By Desmond Busteed

Immigrants are a reviving force for religion in Britain, according to the country’s most senior Roman Catholic cleric.

“If you ‘strip out’ immigration you are talking about a place that doesn’t exist, said Cardinal Vincent Nichols

“It is a false premise to begin to say let’s just to talk about the ‘indigenous British’ who are the Catholics, well, where do you stop?

“We are a mixed race, we are an island and people arrive here from all over the world and they bring different talents and readiness, you can’t separate them you have to take the reality of Catholic life as it is today.

“It is enormously enriched by those who come here, the faith is a huge point of social cohesion, that people from different strata in society and different cultural backgrounds come together.”

“I think there are particular challenges with a weary secularised western culture,” added Cardinal Nichols.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols said an influx of new arrivals was swelling congregations and encouraging the British-born population to rediscover their own faith.

He also suggested the promotion of so-called “British values”, part of the Government’s drive against extremism, was to too shallow.

“It needs something more substantial, more well rooted than some of the ‘British values’ that we hear spoken of,” said Nichols.