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Yesterday there was a striking photo in the press of a pair of twins. Not human twins or even cute animals but a pair of identical statues of the Virgin Mary. Except that although they looked the same, they had a very different history. One was a spoil of war. It had been taken to the Falklands Islands by an Argentinian chaplain, and the Madonna was then captured by the British during the 1982 Falklands War. It was brought to the UK where it had been kept ever since in the Catholic Military Cathedral in Aldershot. This week Bishop Paul Mason, England’s most senior military Catholic chaplain, handed it back to his Argentinian counterpart in Rome in front of Pope Francis, himself an Argentinian, as a gesture of reconciliation. The Argentinians then gave the British a replica as a sign of their goodwill and desire to heal divisions. The twin statues are typical of European styles of Virgin Marys and quite different to another statue of the Mother of God that caused a furore in Rome recently. This was an indigenous Amazon figure, naked and with a foetus inside, used in church services during a meeting on the Amazon held by the Pope. Horrified traditionalists threw it in the river Tiber, claiming it was idolatrous. Claims of idolatry, based on the commandment “You shall have no false Gods before me” was used during the Reformation and the Puritan era to justify the smashing of biblical figures and saints, leaving many empty niches in English cathedrals. But as the events surrounding the statues in Rome indicate, statues are not necessarily about religious rows but about expressing the identity and traditions of a community. Later today I shall be going to Westminster Abbey for a special service to mark All Saints Day. Many of the saints were martyrs and before I go inside the abbey, I’ll pause to look at the niches on its west front. They were empty for generations but are now filled with 10 martyrs of the twentieth century from around the world who all suffered persecution and oppression. All of them are of people who stood up for their own Christian faith but most, including the German Dietrich Bonhoeffer, were prepared to lose their lives opposing anti-democratic, totalitarian regimes including the Nazis and Communist dictators. As with other statues, deciding to erect these was a way of representing values of the nation to which they belong. So this All Saints Day, these martyrs will remind me of this country’s commitment to democracy and how precious it is, as we prepare to vote in December’s general election.