, despite census data revealing that less than half of the population of England and Wales now called themselves Christian.
Saying that people were ‘coming back’ to the Church during the pandemic, he told Times Radio: ‘There’s no shortage of that instinct for faith, which is connecting again with church services, certainly in the Catholic Church.’
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