# Andy Burnham and the limits of ‘cultural Catholicism’

**By:** Joseph Shaw  
**Published:** 2026-06-23T13:00:00.000Z  
**Source:** [The Catholic Herald](https://thecatholicherald.com/article/andy-burnham-and-the-limits-of-cultural-catholicism)

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 Some on the internet have been claiming that, if his ambitions are fulfilled, Andy Burnham – newly minted MP for Makerfield – would be Britain’s first Catholic Prime Minister. That accolade has already been bagged, however, by Boris Johnson, who turned out to be Catholic, at least nominally, in time to declare his previous marriages null (due to lack of form: the form only Catholics are obliged to fulfil) and get married in Westminster Cathedral.
Mr Johnson’s Catholicism is similar to Mr Burnham’s, in being a matter of having been baptised in the Church, and not having repudiated this in a “juridic” manner. Neither man appears to believe what the Church requires, or to keep its rules of behaviour. Boris and his wife Carrie are to be congratulated for their four children since their marriage in May 2021; it seems the grace of the sacrament has triumphed over Johnson’s anti-natalist views. For, despite having at least nine children in total, he believes that the world is overpopulated, and lamented the overturning of the putative constitutional right to abortion in the US.
Burnham is worse, however, having a nearly perfect scorecard as a Member of Parliament in voting against the teaching of the Church, on same-sex marriage and abortion.
It was a surprise to most people when Boris Johnson turned out to be a Catholic, but Burnham has consistently signalled a vague allegiance to Catholicism despite his views and actions as an MP. In 2025 he gave a lecture to the Theos think tank, wearing his trademark T-shirt and jacket, calling for a new way of doing politics “with trust, community, faith, belief, connection at his heart”, which apparently means supporting proportional representation. He is entitled to his views, of course, and if he wants to drag the simple faith of his grandmother into it that is his prerogative, but we may ask what exactly it means when people say of him that he is “culturally Catholic”.
Among religions Catholicism has a way of transforming culture, and over the centuries it has been midwife to many of the world’s most impressive cultural achievements: the art of Renaissance Italy, Gothic cathedrals, universities, chivalry and drama. These things and many others would either not have happened at all, or would have been unrecognisable, without the contribution of Catholicism. Protestantism, some versions of it more than others, is more closely defined by credal formulae than by cultural practices, but the typical Catholic cultural practice is closely connected with metaphysical beliefs. The fact that Catholics have blessed objects in their houses, for example, like palms from Palm Sunday or devotional images, is not a stray cultural practice with no metaphysical significance, but an expression of a Catholic understanding of incarnational theology, which the Church has vindicated against more than one round of serious criticism.
This being so, it is an unfortunate misunderstanding to contrast a genuine, credal Christianity with a supposedly superficial, cultural Christianity. In Catholicism, it is the cultural practices which bring the creed into the everyday lives of the ordinary faithful – and, for that matter, into the lives of the elite as well. No genuinely Catholic intellectual, millionaire or secular ruler would hesitate to have a rosary in his pocket or an image of the Sacred Heart in his home, or to kiss a saint’s relic on his feast day.
Indeed, a daily round of memorised prayers does more to bring God into one’s thinking and acting than the mere fact that, if pressed, a person would agree to some theoretical propositions about the Holy Trinity. Then again, a person who from childhood has habitually made the sign of the cross is much less likely to forget the doctrine of the Trinity than a person who sat through Catechism in childhood, but developed no habits of the Faith.
I am in no position to judge Andy Burnham or any other public figure, but the next time we hear that someone is a “cultural Catholic” I would suggest we subject this claim to a little interrogation. In what, exactly, does this person’s Catholic culture consist?
Does he or she go on pilgrimages? Have devotional images in the home and pray before them? Put on a scapular or blessed medal when getting dressed? Say prayers before bed? Has the home been blessed by a priest? Does it contain blessed palms, candles or holy water? These are all cultural practices, and they are things that have virtually no cost, in time, money or public perception. Unless you want to make a show of them, you can do them entirely in private. Engaging in these practices suggests that a person is, in a minimal way, culturally Catholic.
The next level of commitment to cultural Catholicism would be to engage in cultural practices which do have a cost: not in the sense that they are distasteful, but merely in the sense that doing these things takes time and money away from other activities, at least a little bit. These would include observing holy days by attending Mass, going on walking pilgrimages, avoiding meat on Fridays, being open to a larger number of children than your secular peers, and taking an attitude to sex outside marriage and the indissolubility of marriage which is characteristic of Catholic culture: even if this is manifested more as guilt than virtue. This level of cultural commitment is not, for most people, difficult, but it suggests, in modern conditions, a decision to make a bit of an effort, and to reap the rewards of doing so. Millions of British Catholics make it to this level. Statistics tell us that church-going Catholic women average half a child more than secular women in Britain; the figures for the United States are similar. The attitudes, instincts and cultural expectations make a measurable difference.
There are, of course, many Catholic cultural practices which are still more demanding. Embracing a religious or priestly vocation, for example, or accepting the crosses of marital abandonment or infertility without recourse to remedies forbidden by the Church. Accepting the cultural pigeonhole of “devout Catholic” as a public figure, and the misunderstandings and ridicule that this brings. Having to resign from positions of responsibility to avoid cooperating in evils, even when the evils are not recognised as such by more than a tiny number of your co-religionists. These things can be tough, though we are encouraged by the Catholic cultural attitude that God is not outdone in generosity.
I do not propose a scoring system for public Catholics, and indeed I hardly think this is necessary, because it is obvious that most of the individuals described as “culturally Catholic” do not engage in any Catholic cultural practices at all – not even the easiest ones. Their cultural Catholicism consists in having a pious Catholic grandmother and going to church on the occasional Christmas. Those who would like to identify as Catholic, which still has some electoral advantages, apparently, if done with a light touch, need to explain to the rest of us their level of identification with the Catholic community, which, like all communities, is bound together by common practices and markers of identity. If you expect the Catholic community to support you, you need to show that you are part of it in some meaningful sense.

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