WILL Andy Burnham do for the Catholic Church what he appears to be doing for the Labour Party?

Can his understanding of politics challenge both his party and his Church to return to the fundamentals that once influenced both organisations to be their most authentic?

Will his efforts to rekindle a sense of social cohesion and welfare also remind the Church that it is from Catholic social teaching that that philosophy/theology arises?

The English media is full of stories of Burnham’s childhood growing up in Liverpool during the era of Worlock and Sheppard.

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They were two bishops who challenged the deprivation and poverty and religious division within the city.

Worlock said: “I am my brother’s keeper, and he is sleeping pretty rough these days.”

Sanctity, goodness, was a meshing of the communal with the individual.

They based their understanding of church on a community of people whose belief challenged them to embrace the sufferings and the fragility of their........

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