A SENIOR adviser to the Pope blessed the city when he came to speak at Oxford University.

Professor Cardinal Reinhard Marx gave the annual Newman Lecture at St Anne’s College in Woodstock Road on Tuesday.

The president of the Commission of European Union Episcopal Conferences, Cardinal Marx’s lecture was entitled A Certain Idea of Europe.

He told his audience the EU was a force for good following the Second World War and the Church could help the continent create an identity.

Prof Marx said: “A Europe that does not protect, support and promote Christian values, not because they are Christian but because they are profoundly human, betrays its historical heritage and puts at risk the common good to which all the foundation treaties aspire.”