.This is the most stimulating book I have read for ages. It might also be the most important.
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"The Realm", subtitled "An Unfashionable Essay on the Conversion of England" is not really about the conversion of England as those of us who still say the Prayer for England might think of it: it is much deeper. It is about rebuilding the polity which existed in England from Saxon times and which, while severely damaged by the Reformation, survived to provide an underpinning to English national life which has made this country so different to the countries of continetal Europe.
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It is a manifesto for how the Church in England might shape politics and society for the future: how the values of England might be reconnected with their deep roots.
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It isn't - obviously it isn't - a manifesto by somebody seeking higher office. But it is blatantly obvious that while a tendentious work of faction can be launched from the Archbishop's Residence, Fr Nichol's work will receive no publicity, no approbation, no support from the Hierarchy in England. The reason that he describes his essay as "unfashionable" is as much a commentary on the Hierarchy as it is on England.
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