Mary Colwell and Austen Ivereigh: Has the Pandemic Renewed Our Relationship with Nature?

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

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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?

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PHOTO: CNS/VATICAN MEDIA

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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 MO ORHEAD 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

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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. The loss of biodioversity – nature’s inter- locking cycles of life – is catastrophic for the future of agriculture, and for the planet. Rather than heal our environment, our land (most of it farmed) pollutes it. Diesel-hungry machinery, methane from cows and sheep overgrazing the fields, nitrous oxides from fertilisers – all these mean that agriculture generates 10 per cent of the UK’s carbon diox- ide emissions, despite employing less than two per cent of its workforce.

THIS COULD all be reversed if the soil was nourished. Organic matter sequesters carbon; tillage and grazing oxidises it, releasing it into the atmosphere. In failing to put back into the soil the organic matter that soaks up the water but also sequesters carbon, farming is like a company running down its starting capital (the land) in order to pay ever higher dividends (the harvest), and trusting the day Austen Ivereigh with seed of reckoning will never come. It is a symptom, potatoes at his smallholding or microcosm, of what Laudato Si’ laments, that we have not yet managed to adopt “a circular model of production capable of pre- EFORE THE plague was the flood. and a day with Herefordshire meadow man- serving resources for present and future Weeks of sheeting rain on Welsh hills agers learning how to summon forth a generations”. swelled the River Wye in February “species-rich sward” (fields, that is, not just But change is coming, triggered by climate to its highest-ever levels, deluging of grass, but thrumming with wildflowers emergency and Brexit. The existing model, HerefordB before it crashed out downstream and insects). the result of the post-war fears for food secu- across villages and farms on its way to Ross, What I found were big questions hovering rity, the technification of agriculture and the dislodging blanket-clad families from urgently over UK agriculture in the light of EU subsidies, has few defenders. Yet what washed-out houses, and topsoil from farmers’ climate change. Farming was not just in tran- should replace it is a matter of debate. How fields. My neighbour, who has hundreds of sition but in crisis from longstanding to continue to produce plentiful cheap food acres of wheat and potatoes, said he had never problems that the floods had brutally laid for rising populations, while turning farms seen anything like it. But it bare. The water wasn’t being into part of the solution to the environmental was the way things had been sucked up and stored by the challenge? And what role should the public going, he said. The weather Francis’ watershed fields because decades of purse play? now was ever more extreme intensive farming had and wild, ever less what the encyclical had denuded the land of living FROM THE 1970s, European Community sub- climate said it should be. triggered in me an roots and organic matter that sidies – which reflected postwar national At the time I was settling ecological conversion make up healthy soil. food security aims, including our own – rein- with my wife into a 15-acre Decades of clearing trees forced the farming culture of the time: trees smallholding not far from that began on for heavy machinery and ever vanished under a sea of sheep, and ever more Hereford, mending fences on an allotment larger doses of chemical fer- land was turned over to arable production. our own water-logged fields, tiliser to maintain ever bigger When the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and wondering what to do yields have meant land led to scandals of overproduction and waste, with them in the light of Laudato Si’. Francis’ stripped of plants and hedgerows, and soil it was eventually reformed in 2003. Since watershed encyclical, which turns five this bereft of the microorganisms on which good then, through the so-called “Basic Payments week, had triggered in me an ecological con- agriculture depends. So when the floods Scheme” administered by the British state version that began with coaxing vegetables come, rather than the soil absorbing and stor- by Defra (the Department for Environment, from mulched raised beds on an Oxfordshire ing the water, the water sits on the land and Food and Rural Affairs) farmers get subsidies allotment. Now, with land and choices, I carries off the top soil, compounding the – about £230 per hectare per year – in return needed a crash course. Driving through problem. Then, when the sun comes up, and for basic good practices. It means big farms flooded fields, I spent four days in north Wales we have (as now) weeks without rain, the get huge sums, and small farms tiny sums. discussing “rewilding” with conservationists, land turns to dust that sets hard as rock, Yet the biggest farms, which need subsi-

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MELANIE McDONAGH’S NOTEBOOK

dising least, are also the biggest polluters – while employing tiny numbers of people. The Church has, I think, Dieter Helm, an Oxford economist who advises the government on farming policy, describes British agriculture as a disaster. “No contributed to a sense of other economic activity combines such a perverse set of incentives, or produces so little its own redundance value for its true costs,” he says. There have been attempts to use the subsidy scheme to incentivise planet-friendly practices. Defra offers grants to encourage farmers SOMETIMES atheists put could have taken the same precautions to put back the hedgerows and orchards their it best. The Times colum- in a church as we have been taking grandfathers were paid to rip out. But take- nist, Matthew Parris, everywhere else. up of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme pondering who has had a And now, what? It could be the far side has been patchy: the grants barely cover the good and bad Covid war, of Christmas before a vaccine is available costs, while most farmers I have spoken to ranked the Church among the losers. “Its to most people – and there’s no actual regard the mind-numbing form-filling needed leaders, from [the Archbishop of guarantee we’ll find one. We know to meet the government’s obsessively pre- Canterbury] down, have been feeble,” he there’s risk in every other activity; we can scriptive conditions as a major disincentive. wrote. “They should have fought for every- take it on board in church too. Those of one’s right to enter a tranquil and beautiful us who aren’t especially vulnerable – and NOW BREXIT has given the government the place of worship to pray or meditate alone. elderly priests surely come into that at- chance to rethink the whole system. The new Social distancing was always possible. The risk category – have to be allowed to take Agriculture Bill, which last week was given Church has let down the laity.” our chances like gentlemen. its third reading by the House of Commons That’s the view from outside and it Whitsun would be a good time to start. and has now passed to the Lords for their sounds about right to me. He’s not just consideration, is the biggest shake-up in talking about Anglicans, either. The same IT’LL BE interesting to see what happens farming for generations. In the future, there goes for the Catholic Church. In defining when churches do reopen. In a brilliant will no longer be a “basic payment” to farmers itself as a non-essential service, unlike piece in last week’s Tablet, Dr Stephen simply for farming, but a new principle of off-licences or allotments or even a Bullivant observed that people might not “public money for public goods”. The CAP is second-order service like garden centres return, at least not in the same numbers to be replaced over a seven-year phased-in in the hierarchy of priorities, the Church as before. Religion is a habit like any other; transition by the Environmental Land has, I think, contributed to a sense of its once it’s lost, it may not be re-acquired. Management (ELM) scheme, which will fund own redundance. While some churches I’ve got into a pleasant habit of following landowners and farmers to do planet-friendly in Italy remained open during the crisis Mass online from Farm Street every things such as improve soil, cut carbon emis- and churches in Germany offered actual Sunday. Recovering the sense of a Sunday sions and increase biodiversity. services as soon as practically possible, obligation might be tricky for some. No one I have spoken to – whether farmers those in Britain and Ireland have been or conservationists, leavers or remainers — content to wait at the back of the queue MEANWHILE, in Bosnia, the Cardinal disagrees with this shift, and all see it as until the Government gets round to Archbishop of Sarajevo, Vinko Puljic, has inevitable. But what ELM will look like in saying you can come out now. celebrated Mass for the thousands of practice, and whether small farms will die or We can’t blame the Government. At members of the Ustasa, the wartime thrive in the new dispensation, is not yet clear. the outset of the crisis in March, the Croatian Nazi collaborators, and Either way, farmers are already heading that bishops’ letter to priests made clear that civilians, killed by the Partisans in 1945. way, aware of the shifts in public opinion. the initiative for closing the churches It was a replacement for the Bleiburg (When my neighbour tells me how he plans came from them: “[Their adviser] commemorations usually held in Austria. to protect the curlews now nesting in his fields, Professor Jim McManus [spoke] with a I do know that the Partisans’ victory his wife laughs: “If only your grandfather senior civil servant and it was quite clear meant the killing of whole classes of could hear you!”) the government had just not thought people – my Albanian father-in-law, who through the issues of infection and is not Christian, recalls seeing priests, as YET ULTIMATELY, changes in farming culture security of churches and when he made well as property owners and intellectuals, and practice will be dictated less by govern- these points clear, they were appalled hung in the town squares in Kosovo by the ment than by the market. Farmers produce and agreed they had made a mistake.” victorious Communists. This Mass, food for people to eat; how people look at So from that point on churches could however, looks like associating the Church that food, and what they are willing to pay not even remain open for private prayer. again with a movement which massacred for it, will ultimately determine what is raised And if ever there was a time when people Jews, Serbs and gipsies and was notable and harvested. If people embrace the kind would have welcomed the chance of even at the time for its barbarity. of thinking that Laudato Si’ calls “integral sitting before the Blessed Sacrament in In his Mass, Archbishop Puljic ecology” – one that sees the connection quiet it was then, especially workers at the remembered those killed in the Ustasa between the food on the table and the pain sharp end of the crisis. We were and are concentration camp at Jasenovac as well of the planet and its poor – it will shape what allowed exercise; that exercise could have as the Bleiburg victims and others, but farmers do. “Today I believe we have to slow included making for a church. Most are his observation that “we owe equal down our rate of production and consump- big enough for people to space themselves respect to every victim” isn’t what the tion,” Pope Francis told me in our Tablet out; most parishioners are informed German bishops would interview at Easter, “and to learn to under- enough – God knows, we’ve been told say. Their collective stand and contemplate the natural world.” often enough – about transmission to be examination of Will the Covid lockdown lead to a new see- conscious of the dangers of close conscience could usefully ing, a new way of doing and being? Will we proximity, of viruses surviving on benches. be replicated in Bosnia continue to demand (and throw away) food Certainly, people might have touched and Croatia. that is cheap, tasteless, and nutrient-poor? surfaces that others touched, but then Or will we, in the future, consume less food, the vulnerable, especially the elderly, Melanie McDonagh is senior writer at the CONTINUED ON PAGE 6 have been careful about taking risks. We London Evening Standard.

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PETER HENNESSY’S THE LION AND THE UNICORN

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 and pay more for it, glad that it is in season, Already one senses and grown locally in organic, microbe-rich soil rather than imported in refrigerated con- tainers from Kenya or Peru? Will we value Starmer’s question-time food more, and waste it less? Will we fear not just for the health of ill-treated livestock, but ascendency in the making our health, knowing how viruses originate? Will we give up meat, or eat only what we have seen graze, spurning supermarkets for smallholders whose methods are organic and In the shadow of the and the senior ministers with whom he sustainable? Will we join bodies – coopera- pathogen, it feels almost planned the partial easing of the tives, clubs and campaigns – that support indecent to return to lockdown. Wherever they drew the line such farming, as Laudato Si’ suggests when crude calculations of there was – is – death either side of it. it calls for “new forms of cooperation and political advantage. But But in the way the “Stay Alert” policy community organisation” capable of defending the arrival of Sir Keir Starmer as Leader replaced “Stay at Home”, the manner of small producers and local ecosystems? No of the Opposition has changed the terms its announcement and the trickling out one bets on the demise of big-scale farms any- of trade at Westminster. I am writing this of bits of it in the press over several days time soon, but the growing popularity of just after his second head-to-head with in advance, meant that Mr Johnson let vegan, vegetarian and organic diets is part of Boris Johnson at Prime Minister’s the consensus slip not just with Labour a shake-up in food production that is likely Questions and already one senses a but also the leaders of the three other to accelerate in a post-corona world. Starmer’s question-time ascendency in nations of the UK, Nicola Sturgeon the making. especially. AT A PRESS conference last Saturday, Fr At issue was the assessment of the risk It also led to public bafflement about Augusto Zampini-Davies, a Vatican official of the coronavirus ripping through the what was and was not now possible or at the heart of the Pope’s planning for that nation’s care homes that Public Health desirable for those returning to work and world, warned of disrupted supply chains England had made in early March and their means of getting there. Mr leading to higher food prices that will affect later changed. Starmer quoted chapter Johnson’s very serious personal the poor, leading to more violence and conflict and verse. Johnson said he had got it encounter with Covid-19, I’m sure, and more poverty. Covid-19 has exposed the wrong (he hadn’t). Starmer asked makes him intensely sensitive to the fragility of our current food system, he said, Johnson to return to the Commons to dangers of a second wave and he is the but also brings the chance for change: for rectify his error (he didn’t). recipient of much public goodwill, not better ways to make more food while pro- PMQs have taken on a very different least for the consensual approach he tecting ecosystems, for directing resources atmosphere too. Because of the adopted once out of intensive care and into sustainable agriculture, and to curb food Westminster version of “social back at work. It’s hugely important that waste and loss. For the Vatican, the choice distancing”, there are no massed ranks he gets it back and does not let it slip has never been between feeding people and behind the leaders. Starmer is used to again. In circumstances like these, that’s caring for the planet, but to see that both deploying a QC’s rapier in a quiet what heads of government are for. aims can be better achieved together. courtroom; Johnson is a club wielder, a What are heads of state for? Exactly Five years on, Laudato Si’ is even more rel- performer who draws strength from the what the Queen did the evening of Friday evant now. Corona has ridden in on the back roars of his rank-and-file behind him. 8 May, the seventy-fifth anniversary of of climate change, showing up the “cracks in It is also a story of two very different VE day, from Windsor Castle. A photo of the planet we inhabit”, as the encyclical puts formations. Johnson found his niche in a her father on the left of her desk, her old it. Whatever we do in response to those cracks, particular brand of attack journalism Auxiliary Territorial Service cap on her our farms are on the frontline. and went on to become a successful right, she linked the two great shared politician – neither professions in which national experiences in her person and Austen Ivereigh is the author of Wounded care in the use of the evidence is the the solidarity and cooperation that saw Shepherd: Pope Francis and His Struggle to main determinant of outcomes; Starmer the country through that wartime trial Convert the Catholic Church (Henry Holt, lived and rose in a profession that lives and will see it through this one. It was 2019). From next month, he will chart his by it. only five minutes long. It will go down as adventures putting Laudato Si’ into practice on Their temperaments, demeanours and “the streets are not empty” speech. his small farm in an occasional Tablet column. use of language reinforce the contrast. This is how I captured my reaction in One is naturally suited for a national my diary: “I’d been thinking a great deal emergency with multiple complications about then [1945] and now and the duty and requiring a mastery of fiendish of care all day. But it was the Queen’s detail; the other deeply unsuited for it, broadcast at 9 p.m. that did it. When she which is why it is hard to see how the reached her line on the streets are not Tablet binders. Prime Minister’s team will be able to empty but full of love and care, my tear prepare Johnson to be more effective ducts gave way – and I’m The perfect way to save every Wednesday at high noon. not given to crying.” and store your issues The second PMQs of the Johnson- It was, I think, the Starmer era was inevitably tinged with speech of her reign – and the sombre tragedy we are living it was suffused with through. It was saddening for another consensus. To order call: +44 (0)20 8748 8484 reason. It may, when taken with the or email: [email protected] Prime Minister’s address from Downing Peter Hennessy is Attlee Professor of Street the previous Sunday evening, have Contemporary British History at Queen WWW.THETABLET.CO.UK marked the end of the political Mary University of London and an consensus that the two leaders genuinely independent crossbench peer. He is seemed to have worked hard at. currently writing A Duty of Care: Britain I have every sympathy with the PM Before and After Corona.

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FEATURES / Urban tweeting

PHOTOS: PA/SULUPRESS.DE, TORSTEN SUKRO In the middle of the sadness of the coronavirus pandemic and the silence of the lockdown, city-dwellers have found consolation and connection in the sound of birdsong / By MARY COLWELL Listen to our singing planet

HE DAWN chorus of the lockdown turn heavenwards. This workhorse of the skies flows in through open windows. tells us a very different story. Its tale is of TSuddenly, an atmosphere that is usu- abundance, then loss and now recovery. To ally dulled by the humdrum of hear and savour its soul cries is to be reminded working life is vibrating with cadences of joy. of our hold over the planet. Once common The liquid-gold song of a blackbird is a across Britain it was persecuted to virtual warm bed of thoughtful phrases; he is a black- extinction by the beginning of the twentieth frocked preacher with the voice of an angel. century. With protection, it is returning to A wren provides the power, a trilling, a pul- reclaim the fresh winds over farmland and sating aria that cannot be ignored. It contrasts copse. It is a privilege to hear it without the sharply with the self-consciously pretty song roar of motorway traffic. of the dunnock, who seems too shy to take Our enforced slowing down has left us with centre stage, and, anyway, has forgotten the these fellow travellers as singing companions A blackbird “with the voice of an angel”; inset, words. “Goodbye my mother-in-law. Goodbye to cheer us through the days. Each has a story the high-pitched whistling goldcrest my-mother-in-law” chant the irascible blue to tell about finding its place in our human- tits, too busy with greenfly to waste time with made world. Out there, among the rose bushes love with someone, whenever he would gaze lyricism. Then, like a sprinkling of sugar, and the hawthorn, singing storytellers ask us at the sun, the moon or the smallest of animals, goldfinches flutter into the trees and tinkle. to listen to their tales. he burst into song, drawing all other creatures No choir of seraphims could sound so sweet. Many are finding it restful to be treated to into his praise.” And when we are in love we All these characters have lived in my city gar- this natural music every day. On Twitter meld our lives to the other, bringing out the den for years, but now I can hear them. Now recently I came across this moving post: “I goodness of ourselves and of that which is at last I have the time to listen. wake to the first birdsong every morning and loved – and that includes the earth. Further out, in the woods that fringe the am so thrilled to hear it and know I’m still city, I walk my dog to music that is developing alive. I could weep to think it’s taken terminal ST FRANCIS understood that all beings sing in complexity as more musicians join the illness to make me so aware of this beauty. to God; that we are part of a massed choir orchestra. Nuthatches send an urgent piping What a waste it’s been, waking to the alarm whose notes reach heaven. This global orches- through the leaves, which is more assured for work all my life.” tra can only be heard in its entirety by the than the scratchy wail of a treecreeper, or the A bird singing in the garden had produced creator. Each of us in our own section only tiny, high-pitched whistle of a goldcrest. an intense connection to what it is to be perceives the immediate music around us, human. The music of nature can prompt us but this is just one small part of a vastly greater CHIFFCHAFFS, unfazed by their exhausting to question ourselves; it draws us to a reality whole that stretches to infinity. We hear the migration over desert and ocean, announce that does not need our participation, or even birdsong, the wind, the sound of rain on leaves their arrival from Africa with their rhythmic our presence. We are a sideshow to their world. in our own patch of the earth, oblivious to tick-tocking. Their lives beat to a different Birdsong existed before we hunted and gath- the rest. Some songs may seem discordant to rhythm to ours, one dictated by subtle changes ered, before we lived in cities, before we our ears, but they are one part of the perfect in day length and heat, and barely discernible created gardens. The music of the birds has and harmonious score of the planet. alterations in the breeze. So small, so light, enlivened our planet for many millions of God hears the endless symphony of the so tough, these little beings feel the yearly years; it is humbling to have come so late to universe in its entirety. What it is to be one changes and take to the air. Chiff-chaff, chiff- the journey of this singing planet. phrase of that music, to be just one element chaff. This simple song brings the heat of the St Francis knew this, of course. His life that is broadcasting our sacred presence Sahara and rolling ocean waves to a beech danced to the music of among a countless throng, is a privilege we tree in Bristol. nature and its sacred must never forget. They keep rhythm connection to God. A scientist friend wrote to me from America for the maestros of com- In Laudato Si’, this week. “For me,” she says, “lockdown has plexity, the blackcaps and Pope Francis made me more aware and more connected garden warblers, who tell of their turns our gaze from the in many ways, especially this morning. It is migration journeys in tumbling songs concerns of modern life to in these gentle moments that I feel the closest that transform the woodland into a con- the insights of this holy man to nature and I can truly breathe. I just now cert hall. If you are lucky, you may live of the earth. We are asked to feel like I am breathing much deeper.” in a square where nightingales sing. share in the awe and wonder that the Above them all, sailing on saint experienced every Mary Colwell is a producer and writer. powerful wings, a buzzard’s day. “Just as happens Her latest book is Curlew Moon mewing makes our eyes when we fall in (HarperCollins, 2018).

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FEATURES / 80th anniversary of Dunkirk

Eighty years ago, a Benedictine monk and chaplain to the forces was killed tending to the wounded and dying on the beaches of Dunkirk. His great-nephew tells the dramatic story of Dom Gervase Hobson Matthews’ last days, drawing on his letters and his recently recovered diary / BY JOHN PONTIFEX

returned to Downside about five years ago. The diary, found with his priest’s stole on the ‘A priest has beaches at Dunkirk, and the letters to family and friends, convey both the unflappable spirit of wartime and Gervase’s warmth and humanity; he is as ready and willing to spot something faintly ridiculous as he is to recount to stay’ the horrors of war. The diary, a small, nondescript ring binder, with pages covered from top to bottom with tiny, neat handwriting, loosely divides into two parts. The first covers the period from 1 September 1939, the outbreak of war and his official appointment as war chaplain to the T WAS A moment that would represent Dunkirk was but four days away. Turning Royal Artillery HQ 1st Division, to 8 May the decision of a lifetime. Having fulfilled back into the direct line of fire – almost literally 1940, when he returns to England on leave. Ithe task set before him to escort a group – Dom Gervase was under no illusion about The diary gives a clipped account of the of nursing sisters to the coast – risking the risk he was taking. Phoney War, and offers a glimpse of the sense gunfire and aerial bombardment in the pro- That we should know so much about Dom of suspended animation characteristic of the cess – Dom Gervase had the option of joining Gervase’s experiences as a chaplain with the time. Gervase is not slow to pick up on the them on the boat with the promise of swift British Expeditionary Force in northern faintly absurd situations in which he finds and safe passage to England. A pass to go France is thanks to the meticulous record the himself. On 26 November 1939 he recalls aboard had been made out for him. Would 36-year-old Benedictine monk kept of this saying Mass “in a barn ’mid hens, hay and he stay or would he go? momentous chapter in his life. For decades, field guns”. Father Gervase decided he would go back his family and his monastery – Downside to rejoin his military unit. It was late on the Abbey, in Somerset – had believed that his IN THE SECOND part of the diary the drama evening of 22 May 1940 and the Battle of wartime diary had been lost … until it was suddenly hots up. On 10 May 1940 he records the German invasion of Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. Cutting short his leave, Gervase heads back to France. He was returning to a country under imminent threat of invasion. On arrival in Boulogne, however, he faces a more immediate crisis; his military division could not be traced, or as he puts it, “no one has any idea where [the] units are”. in association with Reporting that “all officers [were] told to await instructions”, almost in the same breath he writes that he has “decided to make his own way forward”. Taking a train to Arras, he finds the city deserted and sleeps in an empty hotel. 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PHOTO © DOWNSIDE ABBEY GENERAL TRUST Boulogne, Gervase clambers on to an ammu- wounded from 3 a.m. to 6.30. I buried [a nition lorry bound for Béthune, where he man] in the improvised military cemetery. hopes to meet up with his unit. In the diary, We had to throw ourselves to the ground he tells how, barely 30 minutes after leaving during the burial to avoid fire from the Arras, the city “was bombed to bits”. Arriving enemy planes.” in Lillers, he finally catches up with his division With the evacuation gathering momentum, of the Royal Artillery. “[They] were actually Gervase describes how he and a group of other passing through [the town] at that moment,” chaplains cast lots to decide which one of he writes. It is midnight by the time they reach them would stay behind. He gives the result: their next destination – Bavinchove. Unable “Fr Callaghan to remain.” to find a billet, Gervase sleeps “under a The diary comes to an abrupt halt at this haystack”. point. Whatever happened next, Gervase himself never got away. His final words, used in ON THE SECOND day in Bavinchove – 21 May reference to Fr Callaghan, in the event applied – he describes hearing “the enemy machine- as much, if not more, to himself: “A priest gunning the people (mostly Belgian refugees) certainly has to stay.” in the streets. The plight of the refugees is After he was reported missing, many con- beyond description. I gave the Last tinued to cling to the hope that he had Sacraments to one man (making his way to somehow survived. On 22 June 1940, fellow the coast with his wife) who was dying by the Downside monk and wartime chaplain Dom roadside.” Again unable to find a place for the Clement Hayes wrote: “He will probably turn night, Gervase “slept (or tried to) on the top up in an aeroplane later on in this war when deck of an ambulance”. he has told Hitler and Mussolini what he It was early the next morning – 22 May thinks of them. Nothing daunts Dom Gervase.” 1940 – that his commanding officer tasked But just over a year later, the War Office him with escorting the nursing sisters to Dom Gervase in Army uniform. Below, his confirmed that his grave had been identified. Dunkirk. The journey, by ambulance, is diary entry for the German invasion of Belgium His body was laid in its final resting place in fraught with danger: “At one point, I hoicked Dunkirk Town Cemetery; an inscription was the sisters out of the [vehicle] and made them The enemy is closing in; the only way out, placed at the base of his gravestone. The words take cover in a ditch.” With Dunkirk under Gervase writes, is due north, towards the immortalise that fateful moment when he bombardment, they make their way by a very coast: “Shortly before leaving [Steenvoorde], made the decision of a lifetime: “This monk circuitous route to Calais. In his 24 May letter the Boche flew over in greater numbers than and priest of Downside Abbey stayed with to Honor he writes: “We reached Calais at ever before and our convoy was bombed and the wounded at Dunkirk.” Mentioned in last at 6 p.m. to find that it had been having machine-gunned. We jumped from our lorries Despatches, Dom Gervase is recorded as the a good old bombing just before. The harbour and cars and flung ourselves into roadside first Catholic military chaplain to be killed in station had been hit and big fires were blazing ditches as the enemy planes power-dived the war. all round the docks. A boat was expected to upon us. Tremendous roar of the planes’ leave for England in the morning so I parked engines, the whistle of the bombs and the BEFORE THE WAR, Dom Gervase had given the sisters on the Area Commandant, a deafening explosions. We all thought we were more than a decade of service at what was Colonel Holland, and bade them a tender finished but there were no direct hits.” then Ealing Priory and the attached St farewell – to my enormous relief.” He spends the night sleeping “by the side Benedict’s School. The chalice given to him The evacuation pass that would have of a pond, sheltered a bit by one of our lorries”. on his ordination day is still in daily use at enabled him to get on board the boat with The next day his vehicle is twice separated Ealing Abbey. He was master of ceremonies the nursing sisters gets a passing mention. from the convoy: “Several times [we] had to in the church, housemaster in the school, Gervase quickly moves on to describe his tor- avoid bombs – one of which fell and exploded, preacher and teacher. Of all his qualities, a tuous journey back to his unit. Still travelling on soft earth, about 20 yards from me as I gift for friendship perhaps stands out most in the ambulance, somehow they make it that lay on the bank of a canal.” strongly in his obituary in the school magazine, same evening to Steenvoorde, close to the Finally, they get to the coast. Gervase aban- The Priorian. Belgian border, but not before having “to zig- dons his belongings and leads a marching Recalling “the Gentle Gervase” that many zag our way between barrels of gunpowder”. column to the sand dunes, arriving in Coxyde, people remembered when he was guest master close to Dunkirk, but across the Belgian bor- at Downside Abbey soon after his ordination IN HIS DIARY Gervase describes an air raid der. The evacuation by now was well in 1928, The Downside Review comes closest that involves a direct hit on the parish church underway and, from the house where he was to accounting for his undoubted bravery. Its in Steenvoorde where, that very morning, billeted, he could see “men wading waist- obituary records that, “during his last leave, he had said Mass. “I found the tabernacle deep to boats to take them to destroyers and [Dom Gervase] confessed that [becoming a door blown open, the lid blown off the cibo- troop ships … Intense anti-aircraft fire from military chaplain] had been a big sacrifice rium … and the hosts covered with dust and innumerable guns on the shore, as German but he had made it because so many of the plaster. [I] climbed over the debris, which planes flew overhead. Incredible noise. Shells boys he had taught had given up everything was beginning to smoulder, and took the and bullets whizzing in all directions! Tracer to serve their country”. Blessed Sacrament to a nearby house – for bullets at night.” Dom Gervase Hobson Matthews is remem- which I was patted on the back by some The diary’s last entry – 31 May 1940 – is bered by the English Benedictine Con gregation French soldiers!” perhaps the most poignant: “Was with the as a Martyr of Charity.

Downside is reproducing Dom Gervase’s diary as a booklet, with a launch date due to be announced soon. https://www.downside abbey.co.uk/downside-library/

John Pontifex, writer and journalist, is Head of Press and Information, Aid to the Church in Need (UK).

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FEATURES / Faith and belief

When Graham Greene converted to Catholicism he took Thomas as his baptismal name –specifying it was for Thomas the Doubter, not Thomas Aquinas. The tension between unbelief and faith that would animate many of his novels lasted to the very end / By JOHN WILKINS A foot in the door

RAHAM GREENE died in 1991 on unbreakable bond that the two men formed, Easter Wednesday. I had been able based on their vastly different approaches to Gto get to know him a little while I the one Catholic faith. What could be the was editing The Tablet because of implications for those of us who sought to his longstanding close friendship with my observe an Eastertide so seriously disrupted he pointed to Durán. One example, he sug- predecessor, Tom Burns. If Greene was staying by the tiny pathogens that have brought the gested, was when “one comes across people in London at the Ritz in Piccadilly, his modern world to its knees? endowed with a strange aura. I’m thinking favourite venue, at the same time that the Durán’s first letter from Greene was dated of a friend of mine, a Spanish priest with Tablet Trust was holding its annual dinner at 31 June 1964, and they met at the Ritz in whom I go travelling every year. He has a fac- the Garrick, he would come, since he was a 1973. From the start of their personal contact ulty for bringing people to life. He is not a member, and I would be placed next to him. they trusted and confided in each other. conventionally pious man, but he is possessed He liked the paper and was heard to observe Greene told Durán he wanted him to be at by an absolute faith.” that he got his theology from it. This remark his side in his final moments. It was an affir- Another such manifestation was Greene’s raised some eyebrows, because in England, mation of the faith he saw in the priest. Durán experience of Padre Pio, the Capuchin friar as he acknowledged, he was regarded as “a had lectured at the University of Madrid, and from the south of Italy who sought to conceal bit of a heretic”. Greene had become a Catholic held doctorates in theology, philosophy and the stigmata he bore, following in the steps in 1926 after his engagement to be married English literature, but it was not these qual- of St Francis. When Greene attended an early- to a young convert, who was to become Vivien ifications that Greene was looking for. morning Mass celebrated by Fr Pio, he had Greene. Out of a sense of duty and loyalty to They talked often about faith and belief. thought it lasted for the expected 35 minutes, her, he decided to take instruction. Greene distinguished between the two. Every but when he looked at his watch, he found At first he had no intention of following day, he would say, he had less belief and more he had been there for an hour-and-a-half or her. He argued every inch of the way with Fr faith. A long conversation in Spain over the two hours. He kept two photographs of Fr Trollope, his instructor. He began with a clean breakfast table drew a confession from Greene, Pio in his wallet. slate, lacking any belief at all, which Durán characterised as The Capuchin was highly sought after as a but ended with a provisional ‘The trouble “the most perfect remark” on confessor yet also alarming, because he had respect for the Catholic case this subject. “The trouble is,” an insight into what was really at the bottom which made him decide he is,’ Greene Greene told him, “I don’t of his penitents’ hearts which they ought to must always “keep a foot in told Fr Leopoldo believe my unbelief.” Durán confess. Greene got as far as the church door, the door” of the Church. After Durán,‘I took this to be his friend’s “life having waited for four hours, but then could his conversion, he took formula”. “Do you mind writ- not face it and turned tail. Thomas as his new baptismal don’t believe ing down that wonderful name – not Thomas Aquinas, my unbelief’ phrase for me?” he asked. But AS HE RECOUNTED to Allain, he had he specified, but Thomas the Greene demurred. Best not, explained to the friends who had brought him Doubter. he thought. It should remain along the reason he had refused an encounter: as a private remark between themselves. It “I was too afraid that it might upset my entire AFTER I BECAME editor of The Tablet in 1982, became, however, the quote on the frontispiece life.” He had feared that Padre Pio would have I was also in touch with Fr Leopoldo Durán, of Durán’s subsequent memoir, Graham told him to end his consuming relationship the Spanish Catholic priest with whom Greene Greene: Friend and Brother. with Catherine Walston, American wife of would go on holiday every year in Spain or Greene was equally struck by Durán’s Harry Walston, a rich landowner of left-wing Portugal, often for a fortnight or so. I made response during their first conversation when tendency. Greene wanted to marry Catherine, sure Fr Durán saw The Tablet , which he val- he asked him openly about the sources of his but she never consented. ued, regularly. The trips he took with Greene faith. “I do not ‘believe in’ God,” Durán replied. It could be argued that Tom Burns had followed a formula. The two companions “I touch him.” Greene referred to this exchange helped to launch Greene’s career as a novelist. would map out an itinerary, and off they would in the conversations he had with the young His own first impressions of the writer are go. For lunch they would look for a special French writer Marie-Françoise Allain, pub- set down in his memoir, The Use of Memory. spot for a “picnic”, as Greene called them, lished in 1983 in English translation as The He characterised Greene as “an incurable beside a stream or river where they could cool Other Man. “I like the so-called ‘primitive’ eccentric … impatient and insatiably curious”. the white wine they always brought. manifestations of the faith,” Greene told her. He seemed to leap into Tom’s landscape “like I have found myself thinking about the She asked him what these were. For an answer a leprechaun: witty, evasive, nervous, sardonic,

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Graham Greene (right) and Fr Leopoldo had laid on the other side of the argument Durán in Antibes in the early 1980s. “You are his favourite passage in John’s Gospel, of how Quixote and I am Sancho,” Greene told him Peter and John had raced to the tomb when they first heard the rumour that Jesus Christ told Durán, “You are Quixote and I am was not there. John gets there first and looks, Sancho.” Greene offered Burns a chapter of but does not go in. Peter does, and sees how the work in progress for the Christmas 1978 the linen cloths are lying. Greene, once a sub- issue of The Tablet. Two years later Greene editor for The Times, believed his journalistic added another contribution, but now told experience showed him the biblical account Burns that that must suffice. Burns pleaded was true reporting – the race to the tomb had with him. He was approaching retirement: surely happened just like that, he thought. could Greene not help him with a finale? Greene sat down and wrote a third episode, PART OF GREENE’S reason for writing published in The Tablet for Christmas 1981. Monsignor Quixote was to pin down some Monsignor Quixote was published the fol- thoughts about doubt. In the novel, Quixote lowing September. has a “terrible dream” during a siesta. He The climax of the story comes after Fr imagines that Christ has been saved from the Quixote and his companion, the Communist cross by the legion of angels to which he can ex-mayor of the same village, are pursued by appeal. There is universal joy at the deliver- the authorities and crash their car against the ance. “There was no room for doubt and no wall of the nearby Trappist monastery, where room for faith at all. The whole world knew they take refuge. Quixote is in a coma and is that Christ was the Son of God.” wandering in his mind. He sleepwalks through Quixote had felt on waking from the dream the church to the altar, where, witnessed only that to live like that would be to inhabit “a by a sceptical visiting American academic, kind of Saharan desert without doubt or faith, one of the friars and his friend the mayor, he when everyone is certain that the same belief by turns”. In 1938, Greene wanted to visit proceeds steadily to consecrate the non-exis- is true”. He had found himself whispering, Mexico to write about the persecution of the tent bread in the non-existent paten and the “God save me from such a belief.” Catholic Church there. Publishers looked non-existent wine in the non-existent chalice. As he neared the close of his life, Greene’s askance: Greene had so far written three nov- Will the mayor take communion? health deteriorated. Suffering from a blood els, of which one had been noted but the other disease, he needed regular transfusions and two had failed to make an impact. WE CAN’T BUT read this episode in the con- vitamin injections, which exhausted him. Burns was then on the board of Longmans text of churches closed because of the When Durán heard the latest news of his con- Green and lobbied his fellow directors on coronavirus, where the congregation can par- dition, he rushed to catch a plane which took Greene’s behalf. Eventually they agreed. Out ticipate in the sacraments only remotely. After him from Spain to Switzerland, arriving just of the journey came two books. One, entitled Quixote collapses and dies, the tiny group of in time to give Greene the last rites and The Lawless Roads, a record of Greene’s trav- observers talk among themselves. “What we absolution. els; the other was a novel, The Power and the listened to last night could hardly be described Durán’s book concludes with a valedictory Glory, about a “whisky-priest” on the run for as a Mass”, says the Notre Dame professor. comment by Dr Morandi, who had attended his life, which was recognised at once as a “Are you sure of that?” asks the friar. Greene in his last days. Morandi testified that classic. Greene never forgot what Tom had “Of course I’m sure. There was no Host and he had never seen anyone respond in the cir- done, and this was one of the reasons why he no wine.” cumstances with such “greatness of heart”. agreed to join the Tablet Trust. which Tom “But Monsignor Quixote quite obviously He credited “the exceptional clarity of his was setting up, and allowed the author and believed in the presence of the bread and mind which enlightened him up until the very journalist John Cornwell to interview him in wine. Which of us was right? … Can our lim- end”. In his view, “only a faith free of any doubt Antibes for The Tablet. ited senses decide a thing like that?” can explain such complete serenity at the Having helped Greene at the start of his As Greene had told Cornwell at the end of moment of death”. career, Tom Burns acted as midwife to one their conversation in Antibes, “I think it’s a Thomas the Doubter had completed his of his last novels, Monsignor Quixote. This mystery.” Then, mischievously: “It’s a mystery journey. was a pastiche of the great Spanish classic which can’t be destroyed … even by the Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Alluding Church.” John Wilkins edited The Tablet between 1982 to the chief characters in the original, Greene Earlier in their discussion, however, Greene and 2003.

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After providing for those you love, a legacy gift in your will to The Tablet An online directory of resources for use Trust, however large or small, will help The Tablet to continue the during the Covid-19 pandemic conversation around Catholicism, through news, analysis, literature and the arts. In increasingly secular times, our publication is described by Updated daily with links to live-streamed many as a lifeline and your support will ensure that we will continue to Masses, tips on how to survive self-isolation, inform and encourage Catholics around the world for many generations special prayers for the crisis and information to come, just as we have done for the past 180 years. counselling and support groupss Further information can be found in our legacy pack. You can receive a copy by post or email by contacting www.thetablet.co.uk/coronahelp Ian Farrar at [email protected] or on +44 (0)20 8748 8484. 180 SINCE 1840 SINCE 1840

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FEATURES / The Tablet Interview

PHOTO: HEIDI ROSS HE LIVES of saints inspire us to be ANN PATCHETT better than we are, but those same Tqualities that make them role models in the Church – their intensity of focus on living out gospel values, and their refusal to compromise – can be experienced as something else when it is within their own families. That is the theme of Ann Patchett’s latest novel, The Dutch House. It tells of Elna, a former postulant and Catholic mother of two small children, who leaves them behind in their lavish folly of a home in small-town Pennsylvania to dedicate her life to the des- titute in India. “I started out imagining Elna as something of a saint,” Patchett tells me via Skype from her home in Nashville, Tennessee, her travel plans for the launch of the paperback of The Dutch House ending up locked down by coronavirus. “What I wanted to write about was that journey for a woman with children in which she was the hero.” She realised, she says, it was a challenge from the start but, as the writer of seven novels that have been both global bestsellers and prize winners (2002’s Bel Canto scooped both the Orange Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, while Time magazine declared Patchett in 2012 to be one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World), she was undaunted. And she knew all about how saints’ lives turn on their head any conventional expectations from her own 12 years being raised in the Catholic faith at a Sisters of Mercy convent school in the city where she still lives.

“THERE IS part of me,” she reflects, “the deep, true part of me, that really does still believe that poverty is the highest calling, that if I was the person that I wanted to be, I would give it all up. It is only a lack of bravery on my part that prevents it.” Then, as additional ballast in getting the novel right, she also had the example of Sister Nena (pronounced Nina), the nun who taught her English and reading from first to third grade, and who now, at 88 and in retirement, lives round the corner and has become a close friend. “I take care of her. She’s mine. She’s my responsibility in the world. And so much of what is in the book comes out of that relationship. Nena’s happy. You don’t get to be an 88-year-old nun and think, ‘I wish I had had that $200 bottle of Chanel perfume.’ She has missed all of that want.” Somewhere in the mix, too, is Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker Keeping my Movement, whose cause has been moving at a snail’s pace through the Catholic Church’s saint-making processes. “I’ve been obsessed by her,” Patchett says. “A lot of the energy for Elna comes from her.” religion And so she started writing her novel in the attic office where she now sits at her desk, just back from doing her morning exercises, The bestselling novelist tellsPeter Stanford that her Catholic the headset that she wears pushing her hair back off her face. There is an easy openness upbringing gave her the greatest gift a writer can have – the about 56-year-old Patchett that more than compensates for any awkwardness that can possibility that there is something deeper out there creep in to such long-distance conversations,

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while her laugh injects warmth into the coldly greatest strength as a writer, why I can write you don’t. It’s still your country, horrible technical world of the cybersphere. and other people can’t, is that they can’t forgive though it is. In the same way, Catholicism is She had got to the end of her first draft, she themselves. The beauty in your imagination still my religion. It’s not my faith. It’s not my recalls, before she realised it was, as she puts is never what you can get on the page. So relationship to God, but it is my religion. I it, “a bomb, an absolute bomb, terrible”. It many people will write one sentence and give sometimes feel people are throwing it away was the first time it had happened in a writing up, thinking, ‘Screw this, I can’t get that beauty because they can’t throw away their family career that began – appropriately enough in on the page.’ I’m the same. I write something and their country.” this context – with the publication in 1992 of and then read it back and think, ‘This is heart- All of which means she worries for the her novel The Patron Saint of Liars, set in a breaking, I’m not nearly as talented as I want Church’s future. “You just can’t shut so many Catholic home for unmarried mothers. “What to be.’ But I know about forgiving myself, and people out for so long without it being the I realised was that it is not possible to write I go on writing.” death of it. Priests have to marry. Women a book in which a woman leaves her children Patchett’s Catholicism comes through her have to get a promotion. We have to embrace for ideological reasons and is a hero. Or even dad, Frank, the third of seven children of an gay people.” a good person.” English father and Irish mother, who emi- When she goes to Mass with Sister Nena, grated to Los Angeles to find work. He was she goes through the gamut of emotions. “I SHE CONTRASTS that with the male example a seminarian, before giving it up to become always think, ‘Oh yeah, I’m back, I’m going of the Buddha – “Buddhism,” she explains, a policeman. “They were the heroes in the to do it, this is really beautiful.’ But by the end “is where Catholics of my vintage start to drift neighbourhood,” her father used to tell her I think, ‘I can’t do this. I’ll try again next year.’” as we are just trying to make sense of it all.” before his death five years ago, “the priests When she went away as a 17-year-old to At the age of 29, the then Siddhattha Gotama and the cops.” Sarah Lawrence College, a liberal arts college walked out on his wife and child, without so Her parents divorced when she was young in New York, she remembers remarking to much as a backward glance, to search for and she moved with her sister and non- one of her favourite teachers, who happened enlightenment. Yet that act of abandonment Catholic mother to Tennessee, where she was to be Jewish, that she felt she needed to find has left not a single blemish on his reputation taught by the Sisters of Mercy at St Bernard’s “a better religion”. “If you are going in search for saintliness. School. She remembered her days there in of something as big as God,” he counselled “So I sat down on my meditation cushion,” an essay, “The Mercies”, published in Granta her, “stay with the people that you know and – Patchett points it out next to her desk as in 2011, which had been prompted by meeting the rituals you know.” It was, she says, “a life- she speaks – “and thought about the women Sister Nena again. She must have enjoyed her altering moment”, and advice that she follows who live on my suburban street, the young time there? to this day. mothers that I know, and their children. I “No,” she corrects me. “I didn’t, but that thought what if [her neighbour] Whitney left was my fault, though ‘fault’ isn’t the right The Dutch House by Ann Patchett was her young children to go to India to serve the word. I wasn’t good at being a child. I was at published in paperback by Bloomsbury last poor. And I thought, I’d hunt her down and once much younger than the other girls and month, £8.99. kill her. That was the wave of rage that I felt much older.” when I attached the idea to a real young mother with young children.” WHAT SHE DID get in abundance from her So much so that it caused her to discard Catholic childhood, though, is something that the first draft and start again on the novel – she uses every day in her writing (she also same characters, same house, same question runs a bookshop in Nashville and is a vocal – but everything else different. And she made champion of independent booksellers). “That it work triumphantly: The Dutch House was idea of magic, the idea of a reality that is not longlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for the reality that you are living, the possibility Fiction – successor to the Orange Prize. that there is something larger and deeper out To tell quite how she pulls it off so convinc- there, that you believe in what you can’t see. ingly would be to give away a fantastic plot. That’s it. It is the greatest gift for a writer.” Suffice to say that the key comes in two themes As an example, she quotes St Francis of that will be familiar to all Catholics – the clash Assisi giving the last of his bread to the birds, between the usually laudable ideals of our and then the birds coming back to take care religion to which we aspire and the usually of him. It is a saint’s story, she suggests, with less laudable realities of our daily lives, and particular relevance to a world in a downward that much underrated quality economic spiral because of Regular Mass & Service Times in modern life, forgiveness. Covid-19. “It is exactly what ‘There is part of me, we are the middle of right now. Farm Street Church, London has INDEED, FORGIVENESS is a the deep, true part We are in loaves-and-fishes recurring theme in Patchett’s country right this minute. If livestreamed Masses on the parish fiction, and in her contribution of me, that really we all take what we have and website daily at 10am and 6pm. On to public debates. She has, in does still believe we put it towards the common Sundays Mass in Latin is livestreamed the past, suggested that the that poverty is the good, then we must assume at 11am and in English at 6pm. Church might do well to con- highest calling’ we will be protected. It is about sider adding a sacrament that idea of the good and the A priest is available for consultation especially for divorcees. Her health of the whole. That is first marriage, when she was 24, ended in what St Francis is saying.” over the telephone at any time. divorce the following year (she has been with Though she has her disagreements with All welcome her second husband, Karl VanDevender, a the Church, Patchett never shies away from doctor, for the past 25 years; they have chosen talking about her religion – even when ques- not to have children). tioners begin with, “How can you remain a Please phone 020 7493 7811 “It would be about forgiveness, a sacrament Catholic, when … ?” For her, religion is like for more information that is saying, ‘You made a terrible mistake your family and your country. and you don’t have to die for it.’ Isn’t that a “You can’t leave behind your family. And Live streaming events can be found wonderful thing? It would be most of all about as much as you can say, ‘Oh well, if Donald at Jesuit.org.uk/events forgiving yourself. I always think that my Trump is elected, then I’m going to Canada’,

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FEATURES / Lockdown funerals

There have been heartrending stories of people dying alone and being buried hurriedly and almost unattended. We are also seeing families and funeral directors responding to the challenge of burying the dead at a time of social distancing with creativity and imagination / By SUE GAISFORD Safe passage to eternity

NE COLD morning just before We resolved to maintain and strengthen our way. In our separate homes, from Coniston Christmas, on a high grassy head- own bonds of friendship, arranging to meet Water to Lake Geneva, at the precise time of Oland in wild Northumberland, a in London in the middle of March. the brief crematorium service, 10 of us played shaggy little Shetland pony pulled As everyone now knows, such a thing the music of Schubert’s “Ave Maria”, said the a wooden cart into a field towards an open proved impossible. But what we couldn’t guess prayers written for her, and listened at the grave. There was a misty frost lingering in was that another of us would be snatched end to “In paradisum” from Fauré’s Requiem. the air and on the cart, in a wicker coffin, lay suddenly away by the coronavirus. She died It was an experience of surprising intensity the body of one of my oldest friends. Mary, alone in the night. And as we all agreed, she and I wasn’t the only one to find it profoundly aware that her cancer was terminal, had was the very best of us. A long-serving nursing emotional, spiritual and, yes, therapeutic. planned it all and had asked her priest if he sister in a children’s hospice, she knew all The eulogy, the hymns, the readings, the would be able to handle such an unconven- about comforting the dying – indeed she had wake, the hugs, the tears, the stories, the laughter, tional funeral. He didn’t turn a hair; instead sat up all night with me at my sister’s deathbed the Requiem Mass itself – all these can help to he made her laugh by asking her what date and seen her safely into the next world. blur the sharp edges of grief, yet none is available she had in mind. In the event he did her proud. The irony, the profound sadness of her own in these restricted days. There will, eventually, Later that day, people who had loved her lonely death, was not lost on any of us. Tectonic be memorial services, but they will inevitably thronged a church hall, and her brother-in- plates had stirred and shifted, and nothing provoke only emotion recollected in tranquillity. law spoke warmly of her particular, valuable seemed right. Only her four sons were to be We need more immediate solace. In Ireland, gift for friendship. There were several of us allowed to attend her funeral, but we were people are lining the streets from home to there who had been in the same class at the given an idea of the order of service, and we churchyard, properly distanced, respectful Convent of the Holy Child Jesus in Mayfield. hit on the notion of attending it in a virtual and prayerful. Perhaps we could do that.

The Tablet - making sense of a world in lockdown

SINCE 1840

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PHOTO:PA, ANDREW MILLIGAN A funeral director in our Sussex village is struggling to deal with death in the current climate. With twice as many every week and an ever-present fear of contagion, he is anxious for the safety and the health of his staff. They are not recognised as front-line workers, and they suffer from the shortage – indeed near- unavailability – of personal protective equipment, although they work in an environment where the virus is prevalent and active. He finds the ever-changing official advice frustrating. Patients recovering from the virus are often transferred to nursing homes, where they unwittingly infect other residents and staff. However, the lack of testing means that nobody is really sure whether or not the virus Dom Maguire from Anderson Maguire Funeral Directors in has caused death. Our village funeral director the empty coﬃn storage room at their oﬃces in Glasgow has even been asked to make videos of the bodies he collects, so that doctors – who have toriums, funerals can be livestreamed, and Only the very closest and dearest are there; often not seen the patients – can issue death if more people arrive than are allowed, they garden flowers are welcomed; and there is a certificates. can stand outside and have the service relayed gentle simplicity to the proceedings – conso- Yet, in spite of all the practical difficulties, by tannoy. lations that nobody had foreseen. undertakers are providing individual care The real sadness of funerals during the Personally, I’d like a proper Requiem Mass, and consolation to the bereaved, and treating lockdown is that no physical contact is per- if possible, as I need all the help I can get, but the dead with dignity and respect. mitted, no hugs, no intimate chat, none of until such a thing is permitted again – and Embalming is no longer allowed, nor is vis- the tactile comforts that so console us. But please God it will be soon – families and iting the funeral parlour; coffins may no no longer are there queues of people in black, funeral directors and clergy will find, as we longer be carried, but must be transported shaking hands solemnly and signing books; did in our amateur way, their own creative on trolleys; churches are closed and flowers no longer are ministers who never met the ways helping to ease the passage to eternity. are hard to come by. Yet there is a new per- deceased called in to rattle off grating and sonal, informal atmosphere that can be less offensively irrelevant platitudes; no more do Sue Gaisford is a former literary editor daunting to those deep in grief. At crema- solemn organs instil an air of dreary gravity. of The Tablet.

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SINCE 1840

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WORD FROM THE CLOISTERS [email protected]

“Graham was not just much loved by my The third man Dad, but also much admired by my Spanish mother Mabel, who found him thoughtful, JOHN WILKINS writes in this week’s Tablet kind and attractive,” Jimmy says. “She once of the friendship between Graham Greene told me that he was the most attractive man and Fr Leopoldo Durán. The two men enjoyed she had ever met – ‘After your father of course’.” several convivial summer jaunts round Spain in the late 1970s, discussing faith and doubt MARY REMNANT, one of the world’s leading over long boozy picnics. authorities on medieval music, died last Friday, Carlos Villar Flor, a professor of literature aged 85. Her lifelong interest in early music at the University of La Rioja, suggests in a new was originally sparked by studying minstrels book that Greene may have been using his in church carvings. Her mother was a music trips to Spain as cover for intelligence gathering teacher and her father was an art historian on Eta – who of course had links with the IRA and architect who designed Benedictine – and socialist politics in the post-Franco era. abbeys and chapels in France. Mary grew up The journalist, writer and Tablet trustee surrounded by medieval bric-a-brac and ban- Jimmy Burns is sceptical. “Greene’s annual ter. She gave unforgettable lecture recitals, holidays with Fr Durán were focused on father, who edited The Tablet between 1967 playing the medieval harp, tabor, psaltery, exploring his Catholic faith and his love of and 1982, had begun prior to the war, and rebec, fiddle, organistrum, pipe, shawm, horn Spain,” he told us. Greene’s involvement with intensified when they found common ground and chimebells. She was a founder member British intelligence in wartime is well known in their love of Spain and their engagement of The Confraternity of St James and a Dame – Jimmy himself has written about it in Papa with liberal Catholic theology. “They main- of the Order of St Gregory the Great. She was Spy, his book about his father, Tom Burns – tained discreet contacts with the murky world still coming to meetings of the Catholic Writers but by the late 1970s there was no shortage of British secret intelligence during the Cold Guild at Farm Street in Mayfair a few months of high-grade reporting on post-Franco Spain. War. My father, who spoke at his memorial, before she died, boldly navigating the narrow “Whatever insights Greene, by then in his was shattered by the news of Greene’s death. stairs to the basement of Delfino’s for the pre- twilight years, might have shared informally He died four years and half years later, on the talk pizza. with friends, it hardly amounted to serious 8 December 1995, the feast of the Immaculate Mary was much loved, and made a unique intelligence gathering.” Conception, having suffered from the same contribution to British cultural life and to the Jimmy tells us Greene’s friendship with his fatal blood condition as his good friend.” Church in the UK.

PUZZLES

PRIZE CROSSWORD No. 708 Axe Across 19 City to which Lot fled after the destruction 5 Fervent, even militant, proponent of a 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 Pharisee, possibly, who hosted Jesus in of Sodom (4) cause; one sharing a name with 7 Across (6)

7 Bethany, “a man who had suffered from a 20 Italian monk who founded a major 6 Unmarried person who has taken a virulent skin-disease” – TJB (5,3,5) religious order about 540 (8) religious vow of chastity (8) 9 10 8 One of the Seven Deacons, maybe 22 Sobriquet for 20, for instance, currently 11 Story, often biblical, set to music (8) 8 9 martyred at Philippi in 98 AD (8) No 16! (5,2,6) 13 Daughter of Herod Agrippa I (7) 11 9 Grandmother of Timothy (4) Down 15 Famous OT sister and prophet (6) 10 Popular, if derogatory, term for members 1 Saul’s servant in Jerusalem (4) 17 Senior church officers (6) 10 11 12 of the Unification Church (7) 2 Follower of the Church of Jesus Christ of 18 Archimandrite, perhaps (5) 14 13 15 16 12 Philistine who became a commander in Latter-Day Saints (6) 21 Eldest son of Ham (4) 14 15 16 17 David's army (5) 3 One of the first Israelite judges; he stopped

19 18 14 Woman of Bethlehem, subject of her his people worshipping Baal (7) daughter-in-law’s devotion (5) 4 Integral part of identifying or quoting 19 20 21 16 Father of James and John (7) biblical text (5) 22 23

24 26 25

Please send your answers to: Crossword Competition 23 May, SUDOKU | Challenging Solution to the 2 May puzzle The Tablet, 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 0GY. Each 3x3 box, each Email: [email protected], with Crossword in the subject field. row and each column Please include your full name, telephone number and email address, must contain all the and a mailing address. Three books – on Paul, Theology and numbers 1 to 9. Christian Ethics – from the OUP’s Very Short Introduction series will go to the sender of the first correct entry drawn at random. n We cannot process entries or prizes at present. Please keep entering. Winners will be notified and prizes awarded as soon possible.

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Solution to the 2 May crossword No. 705 Across: 1 Lystra; 4 Hindus; 8 Marists; 10 Abbot; 11 Charity; 12 Clair; 13 Pantheism; 17 Enoch; 19 Adullam; 21 Cross; 22 Stainer; 23 Nathan; 24 Baasha. Down: 1 Lamech; 2 Syria; 3 Russian; 5 Isaac; 6 Diblaim; www.oup.com 7 Saturn; 9 Scythians; 13 Provost; 14 Idumaea; 15 Deacon; 16 Umbria; 18 Hosea; 20 Linus.

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LETTERS

•THE EDITOR OF THE TABLET• 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 0GY [email protected] All correspondence, including email, must give a full postal address and contact telephone number. The Editor reserves the right to shorten letters.

Prayer at home TOPIC OF THE WEEK l Dr Claire Jenkins (Letters, 9 May) describes how she takes Care homes horror shames ministers bread and wine as an Act of Communion when she shares in a “streamed Mass”. I am MY WIFE has advanced Alzheimer’s and to a care home. Many old people choose to permitted to celebrate Mass on has required total care for the past five go to a care home. But even if this was not my own and on most days I do years. She has remained in the family home the case and care homes were filled with so from the privacy of my throughout purely because our youngest unwanted members of selfish families, as kitchen. I, and most priests in son has devoted his life to being her Renny Gye implies (Letters, 16 May), it my experience, find that this is a primary carer. We have counted our would not be right to let them and their strange experience and blessings as the horror of the care homes carers die. demands of us a real act of faith. scandal has unfolded. The government stated as early as What is intended to be a Our hearts go out to the countless families February that it believed “it was very celebration of the community whose circumstances left them with no unlikely that people receiving care in a care has, in present circumstances, alternative but to place their loved ones in a home would become infected”. Renny Gye to be tantamount to a private care home and who now grieve at their was right to say that ministers were celebration. unnecessary loss. The decision to return “inexperienced”. In our parish, we are blessed Covid-19 patients from hospital to care It is the responsibility of the government with a streamed celebration of homes, which allowed the disease to spread to protect the nation. It has failed the care Mass every Sunday and so – exponentially, will be seen in a future public homes, the carers and the inhabitants, by probably against all the rules – I inquiry as incompetent and shameful. its inability to provide them with basic “virtually” concelebrate with our Two learning points emerge from this personal protective equipment and parish priest. I say all the words pandemic. We must find a better way to essential testing. with him, I listen to his homily protect the most vulnerable in our society, This may be as a result of inexperience, and I consecrate bread and wine and we must honour and justly reward the incompetence, blindness, or some warped with him. This enables me to heroic staff who care for them. political motive, but it remains that it has join in the celebration and JIM FOLEY failed and people have died as a result. prayers of the parish, and to BIRMINGHAM It is essential that the government be held offer Mass for all the parishioners. to account. I am actually, and not only MANY FAMILIES are heartbroken, having to HILARY ANDREWS “virtually”, in communion with make the decision to send a family member RICHMOND, SURREY Pope Francis, my bishop, and with the whole Church. The celebration of Sunday Mass is no longer a solitary Shy archbishop lacked courage nor the quite a long journey that event for me, who am “locked understanding of the throughout it the archbishop down”, and I rejoice in that. l In his review of the biography importance of quiet gestures. would not be uttering a word (BISHOP) CRISPIAN HOLLIS of John Habgood, Archbishop of HAROLD MOZLEY and should not be spoken to, PORTSMOUTH York, 1983-1995, Frank Field YORK and that a rule of silence should contends that Habgood was largely prevail. l At the start of lockdown, we “lacking in any discernible l My own experience of John I sat in the back of the car set up the laptop at the dining human sympathy” (Books, 16 Habgood confirms the with his personal assistant, with table to watch a local May). My one encounter with recollections of Frank Field. whom I very occasionally livestreamed Mass, but there him showed a different side. During his time as archbishop exchanged a word sotto voce. It were issues with the streaming. In 1992 the North Yorkshire I was invited to be the main was a strange experience. Since then, our family has done Probation Service proposed speaker at a York diocesan My own sense is that it was our own Sunday service; we opening a bail hostel in a clergy conference at Butlin’s more shyness than listen to the readings, sing former hotel in suburban York. Holiday Camp in Skegness, a snobbishness that made hymns and pray for loved ones. For two years local opposition bizarre occasion which involved Habgood appear aloof and It has been a very special time was well orchestrated. I was the me performing daily in the socially awkward. Unlike Frank for us as a family, gathered at first manager and once Gaiety Show Bar, the Eucharist Field, I admired and continue our dining table each Sunday to everything was in place planned being celebrated to the to admire his writings and his pray and give thanks to God. We an official opening. I wrote to accompaniment of the Mighty staunch and eloquent defence miss our parish community but the Archbishop’s Palace and Wurlitzer organ which rose up of liberal Broad Church I hope this time of lockdown asked him to come. from the bowels of the stage as Anglicanism. makes us look at the Church He gave an address, unveiled a the clergy processed towards it. (REVD PROF.) IAN BRADLEY differently; to really value the plaque, chatted with residents, At the end of the conference, ST ANDREWS, FIFE role of women within parishes planted a climbing rose. He did Habgood kindly drove me back and the role of our parishes as what was asked with good grace, to York station, forsaking the Conspiracy theory community hubs, a beacon of a pastoral visit to those awaiting services of his chauffeur, as I hope and light not just in times trial or sentence that he could was told he often did as he l Bishops and other church of uncertainty but at all times. have avoided so as not to found driving relaxing. leaders in Germany have rightly MAIRI-FRANCES MCKAY reignite controversy. He may It was made clear to me kept their distance from a LEICESTER have been “shy”, but neither before the start of what was CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

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LETTERS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17 Inclusion excluded are to begin again. Is it too temptation for many who are statement signed by Cardinal much to ask that at such a beginning to enjoy it. A Gerhard Müller and others, l Sara Maitland (Column, 16 service we will all be welcomed dignified celebration from a alleging that supranational May) is quite right to castigate back with General Absolution? famous basilica may have more bodies are exploiting the Covid- the intercessory prayers of the As well as giving us all an resonance than the gathering at 19 pandemic in a secret attempt British Isles Divine Office for experience similar to that of the one’s own parish church. to create “a world government non-inclusive language. When Prodigal Son, it would surely LEIGH HATTS beyond all control”. This Dom Placid Murray of Glenstal relieve priests of the burden of BOURNEMOUTH, DORSET conspiracy theory claims that Abbey and his collaborators having to listen to countless “the inalienable rights of produced these in the 1970s, sinless Confessions: “Bless me Quiet happiness citizens have, in many cases, they clearly never envisaged the father for I have sinned: I have been violated” and “their incongruity of women Religious missed Mass …” l Joanna Moorhead (“For fundamental freedoms” have solemnly repeating phrases such CHRIS KELLY better, for worse”, 9 May) might been “unjustifiably restricted”. as “Lord Jesus, we are your STOCKPORT, GREATER like to consider that the silent This language becomes brothers”. Inclusive language as MANCHESTER couple in the restaurant (with deeply ironical when one recalls an issue would not arise for whom my husband and I the five years (2012–17) another decade, but subsequent Episcopal record identify) are not bored but Cardinal Müller spent as reprints of the Office have done quietly enjoying each other’s prefect of the Congregation for nothing to alleviate the problem. l Whilst acknowledging the company, without feeling the the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). However, Maitland is on less achievement of the late Bishop need to clink glasses and He inherited and made no firm ground with the Leo McCartie (Letters, 16 May), chatter endlessly. attempt to reform the CDF’s “Benedictus” and “Magnificat”. I believe the longest-serving JENNIFER LAIRD deeply flawed procedures. They The Divine Office compilers bishop in England and Wales HOCKLEY, ESSEX do not accord with basic merely opted to use the existing was Archbishop Peter Amigo of principles of justice: for translations of these canticles Southwark (March 1903 to Petrol money example, the right of the that had been produced by the October 1949). He never retired accused to be present from the Ladies of the Grail (sic) in the and in the last week of his life he l John Howes (Letters, 9 May), beginning, to know and face 1960s, even further away from ordained deacons on Saturday points out that lockdown means their accusers, and to defend our era of inclusivity concerns. at St John’s Seminary, Wonersh, parishes are missing out on a themselves (or be represented The use in the Magnificat of and on Wednesday presided at a substantial part of their income. by someone of their choice). “servant” rather than meeting of the Southwark It also means that my spending A reform of these procedures “maidservant” or “handmaiden” Catholic Rescue Society. on fuel has gone from an is long overdue and could was for rhythmical reasons. (BISHOP) HOWARD TRIPP average of £120 a month for the finally put into practice PAUL INWOOD LONDON SW8 first three months of this year to principles laid down at the HAVANT, HAMPSHIRE nothing at all in April and May Fourth Lateran Council (1215) Mass on TV so far. In addition to our normal by Pope Innocent III – not to Back to church direct debit, my wife and I have mention the better features of l A further reason for possible been happy to make a payment the 1983 Code of Canon Law. l When we are allowed to shrinking Mass attendance to the parish which we have It little becomes Cardinal return to our churches I hope following the lockdown (“After “joined” for online services. Müller to speak of “inalienable that we will see this as a the storm”, 16 May) could be the Perhaps churches and rights” and “fundamental wonderful opportunity for a availability of online Mass. charities should actively solicit freedoms”. new beginning. Liturgists and The pleasure of watching a this petrol premium? (FR) GERALD O’COLLINS SJ pastors around the world must live broadcast on the computer JOHN COSGROVE PARKVILLE, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA be working out how exactly we or TV screen will be a CAMBORNE, CORNWALL

THE LIVING SPIRIT AND LITURGICAL CALENDAR

The kingdom of life has come and eternal life prepared for beautiful or squalid, was ✦ CALENDAR ✦ the empire of death has been those who are worthy. touched by grace. ST GREGORY OF NYSSA Sunday 24 May: destroyed. A new form of birth has Everything human and Seventh Sunday of Easter (Year A) arrived and with it another life, FROM FROM THE FATHERS TO THE everything in nature – the Monday 25 May: another way of living, a change has CHURCHES: DAILY SPIRITUAL READINGS, ED. howl of an animal in the night, St Bede the Venerable, come over our nature … BROTHER KENNETH CGA (COLLINS, 1983) the breezes on the bay, the Priest and Doctor Tuesday 26 May: This child is conceived by faith creeping vine on a tenement fire St Philip Neri, Priest and comes to light through the In the years that followed her escape – spoke to her of God. And Wednesday 27 May: rebirth of baptism. The Church conversion – even after, with the she never ceased to believe, St Augustine of Canterbury, Bishop nurses her and suckles her with help of Peter Maurin, she had despite the hardship and insecurity Thursday 28 May: found her calling and her home in she endured, that life in Easter feria doctrines and precepts to live by; Friday 29 May: the Catholic Worker Movement – community affords a glimpse and her food is the bread of heaven. Easter feria or St Paul VI, Pope Heavenly citizenship is the Day still encountered loneliness foretaste of the heavenly banquet. Saturday 30 May: perfection she grows to, her and sorrow. She continued to When asked about her work and Easter feria marriage is her familiarity with “groan over the hideous sordidness what she was trying to achieve, she Sunday 31 May: wisdom, her children are hope, of man’s fate”. But she never lost answered simply: “We are trying to Pentecost Sunday her home the kingdom, her touch with a deep instinct for the make people happy.” inheritance and wealth are the holiness in all things. She believed, ROBERT ELLSBERG For the Extraordinary Form calendar go to www.lms.org.uk delights of paradise, and her end is by virtue of the Incarnation, that FROM THE SAINTS’ GUIDE TO HAPPINESS not death but that blessed and every corner of life, whether (DARTON, LONGMAN & TODD, 2003)

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BOOKS

•OUR REVIEWERS• SIMON SCOTT PLUMMER is a former leader writer on The Daily Telegraph • AMANDA HOPKINSON is a translator and critic • NICHOLAS TUCKER is the author of The Rough Guide to Children’s Books • CHRIS NANCOLLAS’ latest book is Another Doctor in the Forest • ANTHONY GARDNER is an author and journalist

PHOTO: PA/DPA/KREMLIN Crime and punishment How Vladimir Putin subverted the rule of law and created a gangster state

HE SECURITY services in Russia think SIMON SCOTT PLUMMER guarantor of order and a spur to change. long term. When Yuri Andropov ran How that would be realised was to become Tthe Soviet Union, they had already con- painfully clear. The power of provincial cluded that the Communist model could not Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back governors was curbed and the Yeltsin oligarchs match the dynamism of the West. To ease the Russia and Then Took On the West were hounded. Belton rightly describes the rigidity of state monopoly they turned a blind CATHERINE BELTON jailing of Khodorkovsky and the dismantling eye to the black market, thus creating a link (WILLIAM COLLINS, 640 PP, £25) of his oil company, Yukos as a watershed mark- between themselves and organised crime that ing the slide towards crony state capitalism has persisted to this day, though now on a TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £22.50 • TEL 020 7799 4064 and subversion of the rule of law. After elec- vastly greater scale. tions in 2003, parliament was reduced to a Catherine Belton, a former Moscow corres- scheme produced little food for a city desper- rubber stamp. And the sinister arm of Russian pondent of the Financial Times, traces with ately short of it but created hard currency retribution became ever bolder, whether in admirable assiduity the rise of these siloviki, slush funds for those to whom Putin granted poisoning Alexander Litvinenko and Sergei or strongmen, from their role as servants of export licences. Having exploited that source and Yulia Skripal in Britain or gunning down the Soviet state to that of lordship over its of wealth, the deputy mayor and his people Boris Nemtsov within sight of the Kremlin. post-Communist successor. She has inter- moved to take over the port and oil terminal. The oil price rose and Putin’s cynicism about viewed both victims and beneficiaries of this If this was the future Russian state in minia- Western venality proved justified. Foreign process, the first frank in their criticisms, the ture, so its actors would move with Putin on investment added to the black funds which second clear about their goals, though less so to that much larger stage. Prominent among Russia could recycle to the West to buy the about the bewildering subterfuge employed them were Igor Sechin, his deputy in St loyalty of political parties and businesses. to reach them. Petersburg, now head of the state oil company London became a favoured centre for money The end product is a gangster system whose Rosneft, and Gennady Timchenko, then a lead- laundering. On the other side of the Atlantic, head, Vladimir Putin, believes anyone in the ing figure in the oil industry, now one of the Donald Trump’s business ventures greatly bene- West can be bought. Billions of roubles have new oligarchs with multi-billion-dollar fortunes. fited from Russian money, connections which been stashed away illegally for covert oper- came to haunt him after he became president. ations aimed at subverting democracy. “You IN THE 1990s, the siloviki and their allies Putin has created an “imperial state” based can’t use nuclear weapons every day,” Belton strengthened their grip on St Petersburg. In on autocracy, love of the fatherland and the quotes a former KGB officer as saying, “but Moscow, by contrast, the shots were called Orthodox Church, a trinity harking back to you can use this black cash every day … to by Yeltsin-era oligarchs such as Mikhail the reign of Tsar Nicholas I. The siloviki dismantle the Western system from the inside.” Khodorkovsky and Boris Berezovksy. Putin’s believe they have rescued Russia from the Once a spy always a spy: there is continuity arrival in the capital to join the Kremlin staff chaos and humiliation of the Yeltsin years in the rise of Putin and his people. One of the in 1996 marked the start of a meteoric rise and re-established it as a great power. They most fascinating aspects of the book is its culminating in the directorship of the FSB, make less show of the fact that the new order mapping of the president’s career, starting the successor to the KGB. From that vantage suits them to a tee. Their aggrandisement with his five years as a KGB agent in Dresden, point he was designated as Yeltsin’s successor and that of the kleptocratic state they have where he worked with the Stasi in facilitating as the president’s health deteriorated, and his created have become synonymous. the smuggling of high technology from circle became mired in a banking scandal Looking ahead, declining revenues from Western Europe. under investigation by Swiss prosecutors. fossil fuels and the blow of Covid-19 could Having returned to Russia, he became To most Russians, Putin was a nonentity, dent their confidence about changing the con- deputy mayor of his native St Petersburg. It which was probably why his manifesto stitution to keep Putin in power after 2024. was there, after the collapse of the Soviet received so little attention. In it he rejected In the meantime, Belton’s revelatory exposé Union, that he developed what Belton both Communism, as “a road to a blind leaves no doubt as to the corrupting malevo - describes as “a blueprint for everything that alley”, and the liberal traditions of the West, lence of the state he and his people have was to come later”. An oil-for-food barter advocating instead a strong state as a created. We have been warned.

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Lessons from hell target for abuse, but who ceaselessly sought Aziz BineBine to inspire others to persevere; or Allal AMANDA HOPKINSON Mouhage, a flight sergeant on leave, mistakenly detained. Despite longing only to be reunited with his wife and daughters, Tazmamart: 18 Years he succumbed to a stomach ulcer that in Morocco’s Secret Prison “gnawed away at him until he died”. AZIZ BINEBINE, TRANSLATED BY LULU NORMAN If hope was on hold, dreams were different. HAUS PUBLISHING, 200 PP, £14.99) “My whirling dreams often featured prophets,” writes BineBine, “probably because we were TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £13.49 • TEL 020 7799 4064 learning the Qur’an, which mentioned them all. After Jesus my favourite was Moses. He would appear and we would have long AZMAMART IS the poignant and conversations.” Even better was a vision where profound account, immaculately “I had seen Christ in person. And yet I don’t Ttranslated from the French, of an believe in miracles.” On reflection, perhaps it arbitrary incarceration. Aziz BineBine, son was a dream “but one that did me a lot of of King Hassan II of Morocco’s closest courtier good: it was the miracle of autosuggestion”. and a graduate of Morocco’s elite Royal Like God, miracles move in mysterious ways. Military Academy, was accused of BineBine’s father, an Islamic sage and participating in a failed coup d’état in 1971 devout member of an ulema, publicly denied in which he was caught up unawares. He was his son was a traitor. BineBine’s own ambition condemned to 18 years in the dungeon of a was to be a journalist or film-maker. Instead secret prison in the midst of a desert which he became “a survivor ... a storyteller, a dealer neither his parents nor the public knew existed. in suffering”. “I am no victim, brothers,” he Tazmamart was dark and dank, liable to writes. “Save your tears.” His release came as flooding by blocked sewers, shared with rats, you can remain free in determining your capriciously as his arrest. scorpions and cockroaches (which intermit- response. His goal was survival and his aim He emerged into a world haunted by the tently ended up in the watery soup), crammed faithfully to document both the pathos and “ghosts” of those lost, where he saw only “a with emaciated and frequently infected men the bravery of his fellow prisoners, only seven half-mad ascetic” in the mirror. In Tazmamart, sharing cells too tight to stand up or lie down of whom finally emerged with him. prisoners sang songs (“for singing is a little in. Torture and brutality were routine; bitter He disciplined himself to be dispassionate: corner of Heaven in hell”). Outside again, he cold and storms added to the torment. “Death “If, having lost everything, we still hope for remembers reassuring his guards that finally went on brazenly taunting us.” something, we set ourselves up for frustration “there is nothing to forgive”. Something else BineBine determined to discover what and disappointment.” In a powerful homage, he learnt in “hell”: “I’m a confirmed Muslim keeps men alive by observing the attitudes of he recounts the broken lives of many who who loves Christ ... because he taught me those who persisted. He learned that while never saw daylight again: Moha Boutou, a what it meant to love my neighbour, to forgive you cannot always alter your circumstances, Berber whose race made him a particular and be humble.”

Valour revisited OU WON’T like going back to His description of this incident, which being a schoolmaster after this,” also includes passing references to King NICHOLAS TUCKER “Ya contact in the French Resistance Lear and Hollywood films, is unforgettable. said to Harry Rée in 1944. “On the contrary,” Mostly, though, this is a story of cycling at Rée replied. “Getting back to something night to avoid detection, sleeping wherever A Schoolmaster’s War: Harry Rée – A constructive instead of blowing things up he could, liaising with other agents and British Agent in the French Resistance all the time – it will be a joy.” And so it proved sending information to the RAF. In return EDITED BY JONATHAN RÉE to be. Rée was to become as explosive a figure for their not bombing the Peugeot factory (YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 192 PP, £14.99) in British educational circles as he was when and its surroundings, Rée got its owner to wrecking factories and train lines in arrange for regular in-house sabotage. For TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £13.49 • TEL 020 7799 4064 southern France. An early advocate of this he was and always remained a local comprehensive schools and a ground- hero, despite losing many comrades to the breaking professor of education at York Nazis in the war’s closing moments. These University, his idealism, charm and zestful losses were a source of deep pain: another energy won round legions of administrators, reason he generally avoided revisiting the teachers and students. past. Rée rarely talked about his Resistance Rée was a pacifist in 1939 but soon changed experiences, disliking the post-war emphasis his mind. Irritated by inaction and unim- isrun by Church House Bookshop on personal heroics rather than on the hun- pressed by the army’s high command, he – one of the UK’s leading religious dreds of French citizens who had risked their volunteered for the SOE (Special Operations booksellers with thousands lives by providing invaluable support. Executive) because “if one were killed or of titles in stock. Individual British officers only had them- arrested it would not be because of the stu- selves to worry about; their hosts could risk pidity of some major or colonel you despised, To place an order call: +44 (0)20 7799 4064 losing their entire households. but would quite likely be your own fault”. This Email: [email protected] This account was written by him for his insistence on preserving his freedom of action own family when, aged 29, he was recovering was typical of this bravest and most cheerfully International P&P charges will apply. in Switzerland in late 1943 from wounds taken iconoclastic figure. Admirably edited by his during a gunfight with the German military son Jonathan, this description of the day-to- the published review. police. One of their bullets lodged inaccessibly day life of a special agent in wartime France close to his heart for the rest of his life. is the real thing.

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RECENTLY The Bystander Effect / CATHERINE A. SANDERSON / WILLIAM COLLINS, £20; TABLET PRICE £18 / A psychologist explores PUBLISHED what it is that makes so many of us fail to act when we witness bad behaviour

PHOTO: FLICKR, J.F. CHERRY In the end acknowledging the benefits of technology and few occasions when the author has not exactly therapeutics, Dr Jarrett casts a rueful back- covered himself with glory. This is not a polem- CHRIS NANCOLLAS ward glance to a time where ensuring the ical work, but he believes that we should shift comfort and dignity of the patient took prece- the emphasis away from a longer life, at any dence over diagnostic certainty, the need for cost, to achieving a good death. Dr Jarrett 33 Meditations On Death: which is now compounded by the fact that cites the example of celebrity chef Keith Floyd, Notes from the Wrong End of Medicine death is hidden away in hospitals and care who died in front of the TV after a three-bottle DAVID JARRETT homes, so society is losing its “feel” for what lunch, and compares it to stroke victim Edna, (DOUBLEDAY, 304 PP, £14.99 is appropriate. whose final weeks were made miserable by Jarrett uses individual cases to explore relatives demanding ever more invasive TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £13.49 • TEL 020 7799 4064 the factors which made his job both medical interventions. And recurring difficult and rewarding – the relentlessly through the book are chronic underfunding of elderly relatives with dementia, HIS ENTERTAINING volume is the dis- Cinderella specialities like geri- most of whom “would never tilled wisdom of consultant geriatrician atrics, the merciless negativity have wanted to get like this”, yet TDr David Jarrett, gleaned from 40 of the press, engaging with a are still in receipt of everything years of clinical practice. The 33 meditations rapidly expanding bureaucracy, modern medicine can throw at combine case studies and autobiography and the stoicism and gratitude of them. Dr Jarrett does not preach, to explore the complex, and often frightening, ordinary people. As someone whose but suggests the use of a living will, business of dying in the twenty-first career spanned the same timeline as not just to prevent resuscitation, but century. his, I found his opinions exactly matched also to avoid statins, flu jabs, antibiotics, Although the stories provide snapshots my own experience of the increasingly formu- and all the rest of the medical arsenal which rather than a broad canvas, a theme does laic world of the modern NHS. “strives officiously to keep alive”. emerge – that we have somehow lost our way Although the subject matter is serious, this This is a wise, humane and often very funny in the care of the elderly. The profusion of is not a depressing book. There are plenty of account of a life “at the wrong end of protocols and care pathways, plus the inex- uplifting stories, leavened with Dr Jarrett’s medicine”. When I get old and decrepit, I orable rise of litigation, can make the final trademark sense of humour and unflinching hope that there is someone like David Jarrett years of old people a perplexing morass of honesty. There are nostalgic recollections of at my bedside, using his considerable skills investigations and treatments. While old Nightingale wards, and descriptions of a to ease my passage from this vale of tears.

kiss her beside the river, or he might not; if reluctantly back to the shoreline where his The spaces in between he does, it won’t necessarily be significant. wife died, only to find that: “Things happen ANTHONY GARDNER This love of nuance and the unexpected – that seem life-altering, then everything grinds added to a supreme elegance of style – makes down to being bearable.” The fragility of rela- Ford arguably America’s finest post-war writer tionships is the dominant theme of the book, Sorry For Your Trouble: Stories of fiction. Sometimes his choices can seem with divorce an experience shared by almost RICHARD FORD simply perverse – for example, in his patchy every character. In “Second Language”, an (BLOOMSBURY, 272 PP, £16.99) novel Canada, where the story of a bank rob- estate agent jettisons her husband not because bery is clinically drained of all drama. Parts they are unhappy, but because she is afraid TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £15.29 • TEL 020 7799 4064 of Sorry For Your Trouble also try the reader’s they will become unhappy: “Divorce, patience: five of the nine stories focus on a Charlotte felt, would be much easier to Louisiana lawyer, but in each case it’s a dif- maintain than marriage.” And yet – Ford being UT DRINKING with fellow lawyers ferent lawyer with no apparent connection Ford – this is not necessarily the end of their in New Orleans, Sandy McGuinness to the others; no rationale is provided. love for each other. Ocatches sight of a beautiful woman For the most part, though, The melancholy that per- across a crowded bar. It takes him a moment this collection shows Ford at vades Ford’s work is both part to recognise her as an old flame – Barbara, his brilliant best. What differ- One can only wonder of its attraction and the whom he hasn’t seen since they holidayed entiates it from his previous at the confidence biggest obstacle to its enjoy- together 35 years ago. Before long he has work is that every story except ment. On the one hand, he is pushed a dinner date with his wife and friends one features either an Irish with which he turns a master of elegiac tone; on to the back of his mind, and is walking with character or an Irish setting. his gaze from his the other, his vision can seem her along the river. In “A Free Day”, a woman goes overwhelmingly bleak. But With most writers, the trajectory of the shopping in Dublin after home territory to a there are also moments of wry story would be clear: Sandy’s whole life thrown sleeping with a friend’s hus- very different culture humour: his characters into question as he feels the pull of a lost love. band; in “Crossing”, a man include an old woman who But Richard Ford is not interested in anything takes the ferry from Holyhead looks forward to “a long, bliss- so straightforward. His preoccupation is with to finalise his divorce. Ford’s eye for detail is ful period of being dead” and an Irish dentist the spaces in between: the events that didn’t as keen as ever, and one can only wonder at – once almost a seminarian – for whom “a quite happen, the feelings for which there are the confidence with which he turns his gaze spiritual dimension haunted all tooth extrac- no precise words, the conclusions that may from his home territory to a very different tions and restorations”. And lest Ford be be proved wrong. So we discover that Sandy culture, evoking Dublin as deftly as he does accused of cynicism towards the sacrament was only a little bit in love with Barbara; their New Jersey. of marriage, it is worth noting that this book holiday was not a great success; they parted Maine is another recurring backdrop: “The is dedicated to the same person as all his others: without heartbreak or acrimony. He might Run of Yourself” tells of a widower drawn his wife of more than 50 years, Kristina.

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• DIGITAL ARTS • Global virtual choir version of AMAZING GRACE with Judy Collins, proceeds to WHO Covid-19 Response Fund • Shakespeare’s Globe’s MACBETH YouTube livestream Follow OPERATION NIGHT WATCH, the project to restore Rembrandt’s masterpiece, live online • All links at WWW.TINYURL.COM/TABLETDIGITALARTS Channelling the spirit of the Renaissance Prize-winning young Dutch painter Egbert Modderman talks to Joanna Moorhead about his mission to recreate and preserve the Bible-based art in the churches of his native Holland © EGBERT MODDERMAN

E’S 30 YEARS old, his work is The painting that’s just netted him this Above, Egbert Modderman’s prize-winning increasingly sought after, and he’s year’s BP Young Artist Award is Restless, fea- painting, Restless; inset, right, the artist just won a major art prize. But turing a bricklayer called Oetze Veenstra, Egbert Modderman doesn’t create whom he saw working on a building close ing to restrain his wayward sons, whom I installations,H arrange Insta-friendly backdrops, to his home in Groningen in the northern wanted to portray in my next piece. He’s a or juxtapose familiar objects in surprising Netherlands. “I was having a cup of coffee tragic figure who’s unable to sleep because ways. In fact, he’s an artist you might have and I looked across and noticed his face,” he’s tormented – I wanted to show that ten- met during the Renaissance rather than today. says Modderman. “He had a rugged look sion in his face, and I knew Oetze would be He paints biblical scenes in oil on panel, using and a weary gaze – and it struck me he’d be able to provide it.” friends and neighbours as stand-ins for the perfect for the figure of the Old Testament Modderman showed Oetze some of his apostles and saints and Christ himself. Eli, the high priest punished by God for fail- paintings on his mobile phone, and the brick-

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layer took what must have been an unusual son studying in the Renaissance birthplace RADIO request on board and agreed to sit for him. of Florence. There he was struck by the con- Modderman was so pleased with the result trast between the austere, unadorned churches Kindness in the round that he painted a second version, and it was of his Protestant homeland and the richly Calling in compassion across the world this that caught the eye of the judges at decorated ecclesiology of the Catholic south. London’s National Portrait Gallery, which Back in Groningen he was commissioned to D.J. TAYLOR runs the award; the gallery’s citation calls it do a series of Bible paintings for the “a compelling and mature work”. Martinikerk, the city’s oldest church; among Heart and Soul: them was his rendition of its patron, St Martin Reflections on Faith in a Global Crisis SPEAKING ON the phone from his home in of Tours. “I tried to interpret him in a more BBC WORLD SERVICE Holland, Modderman tells me how thrilled Protestant way,” he explains. “Usually he’s he is that an artform some might consider seen with a halo round his head, sitting on a HE SECOND episode (15 May) of this ancient history is winning prizes in the twenty- horse, but in my painting it’s the beggar he’s series amidst the pandemic was, as first century. As we chat, it turns out that his helping, not the saint, who takes centre stage.” is customary with World Service faith practice has come about partly because of the The artist’s crucial role, for Modderman, programmes, highly ecumenical. A decline in mainstream Christianity over recent is to explore the nuances of the culture in HinduT novelist; an Italian rabbi; a Sikh sci- decades. Raised in a culture that owes much which she or he is embedded, and that’s exactly entist based in the US; a Sudan-raised Muslim to its roots in an austere and puritanical north- what he hopes his works do. “The USP of the now living in Scotland. If the locations were ern European Protestantism, Modderman’s Dutch Reformed Church is that it takes a sometimes bewilderingly far-flung, then the instinct was to try to capture some of the ele- heavy look at humanity and Christianity. It angles on “Compassion” that presenter John ments of that world, especially its positives, starts from a very sober standpoint: life is McCarthy went in search of soon resolved before they potentially disappear forever. harsh. There’s a bleakness, but it’s also humble, themselves into a single point of focus. “For as long as I can remember, people have honest and sincere, and I’m very drawn to However cogent the opinions beaming in been saying the churches are emptying, people those elements.” from Milan or Aberdeen, pride of place in are leaving,” he says. But the Church contains these reflections had to go to Bernard Gabbott, great strengths of wisdom, inspiration and TODAY HE STILL works in the Martinikerk, an Anglican clergyman based in the Australian humility that Modderman wanted to preserve and has his own key to it: it’s a privilege, he bush. The Revd Gabbott’s flock were mostly for future generations. And the best way to says, to have the thirteenth-century cruciform farmers. At the end of a decade-long drought, do that, he decided, was to choose Bible stories church entirely to himself as he paints. His they were exulting in the first serious rainfall, and to invite people he encountered, whose work has been shown in the US as well as in only for Covid-19 to interrupt the supply of faces seemed to fit the parts, to model Holland, and his most recent piece, machinery and seeds from China. for him. As well as Oetze he which is destined, when gal- “Nothing prepares you for this,” Gabbott recruited, among others, a leries reopen, to be on show declared. Even worse, in terms of his ministry, woman he met in a bar at Museum Catharijne- were the social distancing rules. The family and a guy who uses the convent in Utrecht, is – wife and four children – tried, as he put it, same gym. of Mary Magdalene. to “run an open household” for the benefit Their faces – strong Like others before of their community. Now they were reduced and bold, most look- him, he was to Bible readings around the dinner table, ing straight at the shocked, as he while the funeral of a 17-year-old parishioner viewer – stare out of started to read killed in a car crash, that would usually have the images on his about her, that the attracted thousands of mourners, was wit- website. The por- story of her life had nessed by exactly 10 people. If there was traits are against been airbrushed out hope for their minister, it lay in the deduction simple, uncluttered of history. “In Christ’s that none of this could be got through with- backdrops; many of his time she was an impor- out God. figures are swathed in tant figure, on a par with richly draped, sometimes Peter and John, a wealthy TO MCCARTHY’S other interviewees, com- brightly coloured, fabric – but woman who was Christ’s passion meant kindness, tolerance, inches it’s the faces that hold your atten- patron, and not a prostitute,” he given and received. No point in expecting tion. As in many works through history, says. “It wasn’t until some centuries after perfect behaviour from children confined to there’s a particular power in plucking con- her death that she was reinterpreted, because barracks for 23 hours a day, someone sug- temporary random characters and making it was felt that they didn’t want a woman to gested. Miriam Camerini, set to become Italy’s them stand-ins for the big names of the Bible: have been so powerful, and so close to Christ.” first female Orthodox rabbi, singled out the Modderman fast-tracks Job, Esther, Simon In Renaissance paintings, says Modderman, value of small gestures: one might not be able of Cyrene and so many more to the present the Magdalene is often shown in red clothes to do a great deal, but sometimes anything day, and puts us – or people like us – into to emphasise her status as a prostitute; for was enough. Meanwhile, in all these testi- their shoes. his piece, he decided to dress her in white. monies lurked a suspicion that, whatever the He hasn’t got the painting digitised yet, but practical consequences of a pandemic, the IT’S POWERFUL stuff, as all those he sends me a snap via What’sApp, and I’m future would have to be different. Renaissance masters before him realised: and immediately drawn to his interpretation of a As to what changes lay ahead, the Sudan- just like them, Modderman twigged, as he powerful woman, sure of herself yet serene. born writer Leila Aboulela wondered whether embarked on a career as an artist, that the The model, he says, is a young German woman the closure of mosques – traditionally a “man’s best stories he’d ever encountered were in the he knows; she sits in a director’s chair, arms place” – might lead to a change of attitude Old and New Testaments. “They were my open and legs wide, albeit under a long robe, towards a woman’s place. Gabbott reckoned treasure trove,” he tells me. He’d trained, ini- capturing her ownership of herself. This isn’t that Australia would now be nudged into a tially, as an interior architect. “But when I a penitent Mary, it’s a powerful Mary. “A conversation about rural identity. McCarthy started working I began to think, working for manspreading Mary,” jokes Modderman, – courteous, empathetic and well-informed 40 years is a very long stretch. I need some- before he sets off back to his studio to ponder – conducts the proceedings with his usual thing I’m totally passionate about.” on what Bible story he’s going to resurrect tact and the remaining programmes – “Ritual” His first exhibition was in 2016, after a sea- next for his twenty-first-century audience. and “Solitude” – are recommended.

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ARTS

MUSIC Oakland-born Kehlani actually survived America’s Got Talent and made a very decent Sounds of summer pop record called SweetSexySavage, which A trio of maturing talent for our time pinched from just about everyone on the scene, but got away with it through sheer BRIAN MORTON charm. Her new one suggests a deeper talent moving forward. It Was Good Until It Wasn’t I Break Horses: Warnings (Atlantic) is altogether more personal. BELLA UNION Like I Break Horses, some of it is about Kehlani: It Was Good Until It Wasn’t failed or failing relationships, but Kehlani’s ATLANTIC “Grieving” has weight and presence. She takes Blake Mills: Mutable Set time to explain how tough it was being in the NEW DEAL entertainment headlines all the time after AGT, but “Everybody’s Business” doesn’t O SOONER had the obituaries for indulge in the usual “oh, the hell of being Florian Schneider been inked than looked at all the time” and comes across as the spirit of Kraftwerk reappeared sassy and confident, dismissing the “rah rah in the form of I Break Horses’ new vellous “I’ll Be The Death Of You”, but there rah” as shallow and meaningless and not the album,N Warnings (pictured). Formerly a duo are also darker strains. “Death Engine” is a real me. There are moments when the specialising in weighty shoegazing rock, the response to a young person’s suicide attempt, accompaniments lapse into generic sexy name is now effectively a solo vehicle for in similar territory to Stina Nordenstam’s RnB, but there are the contours of a really Swedish singer Maria Lindén, with just “Little Star”. The opening (bad choice) track, strong album there, still calling on the sup- Fredrik Balck on drums. Lindén has clearly “Turn”, is a little like being caught on the phone port of collaborators – James Blake on always nursed an affection for synth pop of by a friend who’s just realised her man is emo- “Grieving” – but ever more self-determined. a pleasingly old-fashioned sort. Her second tionally detached and basically no good. Album of the month, though, is guitarist album, Chiaroscuro, was all delicious bleeps You find yourself looking at your watch Blake Mills’ dreamy Mutable Set (New Deal), and glassy harmonies. Then disaster befell. rather often and wondering if this was a wise a set of philosophical meditations on modern Two years’ worth of songs were lost on a dodgy album buy. But it gets better and better. “Baby life, featuring titles like “Money Is The One hard drive. Instead of recreating its contents, You Have Travelled For Miles Without Love True God” (meant ironically), “Eat My Dust” she started to write new material instead. In Your Eyes” is a miniature soundtrack and (ditto) and the surreal “Window Facing A Warnings won’t be to everyone’s taste. It’s “Neon Lights” is terrific. Lindén isn’t a virtuoso Window”. A gifted producer, he knows how downbeat for the most part, and without the musician, but that’s the delight of it. Female to make his music sound good. He might hopped-up, motorik energy one associates singer-songwriters used to wear Laura Ashley make you think a little about Tim Buckley, with much of Kraftwerk’s output. There are and play big guitars. Now they dabble with or, if you’re younger, Jeff Buckley; and that’s faster tunes, like “Neon Lights” and the mar- Mellotrons and samplers. what summer is supposed to sound like.

TELEVISION Set in the early 1990s, in a watery, semi- by her own Sicilian father. She speaks no industrial, Connecticut nowheresville called Italian and has never read it and, so that she Rewarding gloom Three Rivers, the story centres on middle- can know something of her father’s early life Superb acting and stirring dialogue aged identical twins. One of them, Dominick, before she dies, Dominick finds a translator is a quiet, dutiful house painter; his brother, called Nedra who charges him more money LUCY LETHBRIDGE Thomas, has paranoid schizophrenia and is than he can afford to take the job on; then in some kind of institutional care. The drama never seems to finish it. At the end of the I Know This Much Is True opens with Thomas sitting in the local library, episode she pitches at his apartment, gets SKY hacking his hand off because it offends blind drunk, then tells him that his grand- him. Both twins are played, convinc- father was a chauvinist child abuser T WOULD BE remiss as a reviewer if I ingly, brilliantly, by Mark Ruffalo. and that he must on no account didn’t warn readers that the first episode Dominick is the browbeaten reveal the truth to his mother. (10 May) of I Know This Much Is True everyman who must get on with Juliette Lewis here turns in is grim. Not gruesome or disgusting but looking after everyone: his such a tour de force perfor- remorselesslyI grim: ordinary lives get battered mother dying of cancer, his mance of flaky, self-indulgent with Job-like relentlessness; decent, dutiful delusional brother, even Ray – desperation that I found myself people suffer in systems beyond their control. the stepfather he dislikes. longing for her to come back and The landscape is hardscrabble American Thomas, a puffier version of relieve the gloom with a more poverty and its inhabitants bear their disap- Ruffalo, is in the wild agonies of entertaining kind of gloom: she’s pointments and disillusionment with stoicism. paranoia. But in the hospital, when very nearly a comic turn. Nonetheless, my heart was deeply stirred. Dominick hears him ranting, “It’s a sacrifice, So, thus far (and I think the tone has been The series is beautifully written, its dialogue it’s my own choice”, he tells the doctors not set) I Know This Much Is True is not exactly demonstrating an intuitive understanding of to sew the hand back on against his twin’s a laugh a minute. I’ve never read the 1998 human character and how people commu- wishes. His reasoning is that it’s his brother’s bestselling doorstop of a novel by Wally Lamb nicate with each other when they haven’t got choice to lose his hand and his brother has on which it’s based and I’m pretty sure I don’t it in them to know what to say. The acting is few of his choices respected. It’s a fragment have the stamina even to try; but there are superb, with performances that dig deep. And of human dignity preserved. some wonderful, living, real characters here it is serious, maybe even a little solemn. But Flashback a couple of years and we learn given breath by great actors inhabiting un- if you’re weary of the empty campery of Killing that the twins do not know who their biolog- showy, suffering, yearning lives. Most Eve, then the knotty human tangles of I Know ical father is. Their adored mother is dying importantly, I rather think it’s about love – This Much Is True may be the most rewarding as the drama begins, and has passed to so that’s a pretty good reason to give it a go. drama on telly this week. Dominick a memoir, hand-written in Italian, But a stiff drink might help.

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PHOTO: FACEBOOK the first priest in Peru to die Chad’s bishops have praised ensuring the protection of from Covid-19. He was director their government’s prompt health and life as much as of studies at the John XXIII response to the Covid-19 possible,” Archbishop of Cape Higher Institute for Theological pandemic but have asked it “to Town Stephen Brislin told The Studies. Covid-19 cases in Peru ensure the country’s food Tablet. He said the lockdown are concentrated in the capital, security” when the crisis is over. had exposed the inequity of Lima, where intensive care units “The rainy season has already South African society, showing are at full capacity. arrived and now is the time for “how we continue to live in two sowing, so concrete steps must separate worlds of the ‘haves At least 63 parishioners from St be taken to allow farmers to and have-nots’”. Bartholomew Catholic Church plant crops in their fields safely,” in the New York borough said the bishops. Christians in shock over kidnap of Queens have died with Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Covid-19. The Elmhurst Denominations (ZHOCD) Church leaders in the Holy neighbourhood parish is expressed shock over the Land have warned that Israel’s attended mainly by Latin abduction from police custody planned annexation of West American immigrants, many of of three women members of the Bank land will sabotage hopes them undocumented, who work opposition Movement for for peace. In a declaration in essential jobs and often share Democratic Change (MDC) last signed by 13 patriarchs and crowded apartments. week. Joana Mamombe, 26, an bishops – including Archbishop MDC MP, Cecilia Chimbiri and Pierbattista Pizzaballa Faithful give blood in Seoul Netsai Marova, were arrested (pictured), Apostolic Seoul archdiocese has in the capital, Harare, but then Administrator of the Latin promoted a blood donor disappeared. Two days later, Patriarchate of Jerusalem – they campaign after supplies in they were found dumped 80 say that such a move will fuel South Korea fell sharply during kilometres outside Harare. the “vicious circle” of human the Covid-19 outbreak. Auxiliary They shared horrific stories of tragedy in the region. Bishop Timothy Yu Gyoung- Rector at Lourdes Mgr Olivier sexual assault and inhuman Israel’s parliament has sworn chon joined priests, Religious, Ribadeau Dumas has treatment. “We are appalled to in a new government led by archdiocesan staff and welcomed last week’s partial see how women could suffer in Prime Minister Benjamin parishioners who gave blood lifting of the lockdown at the custody of the state,” ZHOCD Netanyahu. Its agenda includes aboard a special bus set up in Marian sanctuary (pictured) as said in a statement last week. a possible declaration of collaboration with BloodNet of a “sign of hope”. sovereignty over Jewish Korea. Religious activities in Pilgrims wearing obligatory Four monks from Tanzania settlements and the Jordan South Korea resumed – with face masks were invited from a have been forced to flee back Valley in the West Bank. masks and social distancing – 100-kilometre radius around home from their monastery in Bishop Declan Lang, head of two weeks ago. the shrine in south-western the north of Mozambique after International Affairs for the France to light votive candles, it was attacked by Islamist bishops of England and Wales, US bishops said last week that receive holy water and go to insurgents claiming to be said that a plan to annex West they are “heartbroken” at the specially designed Confession fighting for the imposition of Bank land unilaterally would suffering of indigenous people stations. sharia law. The attack on the destroy any hope of a two-state who have been hit by Covid-19 monastery included the solution for Israel and Palestine. at “disproportionately high Two months after lockdown destruction of a hospital that rates”. Infection rates are regulations closed churches, the monks were building in the Bishop fears vaccine test plan especially high in the Navajo Catholics in South Africa are village of Auasse, in the district Bishop James Wainaina of Nation, which spans north-east considering how to resume of Cabo Delgado. Muranga has warned that a Arizona and parts of Utah and public worship. “The important proposal to test potential New Mexico, where more than questions are: when will it be Compiled by James Roberts coronavirus vaccines on 140 have died. Parishes have optimum to do so while and Ellen Teague. Kenyan citizens could donated food and hygiene kits. undermine human rights, and amount to a breach of the Churches in Samar province country’s constitution. and in southern Luzon in the “Everything should be done Philippines have become with maximum openness, and evacuation centres for victims of testing should not be carried out Typhoon Ambo, which made on unsuspecting citizens,” said landfall last week, making the bishop, who was reacting to 141,000 people homeless. Tens a report in Kenya’s highest of thousands fled to churches circulation newspaper, the and other shelters, raising fears Daily Nation. It claimed that that centres could become local researchers participating hotbeds of coronavirus in an international study were infection. seeking final approval to test The Philippines has reported three drugs on Kenyans. more than 12,700 Covid-19 cases, and more than 830 Fr Guillermo Ramírez of the deaths, among the highest in Diocese of Chosica has become south-east Asia.

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•QUOTE OF THE WEEK• Everything should be done with maximum openness, and testing should not be carried out on unsuspecting citizens. Bishop James Wainaina of Muranga, on reports that drugs and vaccines in development to treat Covid-19 could be tested in Kenya (see page 25).

ROME / Coronavirus crisis spurs reform of Holy See funding “The Vatican is not at risk of A long-running problem in default,” the prefect insisted, bringing order and stability to the explaining that the Holy See has Vatican’s economy is its frag- Vatican ﬁnances operated a deficit of about £60- mented nature, with departments 70m in recent years, but that it often operating in silos, without was not a company, and that much centralised oversight. hit by pandemic resources serve the Church’s Fr Guerrero says that he is “evangelising mission”. From 2016 working to “centralise financial to 2020, he explained, its income investments”, to ensure “ethical PHOTO: CNS/REUTERS, REMO CASILLI had been around £270m, with criteria”, and to combine the CHRISTOPHER LAMB expenditure at roughly £320m; autonomy of departments with 45 per cent of expenditure goes “checks and balances”. THE COVID-19 crisis could lead on staff, 45 per cent on general The Vatican is currently inves- to the Vatican’s income almost and administrative expenses, and tigating a £165m property deal in halving, with the growing deficit 7.5 per cent on donations. Chelsea, London, undertaken by pushing forward Holy See finan- Two senior Church sources the Secretariat of State, over which cial reforms, say senior figures. spoke to The Tablet on the back- some have raised questions. Fr Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves ground to the situation. One said “Greater transparency, less SJ, recently appointed Prefect of the Holy See sought to reduce secrecy: this is what makes it more the Secretariat for the Economy, costs through efficiency savings, difficult to make mistakes,” the told Vatican News that revenues not job losses. Existing staff could Jesuit financial tsar told Vatican could be down by between 25 and A man has his temperature be deployed in more creative ways, News. He also stressed that 45 per cent this year, largely due checked before entering the and for some time those who have Vatican financial powerhouses to the closure of the Vatican reopened St Peter’s Basilica retired are not being replaced. were “working together” to Museums, which usually generate Vatican offices have been told to respond to the crisis and to revenues of around £82 million, has been painted in some quar- reduce travel, cancel conferences, “reform what needs to be as a result of the pandemic. ters, Fr Guerrero and other senior limit consultancy contracts and reformed”. Fr Guerrero said the The annual Peter’s Pence con- sources stress that while the Holy postpone non-essential work. deficit was not “the result of poor tributions, which usually amount See is facing a financial squeeze, The other source stressed that administration”, but “we certainly to around £44m from collections it is not going bust. despite the fall in its income, the need to be clearer” about how in dioceses across the world, are The pandemic, he stressed, is Vatican had the reserves to survive money is spent. also projected to be down as local forcing the Vatican to cut its lean times. The more pressing One source that The Tablet churches experience a Covid- expenses, and push forward plans issue, the source explained, was spoke to stressed that rigorous induced reduction in income. for greater transparency and cen- establishing an overarching finan- transparency over spending would But while an alarming picture tralised oversight of money cial strategy to make the Holy See’s in turn help with appeals to the of the Vatican’s financial position management. finances sustainable. wider Church for donations.

Don’t underrate opposition tip of an iceberg,” Politi claimed. struggle within the Church, and At the Amazon synod, several Cardinal Walter Kasper had to Francis, Politi warns cardinals and bishops, and “a not expressed similar thoughts. “There inconsiderable number of the are people who would prefer to clergy and the laity”, had opposed see Pope Francis out of the way. MARCO POLITI, one of the best- The “appeal” maintained that Francis and any kind of Church Part of their strategy is already known Italian vaticanisti and the Covid-19 pandemic was being reform, he recalled. now to create the ‘right’ atmo- author of Pope Francis Among exploited to restrict people’s basic Politi said that the appeal’s sup- sphere and collect the ‘right’ the Wolves, has warned against rights “unjustifiably and dispro- porters were using the coronavirus majorities for the next conclave.” dismissing the inner-Church portionately”. Francis has accepted pandemic as an opportunity to The Tablet’s Rome correspon- opposition to the Pope, writes that restrictions are needed. rekindle a Kulturkampf, or cul- dent Christopher Lamb agreed Christa Pongratz-Lippitt. “There is absolutely no point ture war. The true Church, in their that opposition to Francis had The opposition is not a small in talking down this opposition eyes, is against the modern world, been “vigorous and sustained”, minority, he insisted. “I would esti- as Francis’ supporters repeatedly he said. Viganò’s and his support- and should not be underesti- mate that about 30 per cent of the do when they speak of a ‘small ers’ concept of the Church mated. But he insisted that most clergy, the committed laity and vociferous minority’,” Politi added. contradicted Francis’ appeal to all of the Church approves of the the world’s bishops take the same “The tone of the appeal is very Catholics – and the bishops’ con- direction Francis is taking. line,” he told domradio.de last aggressive and recalls that of the ferences that supported the Pope’s “Thanks to their power and influ- week. Alt-Right in the US. Moreover, appeal – to remain at home and ence, the opponents have created The Italian journalist was com- Viganò has some prominent sup- refrain from going to church as an impression that many agree menting on the open letter earlier porters like the former Prefect of an act of neighbourly love in order with their stance,” Lamb said. “But this month organised by retired the Congregation for the Doctrine not to infect others, Politi said. the truth is that [most Catholics] papal diplomat Arch bishop Carlo of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Many Church insiders, Politi are with Francis.” Those opposing Maria Viganò, under the title “An Müller and the former Bishop of claimed, were already now trying him have influence in Rome, he Appeal for the Church and the Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph to influence the next conclave. The said, and there is “a struggle for World to all Catholics and People Zen. One must not underrate Jesuit General, Arturo Sosa, for the soul of Catholicism”. of Good Will”. these people. They are only the example, had spoken of a political (See View from Rome, page 28.)

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BELGIUM / Brothers of Charity evangelising mission lies at heart of dispute between Rome HQ and Ghent-based province Order divided over euthanasia

YOUTUBE The Brothers in Belgium our view. It is completely in line TOM HENEGHAN decided in 2017 to allow euthana- with Christian thinking,” he said. THE LAY-LED Brothers of Charity sia in their psychiatric hospitals, De Rycke added that the province in Belgium will continue an important element in the coun- province had received no requests to permit euthanasia in its psy- try’s health system. They said this for euthanasia after deciding to chiatric hospitals, despite a respected the autonomy of allow it. The province says it has Vatican ruling that it can no longer patients who want euthanasia. It set higher standards for the pro- call itself Catholic. also sidestepped possible court cedure than state hospitals. The Responding to the decision by cases for denying them a legal act. Belgian bishops’ conference has the Congregation for the Doctrine Stockman, who was the Belgian mostly kept out of the debate. of the Faith (CDF), it accused the province’s head of healthcare and Fernand Keuleneer, a lawyer global order’s superior general of then its provincial before becom- for Stockman and his order, said misusing a dispute over euthana- ing superior general in 2000, the province had overstepped its sia to pursue a wider debate about Raf De Rycke protested from Rome about the Catholic mission and was “spread- using the province’s assets to sup- euthanasia policy and launched ing disinformation”. It should now port projects elsewhere in the The dispute between Ghent and talks that led to the CDF decision pay for the premises the order world. Rome, where the Belgian-born at the end of March. built and let the order use the Raf De Rycke, lay chairman of superior general, Br René While Stockman defended funds as it saw best. “The Catholic the order’s Belgian province, pre- Stockman, is based, has high- Catholic doctrine on euthanasia, Church … may be nearing the exit dicted serious disputes over the lighted clashing views of the province claimed this was a in the West, but that is certainly ownership of its 12 psychiatric end-of-life care and competing bid to divert funds from Belgium, not the case globally,” he wrote. hospitals, but felt sure that the ideas about what a dwindling reli- where the order was founded in “It should be able to finance ini- global order could not claim the gious order should do. 1807 and where it runs more than tiatives [globally] with goods that province’s property. It also illustrates differences 75 hospitals, clinics and schools. belong to its ecclesiastical assets.” “We do not see the need to between secularised populations “The value of life is fundamen- The dispute was “essentially about adjust our practical operations ... in Belgium and the Netherlands, tal, but not absolute,” De Rycke … whether a religious congrega- we are convinced we are acting which both legalised euthanasia told the daily De Standaard. tion still has a mission,” he argued, correctly,” the province based in in 2002, and doctrinal views in “I see no arguments in the adding that it predated the 2017 Ghent said in a statement. Rome. Vatican’s condemnation to revise euthanasia decision.

AUSTRIA of course his right – he decided AMAZON vertically so to speak, and that fre- Schönborn quently led to very [decisive] ‘Tremendous force’ devastating nominations,” said Schönborn. questions JPII’s “One has only to think of the Amazonia, cardinals claim great Jesuit Cardinal Carlo Maria episcopal Martini who John Paul II nominations appointed Archbishop of Milan REPAM, the Church’s Amazon collaboration with COICA, the and who became one of the great Network responsible for the Coordinating Committee of the European bishops. He was one of preparations and follow-up to the Indigenous of the Amazon Basin. EVEN THOUGH Pope St John Paul John Paul II’s direct nominations.” Amazon synod, is becoming The data are collected by the II had been a “truly great Pope”, But another was Schönborn’s increasingly forceful in its warnings indigenous communities Cardinal Christoph Schönborn predecessor in Vienna, Cardinal about the situation in the region, themselves, and cover the nine said his episcopal nominations Hans Hermann Groer. John Paul writes Francis McDonagh. countries included in REPAM. The had been very personal decisions,k II had promised Cardinal Franz A statement issued on Monday map will be updated weekly. and sometimes they had gone König, who was Archbishop of and signed by the president and The initial version, launched in badly wrong, writes Christa Vienna from 1965 to 1985, that vice-president, Brazilian Cardinal Quito, Ecuador, last week, records Pongratz-Lippitt. he would consult König when it Cláudio Hummes and Peruvian 526 cases and 116 deaths there. Interviewed for the centenary came to appointing his successor. Cardinal Pedro Barreto, said: “A Brazil heads the list with 249 cases of John Paul II’s birth by this At the last moment he personally tremendous force, on a scale never and 70 deaths, followed by Peru week’s edition of the Vienna chose Hans Hermann Groer OSB, seen before, is devastating with 45 cases and 7 deaths and Church paper Der Sonntag, who was later found guilty of hav- Amazonia in two dimensions that Colombia with 146 cases and 26 Cardinal Schönborn said that ing abused a minor. combine in a brutal manner: the deaths. No indigenous deaths were John Paul II had often decided “It was an unfortunate choice Covid-19 pandemic, which engulfs recorded in Venezuela and no cases to abandon the usual procedure as were several of John Paul II’s the most vulnerable, and the among indigenous in Guyana and of choosing one of the three episcopal nominations in the sec- uncontrolled increase in violence in Surinam. In a statement, Mauricio names forwarded to him by the ond half of the 1980s. There is the territories.” López, secretary general of REPAM, nuncio of the country concerned, no doubt that John Paul II had The statement follows the launch and José Gregorio Díaz, general and had appointed a man of his weaknesses. But then who has by Repam of a map showing the coordinator of COICA, said the map own choice. none? His weaknesses were part impact of Covid-19 on the was “a call to the states for urgent “That was something that he of a very great personality,” indigenous peoples of the Amazon. and effective action”. It was “a work did again and again – and it was Schönborn concluded. The work is being done in in progress”, López told The Tablet.

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VIEW FROM HONG KONG ROME Investigate the police, bishop Christopher Lamb demands E ARE IN a crucial “third rooted in Vatican II, which applied the Gospel phase” of the implementation to the “joys and the hopes, the griefs and the of the Second Vatican Council. anxieties” of people today. This is the view of one senior When looking at the resistance within the THE REFUSAL of Hong Kong’s JesuitW whom I interviewed for my book, The Church to Francis and to reform in general, administration to probe police brutality Outsider, which looks at Pope Francis’ battle it is hard not to conclude that it is also resis- against pro-democracy protesters to reform the Church and how he is seeking tance to the implementation of the Council, remains the root cause of continuing to embed the Council’s vision in spite of well- which, despite hiccups, opened the Church violence, a Catholic bishop has said, writes organised opponents. to a new era of evangelisation and mission. Ellen Teague. A senior Vatican source spoke in similar “If the fundamental problem is not terms when I was discussing the struggles HE NEED FOR a sensitive and calm- solved, people will just continue to come going on in Rome and the wider Church with headed approach to relations between out and protest,” warned Auxiliary him. “It’s like the years after the Council,” he Christians and Muslims has been Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-shing of Hong told me. “But this time the opposition is com- underlined by the case of Silvia Kong, adding that the administration ing from conservative quarters.” Romano,T an Italian aid worker kidnapped by has ignored demands to appoint a While all popes since John XXIII have the jihadist group, al-Shabab, in East Africa, committee to investigate complaints. sought to follow the mandate of Vatican II, who returned to Italy last week. Since the pro-democracy movement its implementation has come in fits and starts. An angry row erupted after news emerged began in Hong Kong in June last year, In a letter to mark the centenary of St John that Romano, 25, freed after the ransom for Paul II’s birth last week, Pope Emeritus her release had been paid by the Italian gov- crackdowns orchestrated by the Benedict XVI pointed to the turbulence in ernment, had converted to Islam during her Communist government in Beijing have the Church after the Council ended in 1965, 18-month captivity. She stressed she had con- been violent, resulting in the death of at and praised the Polish Pope for being a “lib- verted of her own free will but right-wing least two protesters and many arrests. erating restorer”. There had, Benedict wrote, politicians and commentators erupted with Last week police arrested more than been an “attitude of doubt and uncertainty” fury. The newspaper, Il Giornale, put on its 200 protesters following clashes in that had even questioned the existence of the front page: “Islamic and happy. Silvia the shopping malls. Thousands of people Church itself. ungrateful”. gathered to resume demonstrations that This was a coded criticism of progressives The episode shows, once again, how religion halted during the pandemic. They who, according to those in the more cautious has become a weapon for some politicians in shouted slogans demanding school of interpretation, had pressed the Italy, and that even in Christian countries independence for the territory and the Church to go further than the fathers of the freedom of conscience is in danger. This is resignation of Carrie Lam, its Beijing- Council had intended, pushing for reforms despite Vatican II’s document, Dignitatis supported chief executive. according to “the spirit of the Council”. Humanae, spelling out the Church’s support Catholic lawyer and democracy leader The challenge the teaching of Vatican II for freedom of conscience and religion. Martin Lee, who was arrested last month faces in the era of Pope Francis is not from “There are people, Catholics, who do not in a Beijing-backed clampdown, said “liberal dissenters” trying to push it further accept what the Second Vatican Council said Hong Kong is currently facing “two than the Church fathers had in mind, about freedom of worship, freedom of con- plagues from China: the coronavirus and but from those who question the wisdom of science,” Pope Francis said during his trip to the Council at all, or want to so reinterpret Morocco last year. “We have this problem.” attacks on our most basic human rights”. it that it would lose its impetus. These neo- traditionalists are among the most vocal EANWHILE, the Vatican is step- ROME opponents of the Francis pontificate. ping up its preparations for Last week the Pope backed a day of inter- offering moral leadership as the religious prayer and fasting to end the world emerges out of the Covid- Warning of food Covid-19 pandemic, an initiative that had 19M pandemic. One idea that is gathering echoes of John Paul II’s 1986 interfaith meet- support is that of a Universal Basic Income, emergency ing in Assisi to pray for peace. The initiative for which Pope Francis has offered tentative came from the Higher Committee, based in backing. At a press conference last Saturday, the United Arab Emirates, which was formed Fr Augusto Zampini Davies – the Vatican offi- FR AUGUSTO Zampini Davies, a leading after the Pope and the Grand Imam of al- cial who is helping lead the Church’s Covid member of the Vatican’s new Covid-19 Azhar signed a document on Christian- response – said the idea had “pros and cons”. Commission set up by Pope Francis to Muslim relations in Abu Dhabi last year. But he added that some were accusing the consider how to influence the “post- Some Catholics complained about that text, Church of being “socialist” just for talking pandemic” world order, said the health which asserted that religious diversity is “willed about it. emergency is also causing a severe food by God”, while one ultra-traditionalist group “Our answer is, ‘Hold on a minute, com- crisis, writes James Roberts. Fr Zampini described the day of prayer as “Francis’ Fast panies are asking for government help, and Davies noted that, linked to the with Infidels”. But Vatican II decisively opened that’s not socialist – but if poor people or infor- pandemic, the world is facing a food up dialogue with other religions, and the Pope mal workers need help, that’s socialist?’” Fr shortage, which in turn could cause more has insisted he is simply following the Council. Zampini Davies told reporters. “This is not violent conflicts due to insecurity, leading The key themes of this pontificate – close- about ideology, this is not about socialism or to more people living in poverty. ness to the poor, synodality, dialogue, and a capitalism. What we are trying to implement (See View from Rome) focus on missionary evangelisation – are all is the preferential option for the poor.”

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NEWS BRIEFING FROM BRITAIN AND IRELAND

The bishop for healthcare and scripture reading and Isles, the group will examine mental health, Paul Mason, has Benediction, Bishop Egan said how to meet the long-term marked Mental Health he was praying for those who pastoral needs of the Catholic Awareness week with a message found themselves stranded far community during the crisis. paying tribute to all those from home. Last week the bishops looking after the wellbeing of announced a working group their loved ones, friends, Hate crime investigation tasked with devising a strategy neighbours and strangers. He The Police Service of Northern for safely reopening churches. said he prayed for those Ireland (PSNI) has said it is struggling with mental health treating a paint attack on the The leader of the Irish Church issues during the pandemic. door and facade of a Catholic has said his harshest critics are church in Co. Antrim as a hate the “trolls” on social media. Dr Peter Boylan, a former crime. Fr Hugh O’Hagan, parish Speaking to the Belfast master of the National priest of St Mary’s Ahoghill, said Telegraph, Archbishop Eamon Professor Jim McManus Maternity Hospital in Ireland, that the attack on the church Martin said he tries to have “a (pictured), vice president of the has called on the Religious was the first such incident in broad back for criticism” and Association of Directors of Sisters of Charity to publish all many years. The 82-year-old use it for reflection, conversion Public Health and healthcare their correspondence with the priest is self-isolating in the and growth. “When I visited adviser to the Bishops’ Vatican regarding the transfer of parochial house due to the Iraq back in late 2018, I became Conference of England and land incorporating St Vincent’s coronavirus. He told The Irish much more conscious of our Wales, who has been helping University Hospital and St News he had received phone Christian brothers and sisters – formulate the guidance on Vincent’s Private Hospital, as calls from three local Protestant the modern martyrs worldwide safety in churches during the well as more than three acres at ministers expressing solidarity – who have to endure real coronavirus crisis, is taking legal St Michael’s Hospital in Dún and condemning the attack. persecution, oppression and action against the website, Laoghaire, to the state for €1 violence for the faith,” he said. LifeSiteNews, after it published (90p). The congregation, which an article about his work obtained permission for the This year’s July conferences of combating homophobia in transfer of the land from the the National Justice and Peace Catholic schools. Vatican last week, has said it Network (NJPN) and the “will not be involved in any way” National Association of Pastoral Bishop dies at 88 in the new National Maternity Musicians (NPM) are the latest Bishop Vincent Malone, an Hospital, to be built at St to be postponed due to the emeritus auxiliary in Liverpool, Vincent’s, or the newly formed pandemic. The NJPN has died aged 88 with Covid-19. St Vincent’s Holdings CLG, but conference, titled “2020 Vision: Bishop Emeritus Malone, who Dr Boylan questioned whether Action for Life on Earth”, died on Monday morning, was the latter will be “an entirely normally attracts more than chaplain to the University of secular entity”. 300 people and was to mark the Liverpool in the 1970s. In 2003 fifth anniversary of Laudato Si’. he called for innovation around The Bishop of Portsmouth, It will now take place from women’s roles in the Church. Philip Egan, has sent a video The Bishops’ Conference of 23-25 July 2021 with the same Writing in Healing Priesthood: message of encouragement to Scotland has launched a second line-up of speakers. The NPM Women’s Voices Worldwide, he cruise ship workers confined working group in response to conference will take place from said that women could, for to their vessels off the south the coronavirus pandemic. 30 July-1 August 2021. example, be better suited to coast of England. In the Chaired by Bishop Brian McGee hearing Confession than men. message, which included a (pictured) of Argyll and the Compiled by Liz Dodd.

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NEWS FROM BRITAIN AND IRELAND

PERSON IN Fr Dominic Robinson SJ on homelessness in the pandemic: “An affront to justice which sees the THE NEWS poorest left in the gutter and the witness of sacrificial service from our volunteers.”

POST-LOCKDOWN / Volunteers will be needed to supervise liturgies Plans under way for outdoor Masses

CATHERINE PEPINSTER organised open-air Masses for pilgrims. Prior Fr Francis Kemsley OPEN-AIR Masses are being con- said: “We are indeed thinking of sidered as part of plans to help having open-air Masses as long as people to start attending worship we follow the agreed guidelines. again in the coming weeks. We are very fortunate to have the Last week Cardinal Vincent open-air shrine that can seat 2,000 Nichols was among faith leaders people. We would not expect that who met government represen- many but there will be plenty of tatives as part of a faith taskforce space for social distance.” to discuss the current lockdown Jim McManus, the director of and how people of faith can use Bishop Mark O’Toole: keen to organise Mass in the open air public health for Hertfordshire their buildings again. Prime County Council and adviser to the Minister Boris Johnson has said the lack of access to religious “There are problems even if you Bishops’ Conference of England that places of worship could buildings. Opening churches for have social distancing in small and Wales, said: “Church closures reopen by 4 July. private prayer is important for churches,” said Bishop O’Toole. should only be temporary, but at With safety in mind, plans Catholics. It is a response to a spir- “We are looking at places where the moment gatherings are still being discussed within the itual need and it is a project step we could use a large space, have banned in England and other Catholic Church include organ- for greater openings.” parking, plenty of social distanc- countries. The World Health ising open-air Masses. But all He added that Catholic volun- ing, and accessibility.” Organization’s studies show that options for prayer and worship as teers will be needed to get the Some options might be school such closures for mass religious Britain eases lockdown will need churches to open safely and playgrounds, he said, but he is also events could help avoid transmis- an army of volunteers to help keep hygienically and supervise them considering Buckfast Abbey, a sion of the coronavirus. people safe. while open. “We need volunteers retreat centre near Dartmoor, and “Open-air Mass, speaking The government’s taskforce has and to train them,” he said. an amphitheatre in Cornwall. purely in terms of transmission agreed that reopening might be Open-air Masses are being dis- He added: “It is an awful thing risk, is a good idea but the require- phased and on Tuesday this week cussed by some priests and to have to consider about Mass ments would be, can you hold it Cardinal Nichols confirmed that bishops together with public but if we go down this route, we safely away from traffic and can opening Catholic churches for pri- health bodies as a safe option, might have to have ticketing so you have good hygiene and social vate prayer is likely to be the first because the coronavirus spreads that we can control numbers for distancing to stop viral spread? stage. Speaking at an online brief- more easily in confined space health reasons.” “A range of public health agen- ing organised by the Religion indoors than in the open air. Other places that could be used cies are looking at how we could Media Centre, he said: “The rep- Among those keenest to organ- for open-air Masses include the make open-air gatherings safe resentatives of the government at ise open-air Masses is Plymouth Carmelites’ Aylesford Priory in and, as part of this, open-air wor- the taskforce meeting really appre- Bishop Mark O’Toole, whose dio- Maidstone, Kent, which has sub- ship is definitely being considered ciated the depth of feeling about cese has many rural churches. stantial land, and has often across multiple faiths.”

The environmental charity, Westminster organised a Zoom Laudato Si’ week celebrates Operation Noah, announced that meeting of around 60 activists in 21 faith groups in the UK have the diocese who have been a ‘prophetic document’ now pledged to divest from fossil inspired by Laudato Si’. Parishes fuels, including the Jesuits in in Cockfosters, Hitchen, New Britain, the Sisters of St Joseph Barnet and Pimlico described ini- THE CHURCH in England and anniversary with pastoral letters of Peace and the Diocese of tiatives ranging from Walk to Wales marked this week the fifth and statements. Bishop Robert Arundel and Brighton. Church Sundays, becoming anniversary of Laudato Si’, Pope Byrne of Hexham and Newcastle The diocese is the third in Fairtrade parishes, and planting Francis’ encyclical on the environ- described Laudato Si’ as a England and Wales to disinvest. a garden for bees. ment, with Cardinal Vincent “prophetic document that has Its bishop, Richard Moth, said he The anniversary was also Nichols welcoming the opportu- given a theological and spiritual hoped this step would safeguard marked online by the ecumenical nity “to reassess our relationship framework to the environmental future generations. group, Faith for the Climate. with our beautiful world”, writes crisis facing our world”, and Sr Bridgetta Rooney, a trustee The interfaith network held a Ellen Teague. Bishop Mark O’Toole of of the Sisters of St Joseph of Peace, “webinar” on the distinctive con- Bishop John Arnold, lead Plymouth said that in it Pope said: “We are committed to using tribution that people of faith can bishop on the environment, cel- Francis constantly links “the need our resources to make positive add to solving the ecological crisis, ebrated a Laudato Si’ Mass on to protect and respect our com- investments that will help the with Christine Allen, director of Wednesday, which was live- mon home and the need to transition to a zero-carbon future.” Cafod, and Rabbi Jonathan streamed from Salford Cathedral. respect and protect the dignity On Monday Westminster Wittenberg, of the New North Other bishops marked the and lives of the poor”. Justice and Peace and Cafod London Synagogue, taking part.

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UNIVERSITIES / Catholic students and staﬀ face ‘radically transformed’ faculties POST-LOCKDOWN Irish Church Higher education changed plots route out forever, say vice chancellors of Covid-19 restrictions

PRIESTS IN DUBLIN LIZ DODD Professor Margaret House , the have been told vice chancellor at Leeds Trinity by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to ONGOING EFFORTS to provide University, told The Tablet that it prepare a detailed plan for their financial and emotional support was seeking to support students’ parishes so that they will be ready to staff and students are at the mental health through its chap- when restrictions on public worship heart of plans for the next aca- laincy. Leeds Trinity is in a strong begin to ease, writes Sarah Mac demic year, according to the heads financial position, she said, and Donald. of England’s Catholic universities, did not plan to furlough staff. It Speaking on RTE Radio’s Today speaking to The Tablet this week. has committed to paying for all with Sarah McInerney last week, But with all the major Catholic the work scheduled to take place the Archbishop of Dublin warned higher education institutions mov- before the end of the academic that the scale of the “reopening of ing to online tuition, the new vice year, including that undertaken churches for worship has serious chancellor of St Mary’s University, by people on casual contracts. public health concerns and we Twickenham, Anthony McClaran, “This reflects our desire to sup- have to make sure that we are warned that higher education good quality online tuition.” port our staff and contribute as ready for them”. could be changed forever by the Mr McClaran said that inter- best we can to the national effort Restrictions on public worship pandemic. national students – who, for St to overcome this crisis in a manner due to the pandemic have been in “The move online really asked Mary’s, are predominantly based befitting our values and ethos as place since 23 March, although us to consider what needs to be in Europe and the United States a university,” she added. many churches in the Republic face to face and what can be deliv- – could be hit by travel restrictions, Professor Jackie Dunne, vice remain open for private prayer. In ered in other ways. I, frankly, but were still keen to attend, chancellor of Newman University, Northern Ireland an easing of the wonder whether the sector will although some might look to delay Birmingham, told The Tablet that restrictions on churches opening ever go back to large, face-to-face until January. it had “radically transformed” the was announced this week. lectures,” he said. He added that, amid economic way it taught in a short time. Under the Irish government’s “I think this is leading to a very uncertainty and an unstable jobs “As a university with a strong lockdown exit strategy, Sunday positive re-evaluation of how we market, the university had seen Catholic heritage and identity, Masses will resume on 20 July with teach, what works, what’s the most an upturn in students looking to both our values and the principles restricted numbers to maintain effective way of doing things. We’re upgrade their qualifications, of Catholic Social Teaching are social distancing. The archbishop going to be looking at a future that including a significant increase always at the forefront of our said one way to ease congregation is blended: it will be more of a in interest in teacher training planning and decision making,” numbers could be to lift the Sunday mixture of face to face and really courses. she said. obligation so that people could go to Mass any day in the week.

churches. Fr Dominic Robinson for nearly 200 rough sleepers – Parishes and SJ, chair of Westminster Justice one in London and another in and Peace, told The Tablet that Manchester. They were block- agencies fear the situation there “represents the booked for 13 weeks initially. paradox of the pandemic in our Caritas Anchor House is work- for homeless society: the affront to justice which ing with the London Borough of sees the poorest left in the gutter Newham, which has the highest and the witness of sacrificial ser- levels of homelessness in the coun- CATHOLIC charities in Britain are vice from our volunteers”. try, to support some of its 140 reporting a dramatic increase in Around 5,400 rough sleepers residents after lockdown. Chief the number of street homeless in England and Wales have been executive Amanda Dubarry said: during the coronavirus pandemic, moved into hotels since lockdown, “There will be a real pressure on and are urging the government but in London alone it is estimated the private rented sector, local not to evict those sheltering in that hundreds remain on the authority accommodation and Lay a foundation of faith hotels until accommodation can streets. housing association lets, as hotels be found, writes Ellen Teague. David Morris, chief executive and organisations work to support by leaving a gift in your Colette Joyce, Justice and Peace officer of Noah Enterprise, a mem- people to move on.” Will to a Catholic cause coordinator for Westminster dio- ber of the Caritas Social Action Chief executive of Birmingham- cese, said that faith groups are Network, reported a rise in rough based Father Hudson’s Care, Choose the Catholic causes providing the majority of support sleeping after an initial drop, Andrew Quinn, paid tribute to you feel most passionate about to those still on the streets, despite adding: “It is remarkable that the hotels that had cared for more and make a difference the borough council “working mir- there has not been a serious out- than 52 of their guests. “We feel to people’s lives. acles” to get some housed. break of coronavirus yet among confident that at least 30 of these More than 100 people are being rough sleepers.” will have accommodation by the To ﬁnd out more visit fed in Trafalgar Square every day Ollie Wilson of Depaul UK said time the hotel is no longer avail- yourcatholiclegacy.org.uk or call 020 7095 5370 by a coalition supported by Caritas that it is running two hotels pro- able, which we anticipate being Thank you and volunteers from local viding safe accommodation early June,” he told The Tablet.

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EXTRA TIME Family values

ADRIAN CHILES

ANY have been the times I’ve Faithless and ‘The Liquidator’ by the seriously worried my football Harry J. Allstars.” Mteam are going to see me into A nurse was asked to hold the phone the grave, but strong close to him while this tape was played. evidence has emerged from the Black And lo, I kid you not, Peter’s legs started Country that West Brom can save you twitching. When the club got to hear from the grave too. about this, things moved fast. Peter’s On the first Tuesday in March we favourite players, current and of old, came played Newcastle in the FA Cup. It was forward to send video messages to him. televised on the BBC so, I’m ashamed to Our current manager, Slaven Bilic, say, I just watched it at home instead of recorded one saying: “We need you back at making the journey to West Bromwich. The Hawthorns; make sure you fight this I’m even more ashamed to say that when ‘Our club is not just and come back to us. God bless you, Peter.” Newcastle went 3-0 ahead just after half- about football. By now, in Teresa’s words, “You could time, I switched over and watched see the wonder on his face.” And Peter something else. Some fan I am. I didn’t It is, in every went from strength to strength. On Friday even look at my phone until I went to sense of the 13 April – having used up all this bad luck bed, at which point I saw a flurry of texts apparently – he came off the ventilator from all over the world, suggesting the word, a family’ and he has made a full recovery. He came game had turned into something of a out of hospital last week. thriller without me. It turned out we’d Teresa has spotted something in all taken the score to 3-2 and nearly induced into a coma. To his family’s this: “He didn’t pay a blind bit of equalised at the death. But still lost. horror he showed no signs of recovery, attention to his family talking to him, I’m still not sure if I regret not seeing and soon his vital organs began to fail. but the moment the Albion arrived, that this unfold. All in all, I’d rather lose by a His wife, Teresa, was called into the was it!” distance than come agonisingly close. I hospital to say her goodbyes. Both Teresa and Peter are beside will speak to my priest or my therapist The family had been speaking to him, themselves with gratitude to the doctors about this; possibly both. via WhatsApp and so on, to try to elicit and nurses who treated him, and the While I was watching, and not some kind of response from him, but club. “I’ll never be able to thank them watching, this match on my television, a none came. As a last throw of the dice enough for investing in my family,” she 65-year-old from Redditch called Peter Teresa had an idea. “He has always been says. “They have proved to me that our George was at the stadium. It was there mad about the Albion and I thought: club is not just about football. It is, in Peter started to feel unwell. I get that too ‘Music! Albion music!’ So we arranged every sense of the word, a family. When when we lose, but on this occasion that for a friend who is a DJ to make a you are in trouble, a family is there to wasn’t the cause; he’d picked up Covid-19. compilation of ‘The Lord Is My help you.” Words fail me. Within three weeks he was in hospital, Shepherd’ [this hymn is our anthem, for and soon placed on a ventilator and reasons mysterious], ‘Insomnia’ by Adrian Chiles is a radio and TV presenter.

Glimpses of Eden

JONATHAN TULLOCH

I STOOD in the middle of a crossroads on used by the male during the breeding the main route between York and Teesside, season to tenderly tell the nesting female he and listened. Skylarks drifted high is close at hand. Some green lacewings overhead; lambs called. After a few drifted over the empty carriageway, and the minutes, some traffic could be heard chaffinch flew in pursuit. Catching a coming – a young family out on their bikes. beakful of the insects in mid air, the bird If there’s been any silver lining in these then landed right in the middle of the stormy Covid-19 days, perhaps it’s been the tarmac to wolf down the bonanza. chance for people to rediscover the lost Suddenly, the evening clouds parted, and a freedom of bicycles. I greeted the family as From the oak tree standing over the road fan of sun ladders leant against the sky. The they passed, their laughter filling the signs, a chaffinch began to softly call its chaffinch flew jauntily back into the oak. normally thundering crossroads. I waited; “rain song”. This single-note call was once Moments later, the pleasant notes of his full still no vehicles hurtled by. believed to foretell rain, but it’s most often song tinkled over the hushed highway.

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