Ann Widdecombe’s Faith and Her Surprising Donkey Legacy

The Rt Hon. Ann Widdecombe was brutally murdered last week. Originally, the police said it was neither political nor terror-related. However, given her outspoken Catholic views, I find that difficult to believe.

From Aleteia

By Cerith Gardiner

As Catholics pray for the British politician, her remarkable life of conviction reveals an unexpected connection to the Holy Land.

For decades, Ann Widdecombe was one of the most recognizable voices in British public life. Politician, author, television personality, and formidable debater, she had a particular gift for saying exactly what she thought and appearing remarkably untroubled by what anyone might make of it.

Yet in the days following her shocking death at the age of 78, which is now the subject of a murder investigation, another picture of Widdecombe has emerged. One that takes us away from the television studios and political battles, and into churches, a Benedictine abbey, and even a donkey sanctuary in the Holy Land.

On Saturday, Mass was offered for the repose of her soul at Westminster Cathedral, where Widdecombe had sometimes served as lector at the Sunday evening Mass.

“This morning, Mass was offered for the repose of the soul of Ann Widdecombe at Westminster Cathedral, where she was sometimes the Lector at the Sunday evening Mass,” Archbishop Richard Moth said. “We pray for her family and friends at this time. May she rest in peace.”

For those accustomed to seeing Widdecombe across a television studio or speaking from the benches of Parliament, it offers a very different image: standing at the lectern on a Sunday evening, reading Scripture to the congregation.

A faith she chose and lived

Widdecombe became Catholic in 1993, and her faith was never tucked discreetly away from her public life. She spoke openly about her beliefs, defended Church teaching even when it made her unpopular, and in 2013 was made a Dame of the Order of St. Gregory the Great in recognition of her service to politics and public life.

But perhaps one of the clearest glimpses of what her faith meant to her can be found far from Westminster, at Buckfast Abbey in Devon.

The Benedictine abbey, not far from her Dartmoor home, was somewhere Widdecombe returned to when she needed peace. She once described it as her “safe haven” and “a harbor to come home to after storms at sea,” as reported in The Times. She had attended Mass there just days before her death.

On Saturday, around 200 people gathered at Buckfast Abbey as another Mass was offered for the repose of her soul. For a woman who spent so much of her life in the glare of public life, the abbey offered a place to retreat, pray, and simply be one among the faithful. And now, in the place she had returned to after her own “storms at sea,” others gathered to pray for her.

The softer side of a formidable woman

And then there were the donkeys.

Widdecombe was known for being formidable. She argued fiercely, spoke plainly, and rarely gave the impression that a hostile television studio was going to ruin her day. Yet for more than 20 years, she also lent her support to some of the most humble and vulnerable animals in the Holy Land.

In 2002, she became the patron of Safe Haven for Donkeys, a charity caring for working and abandoned donkeys and other equines in the region. Her involvement went far beyond adding a famous name to the charity's letterhead. She remained a patron for decades and traveled to the West Bank in 2014 to see its work for herself.

For Catholics, the donkey already carries a gentle resonance. We picture Mary traveling toward Bethlehem and Christ entering Jerusalem. But looking back over Widdecombe's life, another parallel is hard to miss. Donkeys are hardy creatures, accustomed to carrying heavy loads and somehow continuing over difficult terrain.

Perhaps that is why this particular part of her life now seems so fitting. Widdecombe was not someone who abandoned her convictions when the road became uncomfortable. Whether people agreed with her or not, she kept going, and sometimes chose the harder path rather than the easier compromise.

Her work with the charity was practical, not symbolic, of course. Yet there is something rather wonderful about part of this formidable Catholic woman's legacy being tied to the humble, hard-working, and remarkably enduring donkey.

Beyond the famous face

Public figures are easily flattened into opinions, arguments, and old television clips, especially someone as outspoken as Ann Widdecombe. She certainly gave the British public plenty to debate during her long career, and now even the nature of her death is becoming sensationalized.

But the prayers offered for her in recent days reveal other parts of the woman behind the famous face: the Catholic convert who chose her faith and held firmly to it, the lector reading Scripture on a Sunday evening, the woman who sought refuge among the Benedictine monks at Buckfast, and the patron who spent more than two decades supporting the care of donkeys thousands of miles away.

Perhaps it is fitting, then, that amid the shock and noise surrounding her death, the Catholic response has been a quieter one. Mass has been offered. Prayers have been said. And in the abbey she once called her safe haven, the faithful gathered to pray that she had finally reached home.

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon her.
May she rest in peace.
Amen.