Peter Hennessy How Keir Starmer has changed the rules of engagement at Westminster THE INTERNATIONAL 23 MAY 2020 £3.80 CATHOLIC WEEKLY www.thetablet.co.uk Est. 1840 Wild faith Mary Colwell and Austen Ivereigh: Has the pandemic renewed our relationship with nature? John Wilkins on the faith and doubt of Graham Greene Death at Dunkirk The last days of the fi rst Catholic chaplain to be killed in action Peter Stanford interviews Ann Patchett • Adrian Chiles celebrates football’s family values 01_Tablet23May20 Cover.indd 1 19/05/2020 18:48 02_Tablet23May20 Leaders.qxp_Tablet features spread 19/05/2020 18:30 Page 2 THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY THE TABLET FOUNDED IN 1840 POST-LOCKDOWN he coronavirus lockdown has coincided with and beyond the care it has for everyone whose MENTAL HEALTH a welcome change in the public perception of vocation requires them to put themselves in harm’s T mental illness. This has in turn highlighted way for the sake of others. There is an excellent ENDING the likelihood that underneath the Catholic Mental Health Project website supported by coronavirus pandemic lies a hidden psychiatric one, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, but it THE which remains largely untreated. Social distancing, does not focus on the emotional wellbeing of priests as isolation, and the general government message to such. More needs to be known about this issue: for STIGMA people to “stay at home” where possible have instance because parish priests are men who tend to neutralised one of society’s main defences against live alone, are they more resilient when called upon to mental ill-health, namely the influence of other isolate themselves, or less so? How important to their people. Being part of a group, whether in the family, emotional and spiritual wellbeing is their weekly the parish, the local neighbourhood or the workplace, physical encounter with the parish? Without social provides therapeutic reassurance and support. support, what happens to their prayer life? Relationships are an essential part of being human, One long-term development, helpful in this area as and having to conduct them at a distance is bound to in others, has been the “medicalisation” of mental be detrimental. Social media alternatives fall some illness, which has taken away the former stigma way short of providing an adequate substitute when a attached to it and placed it alongside other forms of supportive touch on the hand or arm round the healthcare. But there is a down side to that too. It is a shoulder is no longer possible. The lockdown itself has false model to suppose that “over there” are a minority demonstrated how normal everyday activities that of people with mental illness, while “over here” are people have always taken for granted contribute to normal sane people getting on with their lives. There maintaining personal wellbeing. Hugs matter. is no such distance between the two. The most Funerals, for instance, provide a well-honed and common forms of psychological unwellness – chronic ritualised means for coping with overwhelming loneliness, lack of self-worth, body-image issues and feelings of grief and loss. There is an immense related feeding disorders, self-harming and bereavement deficit building up in society, particularly destructive behaviours, insomnia, addictions, with the loss of elderly parents and grandparents. This irrational fears, obsessions and anxieties, and, is a specific case of a more general issue, where it is especially at this time, the effects of bereavement and difficult to make a clear distinction between trauma – are widespread throughout society. psychological and spiritual needs. The clergy, and well Compassion for the vulnerable dictates that people trained lay religious leaders, can make a huge must not look away when emotional distress knocks difference when people are faced with life-changing someone’s life off course. The psychologically challenges such as the death of someone close to them. wounded are as much the responsibility of the tribe as An underlying question, true in religious bodies as those whose injuries and illnesses are physical. The well as other settings, is therefore – who cares for the beginning of wisdom in this area is to realise that the carers? A body like the Catholic Church has a special distinction is not even a valid one. Health is holistic, duty of care towards its priests and Religious, above and affects the mind and soul as much as the body. BACK TO t least two thirds of the member states of the parties, sharing every scrap of relevant scientific SCHOOL European Union have begun to wind down advice, and striven to build a consensus. A their strict lockdown measures and allow The basis for that is there already. Parents and INFORM, schools to start functioning again. So why teachers want schools to resume as soon and as safely has a modest proposal from Boris Johnson’s as possible. But when teachers’ representatives asked CONSULT, government for some primary schools to open their for the scientific evidence behind the government’s doors from 1 June to pupils in Year One and Year Six – thinking, they were given hardly any. With this PERSUADE roughly, five and 10-year-olds – caused such a government, just saying “trust us” does not work. kerfuffle? Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, as Scottish and other devolved administrations learnt well as major local authorities in such places as about the government’s proposals from the media. Newcastle, Manchester and Birmingham, have They were neither asked nor told in advance. Equally, resisted the move, as have the teachers’ unions and the government’s proposals for making schools safe bodies representing head teachers. Not surprisingly, places to work were unrealistic and incoherent. A parents are dismayed by this confusion. group of sixth-formers could have done better. Blaming bolshie teachers is an option the Fortunately pre-adolescent children are less prone government should have avoided, but it has allowed to serious illness from coronavirus than their elders, this polarisation to happen. That makes a resolution though they could be transmitters of infection rather more difficult. So far the Johnson administration has than sufferers from it. But teachers are just as failed to cover itself with distinction, as its vulnerable as, say, nurses and doctors, bus drivers and increasingly muddled and evasive response to the police officers, and deserve equal consideration and coronavirus crisis has unfolded. Instead of issuing appropriate protection. The government has no decrees from 10 Downing Street and then having to choice, therefore, but to change tactics. It likes three- ward off a torrent of criticism – including from its own word slogans, so why not make “inform, consult, backbenchers – it should have consulted all interested persuade” its motto for the rest of the pandemic? 2 | THE TABLET | 23 MAY 2020 03_Tablet23May20 Contents.qxp_Tablet features spread 19/05/2020 19:18 Page 3 PHOTO: CNS/VATICAN MEDIA aiStil Pope Francis crosses St Peter’s Basilica on his way 28 to celebrate Mass at the tomb of St John Paul II on the 100th anniversary of the late pope’s birth COLUMNS BOOKS / PAGE 19 CONTENTS Simon Scott 23 MAY 2020 // VOL 274 NO. 9353 Plummer Putin’s People: How FEATURES the KGB Took Back Russia and Then 4 / Back to the soil Took On the West The fragility of our agriculture has been further exposed by the coronavirus, but CATHERINE BELTON the pandemic also brings the chance for real change / Melanie BY AUSTEN IVEREIGH McDonagh’s 7 / Listen to our singing planet Amanda Notebook Hopkinson In the silence of the lockdown, city-dwellers have found consolation and Tazmamart: 18 ‘The Church connection in the sound of birdsong / BY MARY COLWELL has, I think, Years in Morocco’s contributed to a 8 / ‘A priest has to stay’ Secret Prison sense of its own Eighty years ago, a Benedictine monk and chaplain to the forces was killed AZIZ BINEBINE redundance’ / 5 tending to the wounded and dying on the beaches of Dunkirk / BY JOHN PONTIFEX Anthony Gardner 10 / A foot in the door Sorry For Your When Graham Greene converted to Catholicism he took Thomas as his baptismal Trouble: Stories RICHARD FORD name – specifying it was for Thomas the Doubter / BY JOHN WILKINS ARTS / PAGE 22 12 / The Tablet Interview: Ann Patchett Painting The novelist on how her Catholic upbringing gave her the greatest gift: the Egbert Modderman possibility that there is something larger and deeper out there / BY PETER STANFORD Peter Hennessy’s JOANNA MOORHEAD The Lion and 14 / Safe passage to eternity the Unicorn In lockdown there have been heartrending stories of people dying alone and Radio Heart and Soul: ‘Already one being buried hurriedly and almost unattended / BY SUE GAISFORD senses Starmer’s Reflections question-time on Faith in a ascendency in Global Crisis D.J. TAYLOR the making’ / 6 NEWS Music 25 / The Church in the World / News briefing I Break Horses; 26 / Vatican finances hit by pandemic Kehlani; REGULARS Blake Mills 28 / View from Rome BRIAN MORTON Word from the Cloisters 16 29 / News from Britain and Ireland / News briefing Television Puzzles 16 30 / Plans under way for outdoor Masses I Know This Letters 17 Much Is True 18 The Living Spirit COVER IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK/ART_KVA LUCY LETHBRIDGE 23 MAY 2020 | THE TABLET | 3 04-06_Tablet23May20 Ivereigh McDonagh Hennessy.qxp_Tablet features spread 19/05/2020 17:19 Page 10 FEATURES / Future of agriculture Five years on, Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’ is more relevant than ever. The fragility of our agriculture, already hit by freak weather and Brexit, has been further exposed by the coronavirus, but the pandemic also brings the chance for real change / By AUSTEN IVEREIGH Back to the soil needing more machines and fertilisers to make it work.