THE BISHOP of Coventry has paid tribute to The Queen on behalf of the people of Coventry of Warwickshire.
Addressing the House of Lords last Saturday, The Right Reverend Dr Christopher Cocksworth expressed great thanks for The Queen’s part in the renewal of Coventry following the Blitz and its discovery of a new identity – aspiring to be a city of peace and reconcilliation.
“A few days after the worst of the bombing of Coventry, the Queen’s father stood in the ruins of the cathedral and wept,” he said.
“In 1956 the young Queen laid the foundation stone of the new cathedral – a new cathedral for a new Queen in an ancient city being rebuilt for the modern age, in a nation finding its place on the international stage in a new Europe and a new world.
“In 1962 – 60 years ago this year – the Queen, herself a consecrated monarch, returned to Coventry for the consecration of the new cathedral.
There was hope in the air; and Coventry became a national symbol of the traumas of war, with all their sufferings still evident in the ruins, and the possibilities of peace built on reconciliation, rising from the ashes of the past into the simple grandeur of the new cathedral.
What better person than Queen Elizabeth to lay the foundation stone of a new future and to see a building, a people, a nation consecrated to the ways of peace?
“Serving the cause of reconciliation for which Coventry Cathedral and its city have become known, was remarkably demonstrated through the Queen’s service to the nation and to the world – as we’ve heard in many ways.”
He praised the monarch for helping the nation celebrate its past, carry forward its great traditions and noblest values while reaching out to the future.
And he paid tribute to The Queen’s part in Coventry’s and the country’s reconciliation with the German city of Dresden.
“Her visit in 1992 with one of my predecessors was a brave act and not without cost to her: it exposed emotions that were still raw in that city.
“But I know from my own many visits and close relationships that it was deeply healing, transformative even, in the road to reconciliation.”
