SECULAR approaches to combat ignorance and prejudice across different races and cultures will not work, the head of the Roman Catholic education service in England and Wales said this week.

The Archbishop of Birmingham warned that a multi-cultural Britain could not be achieved in purely secular terms and cautioned against ignoring religious belief in the quest for a tolerant society.

The Most Reverend Vincent Nichols spoke out this week as MPs resumed the debate on controversial government moves for more state-funded religious schools.

“To ignore religious belief is to fall into a kind of reductionism that removes one of the most important dimensions from the mutual understanding and respect, which we rightly seek,” he told The TES.

That would show a lack of respect for the deepest aspirations of many people’s lives.

“It also arrogantly runs the risk of alienating and diverting those very sources of energy and commitment which this country needs to draw into a common effort.

“A multi-cultural Britain cannot be negotiated in purely secular terms. Religious belief, and the life of faith which flows from it, are too important to most people.

“We need to work quite explicitly for not simply a multi-cultural but also a multi-faith Britain.”

Archbishop Nichols said religious belief was not a generalised experience. “It cannot be understood, or lived, in some undifferentiated way. Islam, too, has to be appreciated and respected as it is lived and not in some generalised sense.

“The life of faith, and its role in education, is always more particular than that: it is based on specific truths, giving rise to particular principles and behaviour.”

He said that faith is central to life therefore the education provided by schools of different faiths will be distinctive.

Education Secretary Estelle Morris has said that new state-funded religious schools should be inclusive and take in children of other faiths or none.

Archbishop Nichols said: “There are in Britain many different types of school, many different patterns of education, all with a variety of entry qualifications. None is truly inclusive at the point of entry. But all should be ‘inclusive’ in the wider and wiser sense of educating people for active participation in an inclusive society.

“This will be done in many different ways, not least by the school’s participation in the life of the wider community, co-operation with other schools of a different ilk.”

Dr George Carey, 17