Where Faith Meets Politics – The Catholic Education Service’s Parliamentary Event
Anne has been on placement with an MP who also happened to be the sponsor for the CES’s 175th anniversary parliamentary event. Here Anne shares her thoughts on how it felt to be involved in an event that brought her faith and her placement together.
This year marks the 175th anniversary of the Catholic Education Service. To celebrate, the CES published a book, Catholic Schools: Partners in Formation and held an event in parliament to showcase the work of Catholic schools in England and Wales. It was one of the first events in Westminster since the COVID restrictions were lifted, so it was great to see MPs and Peers from different political parties join us to celebrate.
It was also an incredible moment to be able to represent the Catholic faith in Parliament and it made me feel proud to be Catholic.
This was an exciting event to have been invited to as a Faith in Politics intern, but I was all the more excited because the MP that I have been working for during my time as an intern was the host!
I had the opportunity to help write the speech for my MP for this event. This was something I did not think I would be able to do so early on in my year as an intern. But it was definitely one of greatest experiences in my professional career so far and a real privilege to be able to work together with her to see the speech come together.
It was also an incredible moment to be able to represent the Catholic faith in Parliament and it made me feel proud to be Catholic. This experience helped me to understand the importance of Catholic values and the positive impact they can have in society.
This event, which brought together both faith and politics, helped me to recognise that to have faith is one thing, but doing something with it is another.
Our Catholic values mean something. Our faith does not just consist of a personal prayer life but something we are able to live out in the workplace and in our social lives. This event, which brought together both faith and politics, helped me to recognise that to have faith is one thing, but doing something with it is another. I hope that by sharing this small snippet of what we do as parliamentary interns, other Catholics are encouraged to see the importance that faith has in the world of politics.
