Pilgrim Ways

Chapter Sixteen - Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral Westminster Abbey is well known for its association with monarchs, the great poets, and lofty statesmen. In 1992, the Abbey set up an organising committee to examine ways of commemorating the breadth and intensity of Christian sacrifice in the twentieth century. The outcome of their deliberations are the thought-provoking statues which should cause any pilgrim to stop, stand, and ponder the lives of ten exceptional Christians. On arriving at the west front of Westminster Abbey the pilgrim should look for the plinths now occupied by the modern martyrs. They sit in niches below the twin towers, which were a late addition to the abbey church and were designed by Christopher Wren, modified by Nicholas Hawksmoor and completed by his successor as architect, John James. Dr.George Carey, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen, and Cardinal Basil Hume, the late Archbishop of Westminster, unveiled statues of these ten modern martyrs. They help today's pilgrim to remember the words of Christ that "people will hate you because of me." More Christians perished in the twentieth century than in all the preceding centuries combined.

Ten Sacrificial Lives The ten niches had been empty since the Middle Ages. They have now been conspicuously filled by statues designed and carved by Tim Crawley. Using French Richemont limestone the statues are traditional in style and in sympathy with the Abbey's religious art. They appear slightly lighter in shade than the Abbey's walls and the higher statues of the Virgin Mary and St.John the Evangelist. At a concert to commemorate the unveiling the Abbey Choir performed "O Vos Omnes" by the cellist Pablo Casals, whom Franco threatened with death.

The choir's tenors exhorted the crowds: "is it nothing to all ye that pass by?" Many were moved by Elizabeth Maconchy's setting of Dylan Thomas's "And Death Shall Have No Dominion", by the opening of Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" and by the Latin of Penderecki's "Agnus Dei" and Bach's "O Jesu Christ Meins Lebens Licht". The concert's climax was the world premiere of John Hardy's powerful "De Profundis", a setting of scripture and martyrs' writings. The modern occupants of the medieval niches were selected for having "shown openness to death for the glory of Christ." Some are not martyrs in the traditional sense of having been killed simply because of their belief in Jesus. All died as a result of injustice, bigotry or oppression - such as Martin Luther King - but the prime motive in his assassination, for instance, was not his Christian faith. It would be a pity, though, if the modern desire to be inclusive (and at times politically correct) should either belittle the remarkable people who have been chosen to occupy these plinths, or render one of our most ancient ways of recognising self-sacrifice, a diminished currency.

Fedorovna, Masemola And Tapiedi The Queen and Prince Philip took a particular interest in the unveiling of these plinths because, like others who had gathered for the 1998 ceremony, they had a relative among the