Last Sunday's Thought: Mourning police officers killed in the line of duty

This last week has been a difficult time for the police service in Britain. The murder of two unarmed – as it happens, female – police officers in the line of duty has led to a great deal of public mourning. The Christian faith, which sometimes seems beleaguered in what at times appears like a post-Christian society – has been found still to possess the right language to encompass those with little or no faith in three acts of remembrance in relatively quick succession: the service on National Police Memorial Day (30 September), held in York cathedral and presided over by Dr John Sentamu, archbishop of York; and the separate services held for the two murdered police constables, PC Nicola Hughes, 23, and PC Fiona Bone, 32, in Manchester Cathedral. Each of these services has been well attended by police officers of different ranks from various parts of the country, who have come together to show their loyalty and commitment to those who have fallen in the line of duty.

The Church of England offers funeral services for the faithful and those with no faith in every parish in the land. It is rare that such services receive media attention unless the deceased was in public life. An extraordinary, and very moving, aspect of these funerals and the orations of the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, Sir Peter Fahy, for each of his murdered police officers, was that ordinary people were commemorated for their ordinary life of service because they were killed in an act of ‘savagery of the jungle’ as the Roman Catholic Bishop of Shrewsbury expressed it. Our unarmed police are our last line of protection against such evil.

         Another striking aspect of this public mourning was that Sir Peter Fahy, unusually for a Chief Constable or other official in public life, talked openly about his Christian faith and how he responds to a crisis of such proportions. ‘Greater Manchester Police is a family and to have lost two colleagues this week in awful violent circumstances has just been devastating for the whole force and a very, very dark day… I think a lot of us feel passionately that policing is a vocation. It is a calling. I feel that in terms of my own faith but I know a lot of officers that don’t have a faith, but feel exactly the same – that it is a vocation, that it’s not just a job and I think that's almost what you go back to in difficult times and difficult circumstances that how unfair something may feel, how inadequate you may feel you do actually rely on that you’re doing your best, and that this is your vocation’, Sir Peter said in an interview on BBC One’s Songs of Praise.

         How refreshing it was to hear a Chief Constable talking about his value system and how he seeks to sustain it in his work. ‘The chance for me personally to be able…, every day, to have bit of quiet time, pray, think about your own values, your own sense of vocation, and to examine your own conscience I think is really, really important… We know a lot of people would like to express their feelings at this time. It’s mainly really for their colleagues and for members of the force but, no doubt, there will be members of the community, local people, who will want to use a vigil, whether they have a faith or not really, just to be there… It is that sort of human need to express emotion to be together… for me personally and a lot of people of faith, prayer is important... you do often feel so helpless, so praying for the dead officers, praying for their families, becomes your own reaction, your own expression of hope really for them, at a time of great need.’

         To refer to the police force under his command as a ‘family’ and to talk about his own private life of prayer at such a time is a great Christian witness in contemporary society when too often Christians feel that they have to negotiate away their own principles in public discourse. Not that Christians have ‘the answer’, for there is no answer except prayer on such a ‘very, very dark day’. Yet if many people pray together at such a time, and people who do not normally pray do so out of respect for their dead colleagues, then Christians believe that such prayer is a force for good in its own right. As the archbishop of York said: ‘we should never forget the work of our police service in our society, protecting citizens, preserving the peace and serving others in difficult situations. It is right that we pay tribute to their heroism and sacrifice in the line of duty. We should be proud of our police and honour those that have fallen.’

         Police officers need to pray because a strong life of prayer is their best encouragement and source for guidance. There is a marvellous anonymous prayer of a police officer which needs to be remembered and used as often as it is needed:

Lord I ask for courage
Courage to face and
Conquer my own fears...
Courage to take me
Where others will not go...

I ask for strength 
Strength of body to protect others
And strength of spirit to lead others... 

I ask for dedication
Dedication to my job, to do it well
Dedication to my community
To keep it safe...

Give me Lord, concern
For others who trust me
And compassion for those who need me...

And please Lord
Through it all
Be at my side. Amen.