Recently consecrated as auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, the largest Catholic archdiocese in the United States, Bishop Robert Barron has achieved a recognised position as a leading voice in Catholic theology and life. He is known through his books, talks, movies, and television productions, all of which have a significant YouTube presence. Through his Word on Fire online ministry, he has shown that he is not afraid to pour old wine into new bottles. Mingling short videos on medieval philosophers with critical, theologically-minded Woody Allen movie reviews, he is working to give new expression to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Barron was appointed bishop by Pope Francis on the basis that he would be a vital player in the campaign for “New Evangelisation”; to work as a voice crying out in the wilderness of secular society. He provides a bold challenge for his readers and listeners to a deeper engagement with theological issues which are too readily ignored and, consequently, forgotten. A Doctor of Theology from the Institut Catholique de Paris who is fluent in English, French, German, Latin, and Spanish, and certainly no stranger to the halls of academia, the striking accessibility of his ministry is perhaps surprising. Bishop Barron aims to offer insight both to weathered theologians and laypeople inside and outside the Church.

Barron speaks of how we need to “turn the world upside down, because it is currently upside down, so if you turn it upside down again we’re just setting it right.” The post-Christian world is not some great bogeyman, for “modernity is not some serious enemy of Christianity, modernity is a kind of bastard child of Christianity… We’ve been treating them [the secular world] like we’ve been at war for the past 500 years, but in fact it’s literally more like an adolescent child that’s rebelling against its mother.”

In this way his outreach is characterised by a boldness tempered with a sensitive intellectual gentleness, seeing in modernity a great opportunity for the Catholic Church to clarify and re-articulate its faith. He notes that it has been “taken for granted that secularism has obviously won the day” that the Church has been pushed to “our own little niche over in the corner. I say forget that: I think we should just wade right into the thick of it.”

For the Bishop, “the Church’s job is to be continually witness to God and to continually grab you by the lapels and speak of God and witness to God”. In this vein, he says that his “major task is to awaken a deeper sense of God. So, whatever I’m doing, that’s the ultimate purpose because secular society is suffering enormously because they’ve lost sense of God. And when you lose the centre, everything tends to fall apart, and I see it all the time; that’s when people get lost existentially. And there’s deep suffering that comes from secularism. So my approach has always been to try to find the route of access back to God, how to bring him back into the equation; now whether that’s through a movie or through a song or through a popular book or through whatever is happening through politics: that’s my ultimate purpose, which is to bring God back into the picture.”

In pursuit of this goal, which is both pastoral and didactic, he engages confidently with the “New Atheists — who are new only in their nastiness.” He emphasises the great depth of the intellectual tradition which feeds into Catholicism, with a truly modern vision of being grounded in the giants of the past while making strides to a new making and ever-growing Church. Though “not a Thomist of the strict observance”, he points to Aquinas’ “perennial” relevance, especially in contemporary popular theological and philosophical dialogue. Partial to his “deep realism” and daring rationalism, he told me that “Aquinas would read the New Atheists and he would peck them on the head and say, ‘Well, yes, of course what you’re objecting to is so silly — a strawman— it’s a primitive perception of God.’ Because I think Thomas would just kind of blithely accept much of the criticism and would say ‘I agree with that, I even critiqued the same thing,’ and then open their eyes to a much more authentic understanding of God.”

Of course, the world is not divided between Catholicism and secularism, and the Bishop is equipped with a resonant and simple ecumenical call for our time: “I think the Church should make common ground [with other churches and religions] and bracket for a time for 16th-century debates and we should talk about God together. This directly goes for Jews and Hindus. We should speak of the transcendent dimension together because the common enemy is secularism. We could all [be] witness to God together.”

Speaking of another of his theological influences, the Oxford alumnus Cardinal Newman, the Bishop offered his comments on ‘On the Idea of a University’: “I agree with Newman in that the goal for the university should be in producing what he called the ‘gentleman’ with a liberal type of mind, someone who is liberally educated, a person who is grounded in a wide variety of sciences so he doesn’t have a narrow view. Produce the gentleman who has a liberal education…I think that’s right, the university should produce someone who has a liberal frame of mind, a liberal education. If seeking for knowledge for one’s own sake, why not widen the field? At the centre of which is found religious knowledge. Natural theology belongs at the university. I would subscribe then to Newman’s vision.”

He assured me that, even though he has now assumed the weighty responsibilities and all the business of a bishopric, his output, from his YouTube channel to columns, books and talks, will continue in a more or less ceaseless fashion. In the era of what he calls “the Pope of the provocative gesture”, Bishop Barron’s work will make up a key part in the  reinvigoration of the Catholic Church, crucially maintaining the perpetual relevance of its voice.

Brutal backstabbing politics (if that, in itself, is not tautology), scandal stacking upon scandal, too expensive, too corrupt, too up themselves… we’ve all heard the arguments.

But with the Freshers’ Open Period drawing to a close, and with many pidges full of polemic propaganda, denouncing the Union as an unmitigated waste of money, it seems only right for someone to step out of the mire of criticism and make the case for the defence.

The Union is not perfect. But unlike those who agree with Luke Barratt’s recent article and are ‘horrified by the iniquities of the den of evil that the Oxford Union has become’, I wish simply to make an apology, in the true Greek sense of the word: a defence of the Union as a unique Oxford institution that provides unparalleled opportunities for its members.

It’s worth rebutting the financial point head on. The fee of £223 in the Freshers’ Open Period for life membership is a lot. Even some of the Union’s greatest advocates are known to have hummed and hawed about it at first. So I am not just going to say that, when divided over your university career, let alone your lifetime, taking into account everything the Union has to offer, it’s a bargain. There’s more to it than that.

The value of the Union depends on how much you use it. It may not be for everyone: if you don’t like having the rare chance to listen to world-famous speakers, socializing in the bar, or studying in one of the most beautiful and one of the largest lending libraries in Oxford, then obviously it’s a waste, rather like that swanky sandwich maker you bought last summer but never used after 0th week.

But it really doesn’t take long for you to get your money’s worth.

For all the hacking and devious deal making behind closed doors, it is totally misguided and misleading to say that the Union is merely a political playground for those with egos large enough to have the vain hope, as Barratt puts it, of being parachuted into some safe Tory seat one day. The Union is so much more than this.

At its heart remain the speaker events and weekly debates, when any member can show up, raise their membership card, and give their opinion, frequently scrutinizing internationally renowned speakers on subjects important to them. And, what’s more, the worldwide reputation of the Union draws an unrivalled mix of people from all walks of life, ensuring that there is something for everyone- from Alan Sugar to Alesha Dixon and Vince Cable- and that was just week one.

But the Union isn’t just about its speakers. Its other facilities and social events make Frewin Court one of the best places to be in Oxford to work and socialize. The debate continues in the bar, an ideal location, in the sometimes cloistered social life of collegiate living, to meet with friends from different colleges over cheap drinks. And the library? Well, see for yourself: just take out a book, write an essay or read the papers under its Pre-Raphaelite murals.

It would though be similarly misguided to suggest that Oxford students will ever by united in their opinion on the Union and, ultimately, it is up to freshers to decide whether the Union is worth the money. I just hope that they will be able to make a rational decision that is right for them, unjaded by the current culture of unfair condemnation. For, love it or loath it, the Union will always remain what we make of it. 

“I feel as though I’m trying to give words to what is really a succession of screams in my head. And I don’t know how you convert screaming into words.”

That was what I wrote last term, nearly seven months after I was sexually assaulted on my year abroad. About a month afterwards, I emailed the relevant authorities in Oxford to tell them what had happened and to suggest a change to the support available to students on their year abroad so that, if any other Oxford students experienced something similar, they might not feel so abandoned.

I did not receive a reply to my email. My fears were confirmed: this was not a big deal, I was overreacting, and I should have been able to cope on my own. I felt isolated, and in an attempt to break out of this prison in my head, I wrote about my experience. The responses I had from so manyother students telling me about their experiences revealed to me that I was far from alone. On one level it was comforting to be believed and understood, but on another level I was appalled. How is it still possible that bodily autonomy and the right to freedom from violence are so little respected?

But even then I did not realise the extent of the problem in Oxford. Now, for the first time, we have comprehensive statistics revealing the level of sexual violence experienced by women at Oxford University. And they are shocking.

Last Trinity Term, the former OUSU VP for Women, Anna Bradshaw, conducted a survey in collaboration with It Happens Here, OUSU’s campaign against sexual violence, which investigated women in Oxford’s experiences of sexual violence. More people responded to this survey than any previous OUSU survey ever. The results of this survey showed that 69.8 per cent of respondents had been sexually assaulted. Nearly 90 per cent had experienced street harassment. 72.6 per cent had experienced other forms of sexual harassment. Only 48 per cent felt safe on the streets of Oxford at night. The most common perpetrators of street harassment were people unknown to the woman, while the most common perpetrators of assault and other forms of sexual harassment were fellow students. The most common places for sexual harassment andassault to occur were public spaces. The most common places for serious sexual assault and rape to occur were inside of colleges and student homes.

For the most part our statistics agree with NUS’s statistics on sexual violence gathered from a number of UK universities, giving us confidence that we can trust these results. The result that jumps out as being different, however, is our result for sexual assault. The NUS average is at 25 per cent of women at university being assaulted, significantly lower than our figure of 69.8 per cent. Part of the reason for this apparent discrepancy may be the wording of the question in Oxford’s survey, which did not mention the phrase sexual assault but instead used a description of assault, asking how many women had “been touched in a sexual way without their consent.” Many people are assaulted without realising that that is what they have experienced. The higher figure in our survey might be due to a number of women answering yes to that question who would not have considered themselves as having been assaulted. It should also be stressed here that anyone can experience sexual violence regardless of their gender and thus these statistics only reveal part of the picture. It is hoped that there can be a survey of men’s experiences of sexual violence in Oxford University in the near future.

This survey has given It Happens Here and the OUSU VP for Women, Lucy Delaney, the proof that we need in order to take our struggle to the top ofthe university. There can be no denying now that sexual harassment and violence is something that must be confronted in Oxford.

On one level, we as students have the power to make changes; the publicity work done by groups including, but not limited to, It Happens Here and WomCam, is slowly but surely helping to create a positive atmosphere in which it is more and more accepted that survivors must be listened to and believed, and in which perpetrators must not be excused. The consent workshops that many of you will have taken part in over the last fewweeks are all part of a move to show that no form of sexual harassment or violence can ever be condoned.

On another level though, we are dependent on the support of those at the top of the university in order to bring about the institutional change that is so necessary. Yes, we have a strong network of well-trained peer supporters at this university, but we are not counsellors. We are young people without the qualifications or the experience needed to deal with this ourselves. We need proper channels set up so that when someone does disclose an instance of sexual violence, they are directed to proper services, like the University’s counselling service. We need channels that are secure enough to stop anyone from falling down the cracks. I do not believe that I am the only person to disclose an instance of sexual violencewithout receiving an appropriate response.

Similarly, as students it is almost impossible for us to bring perpetrators to justice ourselves. We need lawyers, which often means we need money, and we need the emotional support of trained professionals to work with us through the process of a conviction. We need the University’s support in this. Again, there needs to be clear and transparent channels for this to occur.

What we need most of all right now, though, is for people – students and academics – to take note. We need you to care. Sexual violence happens here. Right here. In our rooms, in our JCRs, our MCRs, our bars, on our streets. We are saying no more, not again. It is our right to live free from sexual violence. It is our right to bodily autonomy.

Shortly after I was assaulted, a man sat in front of me and told me that sexual violence didn’t happen. He said that sometimes girls would experience some non-violent street harassment, but that it never went further than that. We want people to open their eyes. Because it happens to us, it happens a lot, and it happens here.