Bishop (Richard Chartres) dedicates MRA's London centre.

Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London, dedicated the new MRA centre at 24 Greencoat Place, London, on 13 June. `During the [UK] election campaign there were constant appeals for transformation,' Bishop Chartres said, but people had been disappointed in not finding a way that this could occur. The Enlightenment model for building a heaven on earth had achieved huge advances. But society was still hitting problems `in crime, lack of respect for one another, lack of motivation in learning, anomie in private life, the increasing rate of suicide among young men in particular, the increasing recourse to drugs'. All these had been `beyond the legislative quick fix'.

Hope lay in the belief that `the deep structure of the world belongs to God. The greatest need of this nation and all nations is once again to relate to that truth.'

Bishop Chartres stressed that the world's deep structure lay in `the divine law, the moral law, that humility gives us an open door into'.

`If communication is to be powerful,' he continued, `it has to proceed from the heart of silence.' Stillness and silence were the great educators. Mere appeals to ethics and fraternity generated little spiritual energy for transformation. `One of the mysteries for us all is how to translate ethics into ethos, into a transforming womb which can bring to birth a civilization of love.'

MRA's new centre was building a community capable of turning words, ethics and appeals into an ethos with the power and capacity for change. `I'd like to thank MRA for the work it has done through the years and to wish you the experience that turns ethics into an ethos and packs the nuclear power to transform.'

Others attending the dedication ceremony included Roman Catholic Bishop George Stack from Westminster Cathedral and Rabbi Malcolm Wiseman, representing the Chief Rabbi.