'Religion should be at heart of public debate', says Parliament's vicar before visit to Grimsby
Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin, chaplain to the Commons' Speaker, is due to visit Grimsby later this month
Patrick DalyBristol Post parliamentary correspondent
Grimsby will welcome a visitor from Parliament later this month – but she isn't a politician. Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin spoke to Westminster correspondent Patrick Daly about her trip.
If there is such a thing as a career 'tick list' for vicars, then the chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons has managed to cross-off a good many of them.
Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin has preached in front of the Queen, she's helped preside over a royal wedding and she leads prayers every day in the House of Commons. And now the senior Anglican cleric is ticking off another thing – she is coming to preach in Grimsby.
On Sunday July 29, "Parliament's parish priest" will be preaching and presiding over the 10am Eucharist at St Giles with St Matthew's church in Scartho, Church Lane.
With MPs breaking up for their summer holiday only a few days before her visit, the recess period will allow Rev Hudson-Wilkin, who is also one of Queen Elizabeth's chaplains, to do something she loves most – travel the country and meet people.
Trips such as the jaunt to Grimsby give the Speaker's chaplain of eight years the opportunity to see what life outside of London is like.
"That is one of the best parts of it – getting out there and meeting all these different people," says the former Diocese of Lichfield priest.
"I thoroughly enjoy going out and preaching and meeting people in different places."
Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons, is due to visit Grimsby
Discussing the visit to North East Lincolnshire in her cubbyhole office in Speaker's House, situated in the shadow of Big Ben, she says such trips are a good time to remind people that religion and politics should not be mutually exclusive.
"A number of MPs have asked me to speak in their constituencies, either in the church for a service or other things they may have happening," she says.
"I share, from my perspective, around the issues to do with faith and politics. There are those who say faith should not be mixed with politics but I say that should absolutely not be the case.
"It is integral that it is right there at the heart of the public square. That's part of my message."
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The mother-of-three was one of the first group of women to be ordained in the Church of England once the ban on women priests was lifted in 1994.
Originally from Jamaica, she joined the Church Army – an evangelistic society within the Anglican Church – and travelled to England where she became a deacon for three years before the change to the rules on female clergy came in.
She was appointed chaplain to the Speaker in 2010 – becoming the first woman and first black person to hold the office – after having served as a parish priest in Hackney, in north-east London, for more than 16 years.
Rev Hudson-Wilkin will preach at St Giles church in Scartho, Grimsby, on Sunday, July 29, 2018
Her role in Parliament sees her lead regular communion services each week, hold bible study groups, meet with MPs on a one-to-one basis and provide reflections and support during Lent.
Committed Christian Martin Vickers, MP for Cleethorpes, is one of the regulars who turns up for the monthly prayer breakfast – a 7.45am service on a Wednesday which is followed by a guest speaker.
On every day that Parliament meets, Rev Hudson-Wilkin is part of the Speaker's procession into the Commons and it is her job to lead the MPs' prayers.
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The prayers are a private moment, with neither the public nor the press allowed in to hear them, and the 57-year-old says, while the prayers are set for each day, she will change them if she feels attention needs to be paid to what is going on in the world.
"Since I've been in office I've varied them from time to time depending on what's happening in the wider society, whether that's when the riots happened or when people were dying on shores of Europe," she says.
"It is about picking up on the mood of what's going on. If things are a bit chaotic or sad or whatever, you try and reflect that by using something a bit more sombre that speaks to what is happening.
Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin is chaplain to John Bercow, Speaker in the House of Commons
"For me, the prayers in the chamber and my role here as chaplain is about supporting and encouraging those of faith.
"I'm not here to proselytise anyone – I don't want to make anyone Christian. What I want to do is, for those who profess faith, to help them maintain that faith with integrity in what they do."
Rev Hudson-Wilkin says she finds MPs often come to talk through issues with her when they are weighing up whether to disobey their party on a thorny issue.
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She says creating that space to allow MPs to reflect and "wrestle" with their political conscience is vital in good decision making.
"It is important that people do wrestle with these things and not just blindly do something because 'That's what we do'," explains the priest-vicar of Westminster Abbey.
"Why are we doing it? What purpose will it serve? Who will it benefit? And will it benefit the wider community in the long-term? I think it is vital for all MPs to ask those questions."
Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin pictured preaching a sermon
As chaplain, the married vicar not only supports but also prays for MPs, of all faiths and none, who she says "carry the weight of the nation" on their shoulders.
"They have huge decisions to make," she says. "They are making decisions that will carry weight not just for that moment but for years to come. It is important to be supportive."
Despite the grand and traditional setting of Westminster, the former missionary says life as a vicar in Parliament is not altogether different from when she was a parish priest in gritty north-east London.
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She says MPs are "ordinary people" like any other who, through their election, have been tasked with "extraordinary work".
"I think there is plenty of earthiness in what is going on here. There is this perception that things are all 'lardy-dardy-da'," she says while waving her hands, as if miming the airs and graces.
"But no – what could be more earthy than members of this house not only wrestling with the big decisions about government but also wrestling with their own family lives?" she asks.
The prayers in the House of Commons are led every day by Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin in her role as chaplain to Speaker John Bercow
"They have children, partners; they are parents, grandparents, husbands, wives etc.
"So it is just like a parish – but the only difference is that in my parish in Hackney, the parishioners were on the receiving end of the law and here they are the people making the laws.
"But as far as I've seen in the eight years I have been here, and contrary to what the press might say, parliamentarians are ordinary men and women with extraordinary work."
She takes that same view when ministering to members of the royal family, something that happens when she preaches at St James Palace in the City of Westminster.
"My perspective is that these are ordinary human beings," she says. "It just so happens that, as with MPs, they have been given an extraordinary task or, in the case of the royal family, have been born into a family.
"At the end of the day they are human beings with the same desires and needs and heartaches as any other family."
Rev Hudson-Wilkin says the Queen's faith has "always been a source of strength for her and has sustained her".
Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin is one of Queen Elizabeth's chaplains
The 92-year-old monarch is head of a country that, despite its State church, some commentators say is losing its religion as it veers towards secularism.
But the most senior woman black cleric in the protestant church does not see it that way and instead finds a "moral view very much built around the Christian faith" in the UK.
As one of the members of the clergy at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's wedding in May – an event she describes as "amazing advertisement for Britain and Christianity" – Parliament's vicar says there are things the church could do differently.
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American bishop Michael Curry hit the headlines after his invigorating sermon at the Windsor wedding – and Rev Hudson-Wilkin says there is no reason why more priests should not be preaching with the same "passion" in churches up and down the land, from Westminster to Grimsby.
"He [the Most Rev Curry] spoke with passion. People still meet me on the street and say, 'If my church where I live had services like that or a preacher like that, I would go to church'.
"So what are people saying to us? We make the poor, lame excuse, 'Oh, the British are reserved'.
Rev Rose Hudson-Wilkin said British people were not reserved when celebrating England's World Cup victories - so why should the church be reserved? (Image: Sarah Washbourn)
"Nonsense! Did you see anything reserved in the reaction to when England beat Sweden in the World Cup?
"When we want to, we show passion. What we want in this country is for people to show the same sense of passion and commitment.
"No matter how much the price goes up, people still go to the football match. They still go, they believe in it. It has become their religion, in effect.
"What we need to do as the church is ensure that the kind of religion we share is one that is passionate and says actually, 'I believe it and I'm excited by it'.
"Faith is who we are, so let's celebrate it and let's really show that we believe!"
Those in Grimsby have been given notice then. Expect to hear the good news at St Giles – but not as you're used to hearing it.
Scartho