George Weigel The next pope must challenge the moral confusion and decadence of the age

THE INTERNATIONAL 11 JULY 2020 £3.80 CATHOLIC WEEKLY www.thetablet.co.uk Est. 1840 28 770039 883257

9 A king’s sorrow Margaret Hebblethwaite investigates the mystery of the Winchester Bible

Zena Hitz defends the bookworm • Elena Curti reports on Walsingham’s redevelopment Christopher Howse won’t let go of the Sixties • Lucy Lethbridge explores the contradictions of Mrs. America

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THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY THE TABLET FOUNDED IN 1840

GLOBAL he main pitch of the campaign for Brexit was Hong Kong. Britain’s offer of entry visas and a TRADE the promise that Britain would regain control pathway to citizenship is a very generous and T of its own borders, with regard to honourable response, which reflects well on a British GREEN immigration and with regard to trade. government not normally given much credit for its Outside the European Union, it was said, immigration moral integrity. If the offer is taken up, it will lead to a LIGHT could be limited and free trade expanded, and “Global large influx of immigrants to Britain just when the Britain” would prosper. Both those goals are now in government had hoped to reduce the flow, post-Brexit. FOR THE jeopardy, and the reason is found in one word: China. The behaviour of the Chinese government puts the China was rapidly becoming the hub of the whole edifice of international trade, and the progress globalised economy, which has handed the Chinese of globalisation over the last three decades, in doubt. FUTURE government leverage over the affairs of other The United States, a key participant in that process, countries, a leverage it is increasingly tempted to use. was already moving to anti-free trade protectionism Meanwhile, its behaviour towards Hong Kong exposes and a trade war with China. Globalisation depends on China as a global partner that cannot be trusted. The minimal compliance with a set of rules, especially the Chinese ambassador to Britain, Liu Xiaoming, has observance of treaty obligations, and if neither China unwisely warned Britain not to jeopardise its trading nor the US are willing to respect those rules then a relationship with China by reversing the decision to decade of international protectionism beckons. allow the Chinese technology giant Huawei a role in Globalisation has lifted millions of China’s citizens the 5G network that will eventually cover the whole of out of dire poverty. China has virtually cornered the Britain. Eliminating Huawei would be a setback for market in the production of electronic consumer Chinese global economic ambitions, and any Chinese goods such as smartphones. But globalisation has also measures in retaliation would only make things worse. been a major factor in the loss of hundreds of Mr Xiaoming has also denounced what he calls thousands of jobs in British steelworks and Britain’s “interference” in Hong Kong, specifically the shipbuilding, and has swung the economy into heavy announcement that up to three million Hong Kong dependence on financial services. This has increased citizens could be allowed to emigrate to the United the economic imbalance, and consequent inequality, Kingdom and eventually graduate to full citizenship. between the north of England and London and the The Beijing government has introduced draconian south-east. So if globalisation is stuttering to a halt – new security laws to try to stamp out the street even if it is only temporary – a new era of domestic protests against its increasing control of Hong Kong’s industrialisation will be necessary to sustain the internal affairs. The new measures are plainly in British economy for the next half century. And “green” contravention of the “one country, two systems” industrialisation, which the government has placed at arrangement enshrined in international law by the the core of its policy for long-term economic growth, 1997 treaty under which Britain ended colonial rule in becomes its essential component. It is an ill wind …

CORONAVIRUS ntil the end of last month, the practising is absent. Catholic parishioners may not communicate LESSONS Catholic population of the United Kingdom verbally with each other very much, but being in each U was approximately zero – if by “practising other’s presence does have a transformative effect. COVID Catholic” is meant someone who attends Even more significant, watching remotely is not just Mass on Sundays and Holy Days. Even now, with a poor substitute for “being there”, but a different kind REVEALS church doors half open, normal Catholic life remains of reality. To be in the real presence of the body and disrupted. So one truth the coronavirus has unearthed blood of Christ is to be where Heaven and Earth are HIDDEN is that Christian discipleship cannot simply be defined mystically joined. The God who created the universe by participation in the liturgy. The obligation under becomes present in this small space, among His TRUTHS canon law to hear Mass every Sunday cannot be people. This is, as Vatican II’s decree Lumen Gentium reimposed as if nothing has happened. declares, the “source and summit of the Christian life”. The distinction between the “practising” and the Medieval churches had tall spires rising above the “lapsed” – meaning, essentially, non-practising – tree tops so people could see from afar the place where Catholic has been, in effect, dissolved. Not all those this miracle happened. Stand close to the base of the who were once practising, in this sense, will return to spire and look upwards, and it becomes an infinite weekly Massgoing. That does not mean that they no column reaching beyond and above the sky. It is a longer live by the Gospel. Indeed, if the virus remains symbol, as the Encyclopaedia Britannica endemic in the population long-term, large gatherings condescendingly puts it, “of the heavenly aspirations of the faithful such as in a typical parish on a typical of pious medieval men”. They obviously knew Sunday may become a thing of the past. something they were later forced to forget. Masses have continued to be celebrated, of course, All these glimpses of truth and many others have with invisible congregations watching at home via been uncovered by the coronavirus earthquake, and computer screens. Much praise is due to those who remain to be collected and used. It would be a shrewd have kept things moving, and, anecdotally at least, move by the bishops’ conferences of these islands if this unusual procedure has concentrated hearts and they were to commission research into this episode minds on neglected distinctions between good liturgy and the effect it has had on the faith of the People of and bad. But it has also placed a focus on the God, knowing that Providence leaves nothing wasted, community present at Mass, and how we feel when it even disasters and their consequences.

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PHOTO: PA/EMPICS, DAVID JENSEN

Shaftesbury Avenue - 14 London’s theatreland – deserted during lockdown z

COLUMN BOOKS / PAGE 18 CONTENTS Piers Plowright 11 JULY 2020 // VOL 274 NO. 9360 Stories We Tell Ourselves FEATURES RICHARD HOLLOWAY 4 / A royal search for illumination Could an illuminated Bible have been commissioned by Henry II, trying to find Roger Hardy Christopher biblical precedents for the disasters of his own life? / BY MARGARET HEBBLETHWAITE The Call: Inside the Global Saudi Howse’s 8 / Notebook The next pope Religious Project Catholicism in Western Europe is moribund and only a pope offering doctrinal KRITHIKA VARAGUR ‘Somehow we clarity will make the faith compelling / BY GEORGE WEIGEL have preserved Euan Cameron the culture 10 / In defence of bookworms A Hundred Million of the Sixties In a transactional, technological world riven by crisis, have literature and Years and a Day in amber’ / 6 philosophy become redundant? / BY ZENA HITZ JEAN-BAPTISTE ANDREA, 12 / Choppy waters for pilgrims’ progress TRANSLATED An ambitious proposal to redevelop the riverside Marian shrine lying south of BY SAM TAYLOR Walsingham village is meeting stiff opposition / BY ELENA CURTI 14 / Faith in the arts The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on our spiritual and imaginative life, argues an Anglican bishop and writer / BY MARTIN WARNER ARTS / PAGE 21 Television Mrs. America LUCY LETHBRIDGE

Radio Times Radio NEWS D.J. TAYLOR REGULARS 24 / The Church in the World / News briefing Word from Theatre the Cloisters 15 25 / US judges rule for public funds for Catholic schools The Protest: Black Puzzles 15 Lives Matter 27 / View from Rome MARK LAWSON Letters 16

The Living Spirit 28 / News from Britain and Ireland / News briefing 17 Music The Ethical 29 / Pope picks his new ambassador to Great Britian Bob Dylan: Rough Kitchen 31 and Rowdy Ways Glimpses of Eden 31 COVER: SCENE FROM THE LIFE OF DAVID, WINCHESTER BIBLE, FROM THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM, NEW YORK. BRIDGEMAN IMAGES BRIAN MORTON

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FEATURES / King Henry’s Bible?

ILLUSTRATION USED BY KIND PERMISSION OF THE CHAPTER, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL

A detail showing Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, right. Did he commission the Bible?

A wealthy bishop is said to have ordered the magnificently illuminated Bible displayed in Winchester Cathedral. But could it have been commissioned by a worried Henry II, trying to find biblical precedents for the disasters of his own life, including the death of Thomas Becket? BY MARGARET HEBBLETHWAITE

February this year, de Hamel, author of the A royal search widely acclaimed Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts, colourfully elaborated the tra- ditional account of Henry of Blois commissioning the Winchester Bible. He was for illumination “rich and powerful beyond imagination, polit- ically devious and opportunistic” and an “art patron extraordinaire”, and in 1143 he com- missioned a different, large, luxury Bible from the monks of Winchester, known as the “Auct Bible” (Bodleian MS Auct. E. inf.1-2). Since T IS 800 YEARS since the body of the page with the historiated initials for Psalm a Bible of this size cost as much to produce Thomas Becket was moved on 7 July 51, where King Saul is ordering his servant as a small castle, it could only have been paid 1220 from a tomb in the crypt of Doeg to kill the priests who had given holy for by someone extraordinarily rich. Canterbury Cathedral into a shrine; he bread to David, his rival for the kingship. As the brother of the previous king, Stephen, hadI been murdered in the cathedral 50 years Christopher de Hamel was the first to make Bishop Henry had a tricky relationship with earlier, on 29 December 1170. But I want to the striking suggestion that this “might be a Henry II, who had fought a war to recover dwell on the tragic life of the man responsible political allusion to the order by Henry II in the throne that Stephen had unjustifiably for his murder, King Henry II, and on the 1170 for the murder of Thomas Becket”. seized on the death of Henry I, Henry II’s way Thomas wove in and out of his story – The exhibition begins with a panel telling grandfather. So from time to time during the and also that of the Winchester Bible, “a can- you that the Bible was commissioned by 1135-1153 civil war the bishop had to go into didate for the greatest work of art produced Henry of Blois, who was Bishop of Winchester exile. When he returned in 1150, “we can in England”, according to the celebrated between 1129 and his death in 1171. This has imagine him”, said de Hamel, “storming into scholar Christopher de Hamel. long been the mainstream opinion; the vice- the scriptorium, the boss back from abroad, Winchester Cathedral reopened to visitors dean of the cathedral, Roland Riem, bursting with the news that the continental on 4 July, and the “Kings and Scribes” exhi- acknowledges “there is no conclusive evidence” fashion now was no longer for Bibles with bition that displays the famous Bible is for it, but points out that “the earlier English initials and mere foliage which they had been expected to follow soon. When I visited it giant Bibles were all commissioned by either doing, and that modern places like Cluny now before the lockdown, the guides showed me kings or bishops”. In a lecture in Salisbury in had pictures inside the initials. He told them

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to put aside the old-fashioned, unfinished Young King” – a handsome and popular fairy- father did not succeed, and they reached a Auct Bible, and to begin all over again with tale prince, who unfortunately turned out to peace settlement, but in 1183 he rebelled a new and illustrated Bible instead. This new be irresponsible and spendthrift – was again, this time dying of dysentery during the replacement enterprise was the book we call crowned by the Archbishop of York and two campaign. In his death throes he had a vision the Winchester Bible.” other bishops, with the idea that he would of Thomas Becket coming to accompany him Henry II was largely responsible for the not begin to rule until his father died. The into the next life. King Henry was profoundly killing of Thomas Becket in 1170, and Bishop anointing and crowning of a king was a sacred distressed by both his son’s betrayal and his Henry publicly reproached him for it just days act, belonging normally to the Archbishop of death, and said: “He cost me much, but I wish before dying himself the following year. With Canterbury, with whom Henry II was now he had lived to cost me more.” the death of their patron, work on the in dispute. Thomas was furious that normal Hugh meanwhile had become a spiritual Winchester Bible “stopped immediately”, says procedure had not been followed, and excom- counsel to the King, who “consulted him on de Hamel, and the monks returned to the municated all three bishops involved. all matters”, according to the Magna Vita. Auct Bible, which was the one they finished. Hugh “frequently reproved him for his various As part of his penance for Becket’s death, THE ROW PEAKED towards the end of the sins” and King Henry attributed his salvation Henry founded a Carthusian monastery at same year, with King Henry’s famous, vari- from a life-threatening storm at sea to a prayer Witham in Somerset. He placed as prior Hugh ously quoted, “Who will rid me of this he made through Hugh’s intercession. of Avalon (the future St Hugh of Lincoln), turbulent priest?”, or “… free me of this med- and when Hugh told him that the monastery dlesome priest”, or words to that effect. What WITH THIS CONTEXT, we are in position to lacked books, and could not easily obtain he actually wanted was for Thomas to resign understand Norton’s theory that it was Henry parchment (because Carthusians are vege- or be dismissed, but we know the sequel: a II who commissioned the Winchester Bible, tarians), King Henry gave him a magnificent group of knights rode to Canterbury and cut not Henry of Blois; and that it was the Bible which he had obtained from the monks off the crown of Thomas’ head in the cathedral, Winchester Bible, not the Auct Bible, that of Winchester Cathedral, promising to com- scattering his brains on the floor. It was 29 was sent to Witham. Much depends on the pensate them. According to de Hamel and December 1170. translation of the Latin verb conficere in the the current mainstream view, the Bible that When he heard about the killing, King Magna Vita, which the great art historian, was given to Witham was the Auct Bible. Henry put on sackcloth and ashes and shut Walter Oakeshott, said meant “completed”, But was it? Professor Christopher Norton himself in his room for three days, refusing and this was his principal reason in 1981 for of the University of York, a specialist in all food and comfort. By 1172 he was accepting reversing his earlier judgement that the medieval monastic art, believes that it was a papal penance, agreeing to pay for 200 Winchester Bible was sent to Witham. not the Auct Bible but the Winchester Bible. knights to assist in the defence of the Holy If King Henry gave Hugh a Bible which Whichever it was, when Hugh discovered it Land, and promising to set off himself on the had been “completed” at Winchester, then it had been taken from its rightful home he Crusade (though in the end he founded points to the Auct Bible; but if it simply means insisted on returning it, without the King monasteries in lieu). Such was the cult grow- “made” in Winchester, then it could indicate knowing. The story is told by Hugh’s ing up around the new martyr that Thomas the Winchester Bible, which was complete thirteenth-century biographer, Adam of Becket was canonised in February 1173, barely in its text, but incomplete in its illustrations, Eynsham, in the Magna Vita Sancti Hugonis. more than two years after his death. and remains so. The Dictionary of Medieval In 1961, when the Latin-English edition In the same year Henry the Young King Latin from British Sources seems to favour was published, the editors thought the Bible began an armed revolt against his father, and Norton’s reading: the primary translation is Hugh had received “was almost certainly the Henry II felt oppressed by the curse of “bring together, make, make up”; only as the famous Winchester Bible … The accentuation Thomas’s murder. In 1174 he undertook a fifth meaning does it give “complete”. and correction marks fit Adam’s description.” more dramatic penance, walking barefoot If it was the Winchester Bible that King De Hamel’s reconstruction of the life of the through Canterbury, falling prostrate before Henry had given to Hugh, this would provide Winchester Bible is a good story, but Norton’s the place of martyrdom with many tears, a convincing reason, firstly, for why it was account – “an extraordinary story at the inter- enduring a flogging by the bishops and monks, bound up before it was finished – because it section of high politics, high churchmen, high and spending the night there in prayer. needed to be sent away – and secondly, for art, and of course the Bible”, as he put it to The Young King’s rebellion against his why it never was finished, because discretion me – is appealing. To understand it, we need required that on its return to Winchester it to know more about Henry II’s life. should remain hidden to avoid offending or angering King Henry. By the time it was safe WHEN HE APPOINTED Thomas Becket as to bring it out, the brilliant group of interna- Lord Chancellor they became bosom friends. tional artists who had worked on the Henry had such trust in Becket that he sent miniatures had dispersed. It would also his own son, also called Henry, to live in explain why King Henry wanted this partic- Becket’s home, and when the Archbishop of ular Bible for Hugh, because as the person Canterbury died, Henry could think of no one who had paid for the Winchester Bible he better to succeed him, even though Thomas was giving away something that was in a sense was not even a priest. This could be put right, his own. And is it not more likely that the two and in 1162 Thomas was ordained and the rival bibles were commissioned by the two next day consecrated Archbishop of rival millionaires – Bishop Henry and King Canterbury by Bishop Henry. Henry – rather than by the same person, who King Henry had thought he would have an had grown tired of one and began another? ally in Canterbury, but to his increasing fury, But there is something more interesting his friend went all ascetic and devout and and compelling about the theory that the started taking a tough line on the rights of Winchester Bible was “King Henry’s Bible”. the clergy. The King removed his son from Its unusual choice of pictures would have had Thomas’ care and an acrimonious power a deep emotional meaning for a king strug- struggle between Church and state began. gling to make sense of the tragedies of his life. The King thought he would forestall prob- The famous Morgan Leaf from the Winchester lems over the succession to the throne by Bible (probably removed in the 1820s when getting the coronation of his son done during Above, a thirteenth-century image depicting the Bible was rebound, and now in the his own lifetime. So in June 1170, “Henry the the death of Thomas Becket CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

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CHRISTOPHER HOWSE’S NOTEBOOK

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 Morgan Library and Museum, New York) is Somehow we have a full-page double-sided masterpiece, showing the story of Samuel and Saul on one side, and preserved the culture of Saul and David on the other. The story of how King Saul’s hold on the throne was threatened by the younger man, David – who also was the Sixties in amber the Lord’s Anointed but had to wait many years and endure many battles before he could begin to rule – had an extraordinary echo in the lives of Kings Stephen and Henry. THERE’S A fragment in expressing the ephemeral in human We may also note that Thomas Becket had from a song that has existence. urged Henry II, as the anointed king, to follow stayed in my memory: I knew nothing then of Arthur Lee’s the example of David the anointed, in two “You turn all the lead life, and hardly know much more now. letters of 1165 and 1166. The coincidence sleeping in my head to But he lived and worked in Los Angeles, between Saul’s murder of priests and King gold.” It comes from the first album by and there was a seedy, cheap cafe that he Henry’s of his Archbishop has already been Arcade Fire, called Funeral (2004). It is nicknamed the Slop Affair, on the corner mentioned. Most poignantly, King Henry a beautiful metaphor, and I’m happy to of Sunset and Hilldale. I don’t suppose found an echo of his own life in the biblical find poetry where I can. the neighbourhood was very sparkling, story of Absalom – David’s son who rose up Such fragments are sometimes the but nor was the Soho that I came to against him, as Henry’s own son had done. work of no single lyricist, having been know when I grew up. mauled by transmission, like the words I already had a set attitude of not THE ILLUSTRATION on the Morgan Leaf of any folk song. Bob Dylan was being surprised to meet people again shows Absalom on his mule, his hair caught fortunate in that way with a couple of by chance and of not saying goodbye in in the branches of the oak tree, as Joab thrusts lines from his version of “Man of any definite way on parting. As with his sword into his heart (2 Samuel 18), while Constant Sorrow”: “Through this open the “Man of Constant Sorrow”, this King David buries his face in his cloak, crying world I’m a-bound to ramble / Through open world seemed to be for rambling inconsolably, “Would that I had died instead ice and snow, sleet and rain.” This sounds through. It was P.Y. Betts who noticed of you, O Absalom, my son!” This is the first age-old, echoing from a land far, far as a child that “people who come to say depiction of the death of Absalom in English away. But I think the second line was a goodbye usually don’t come back”. art, and the linking of it with Henry the Young filler to supply for words he’d forgotten (That gave the title of her King is far from fanciful, as several contem- when rearranging the lyrics. The song, incomparable memoir of childhood porary writers had drawn attention to his which he put on his album Bob Dylan in People Who Say Goodbye, 1991, written similarity with Absalom, both in the son’s 1962, had, as far as I can tell, been when she was 80.) betrayal and in the king’s clemency to him. written by Emry Arthur, who had Perhaps I took it all a bit far. Either The Morgan Leaf could have been begun recorded it only 33 years earlier, in 1929. way, most people in my address book are after the first rebellion, says Norton (because Emry Arthur’s is a fine version, dead. Three years after his Glastonbury after his death in 1183 could produce dating crackling like some ancient folk song booking, Arthur Lee was dead too. problems): “The story of David and Absalom from an ancient folk singer collected on was just as relevant to Henry II after the first an Edison cylinder by Percy Grainger. I WENT TO Mass one day during the revolt of the Young King in 1173-74 as it was Yet it is now nearly 50 years since Dylan lockdown. A lot of Tablet readers 10 years later.” made his own recording, a much longer probably did too, one way or another. I The choice for key illustrations in the time from now to then than from Dylan won’t say where, because priests get into Winchester Bible of battles for the defence back to Arthur. Somehow we have trouble for the most ridiculous things. If of Jerusalem – not easy subjects for miniature preserved the culture of the Sixties in I said it was somewhere in Hertfordshire illustration – from the books of Judith and amber. I suspect it’s because many of I might have said too much. Maccabees, is also suggestive; they would that generation won’t let go of it. Did I break the law? No. I am have resonated with Henry II because of the I thought of this last week, when, for confident I had the requisite reasonable Crusades he had promised. The significance the want of a live Glastonbury festival, excuse under the Health Protection of all these pictures could show why it meant BBC television gave us archive (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) so much to King Henry to entrust this Bible coverage. Many of the acts had been Regulations 2020, which were ever at to his spiritual guide. nostalgic when they were performed hand. For me it was the greatest But de Hamel is unconvinced. “The problem amid the Somerset mud, so the recognisable blessing of the year. with the Norton theory is the Bible is earlier,” television reprise presented us with he told me. “Christopher Norton is wrong.” receding mirrors of nostalgia. One set IT’S 101 YEARS since the publication of Norton defends his theory, telling me, “I’ve from 2003 was by Arthur Lee, the Winifride de l’Hôpital’s book about her never dated the Winchester Bible to the 1180s singer songwriter from the Sixties father, the architect J.F. Bentley, and the – though I do place the later illuminators to group Love. In a worrying state of building of Westminster Cathedral. I the mid 1180s, which is not at all controversial.” health, he gave the crowd in the remember from its two volumes the If Norton is right that it was King Henry westering sun most of Forever Changes. number of bricks used (12,454,474) and II, and not Bishop Henry of Blois, who com- In Britain that album came out in the strong regret at Eric Gill’s stations of missioned the Winchester Bible – and it does 1968. I was a boy in the form at school the cross in a Byzantine church. Now we seem to provide a convincing explanation of called, in the Jesuit system, Rudiments. have John Francis the Witham Bible affair – then we have a mov- But my brother was old enough and Bentley by the historian ing example of how a monarch of England tuned in enough to buy it. Peter Howell. My copy is wrestled with interpreting the disasters of his The track called “Maybe the People in the post and I keep an own life, including the death of Thomas Would Be the Times or Between Clark ear open for the Becket, in the light of biblical precedents. and Hilldale” begins with the couplet: postman’s footsteps. “What is happening and how have you Margaret Hebblethwaite’s next book will be been? / Gotta go but I’ll see you again.” Christopher Howse is an assistant editor of on Jesus and the women in the Gospels. I’ve since found those lines very powerful The Daily Telegraph.

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FEATURES / Catholicism in crisis

The biographer of John Paul II believes that Catholicism in Western Europe is moribund. As other Christian communities with a clear sense of moral identity flourish, only a pope offering doctrinal clarity will make the faith compelling / By GEORGE WEIGEL The next pope

PHOTO: CNS, PAUL HARING N JOHN 8:31-32, the Lord Jesus pro- fallen-away Catholics, dissatisfied Protestants, claims that those who “continue in his and unbelievers a reformed and more satis- word” will “know the truth, and the truth fying way of life, rooted in friendship with will make you free”. Thus the next pope the Lord Jesus Christ. This is most obviously mustI understand that doctrine is liberating, true of the newer local Churches of sub- and that Catholicism can and must be both Saharan Africa. It is also true of the growing a Christ-centred Church of doctrinal clarity end of the Church in North America. And it and a Christ-centred Church manifesting the is true of those shoots of new Christian life divine mercy. That understanding will help that are sprouting up through the hard, sec- him, and it will help the Church he leads, to ularised soil of Europe. cope with a basic sociological fact about the This basic truth of twenty-first-century Christian circumstance today. Catholic life – Catholicism-in-full is attractive There seems to be a kind of iron law built and compelling; Catholic Lite is moribund – into the relationship between Christianity also extends across a range of Catholic insti- and modernity (and late modernity, and post- tutions. It is true of parishes, dioceses, religious modernity, and probably whatever is coming communities, seminaries and lay renewal after post-modernity): Christian communities movements. Perhaps the most dramatic exam- that have a clear sense of doctrinal and moral ple is found in communities of women identity can survive, even flourish, under the White smoke from a Sistine Chapel chimney Religious in the West. There, communities challenges posed by contemporary culture; signals that a new pope has been chosen that have abandoned the religious habit and Christian communities whose sense of identity a distinctive mode of life, and whose members becomes weak and whose boundaries become between the collapse of Catholic belief and regularly dissent from authoritative church porous wither – and some die. practice in Western Europe and the ongoing teaching, are dying; those that have embraced This iron law was first demonstrated among attempt there to make “Catholic Lite” – a the reform of religious life mandated by the the various forms of liberal Protestantism Catholicism of indeterminate convictions and Second Vatican Council in the decree, Perfectae around the world. The liberal Protestant porous behavioural boundaries – work as a Caritatis, as authoritatively interpreted by denominations that began abandoning doc- twenty-first-century pastoral method. This Pope John Paul II in the 1996 apostolic exhor- trinal clarity in the nineteenth century and phenomenon is most obvious in the German- tation, Vita Consecrata, are growing – even moral clarity in the twentieth are dying – speaking lands of Europe but it is not confined as society makes more and more opportunities everywhere. The part of Protestantism there. Catholic Lite is an evangelical and pas- for service and leadership available to women. throughout the world that is growing is evan- toral failure throughout Western Europe, as Lay renewal movements in the Church follow gelical, Pentecostal, or fundamentalist. And it is an evangelical and pastoral failure in a similar pattern: those that have flourished while there are vast differences in theological North America, Latin America, Australia and in the past several decades embrace sensibility and pastoral method among evan- New Zealand. Catholicism-in-full. gelical Protestants, Pentecostalists and By contrast, the living, vibrant parts of the That Catholicism-in-full attracts is also Protestant fundamentalists, each of these world Church in the third decade of the demonstrated by the remarkable fact that, in forms of Christianity exhibits clarity of teach- twenty-first century are those that have made the United States, seminary recruitment has ing and strong moral expectations. the proclamation of the Gospel their priority; not collapsed under the pressure of the scandal The iron law is also applicable to world that teach the Catholic faith in full, with imag- of clerical sexual abuse. A young man dis- Catholicism. There is a strong correlation ination and compassion; and that offer cerning a priestly vocation today is not only

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considering a challenging way to live his scription. The “emergency” is a collapse of When a pope manifests the power of divine Catholic faith, he is taking a great risk of social deep faith that Jesus is Lord, which has led mercy in his own life, he empowers the people opprobrium. Yet across the US, twenty-first- to a failure to proclaim the Gospel. The remedy of the Church to be agents of that mercy in century seminaries are populated by young is a vibrant Catholicism-in-full offering friend- the world. The next pope must live and teach men who want to embrace the Gospel in full ship with Jesus Christ and incorporation into in such a way that the relationship between and who are uninterested in Catholic Lite. the communion of his friends as a pathway mercy and truth is clear, and he must live and to human happiness, fulfilment – and salva- teach in such a way that mercy (which the CATHOLICISM-IN-FULL does not set tion. The next pope must know these truths world often confuses with therapeutic “Gospel” against “doctrine”. That is a and lead the Church in light of them. forgetfulness) does not devolve into senti- Protestantising move that has done grave Caricatures to the contrary notwithstanding, mentality. The divine mercy is purifying as damage to the Christian identity and witness Catholicism-in-full is not a revival of well as comforting, and what can seem com- of many Christian communities born from Jansenism or other forms of moral rigourism forting will not be truly comforting over time the Reformations of the sixteenth century. in the Church. The vibrant, living parts of the if it is detached from purification. Catholicism-in-full recognises that the basic world Church are not those reserving the Growth into the Christian life is a lifelong Gospel proclamation – “Jesus is Lord” – was handclasp of fellowship to the already per- process for all. The lesson involves both truth developed intellectually by a Spirit-led move- fected. The living parts of the world Church and mercy. Catholics learn that lesson from ment within the Church, which produced the are those that offer friendship with Jesus the lives of the saints, beginning with Peter Church’s creeds and its defining dogmatic Christ to those caught in the worship of false himself. The next pope must teach that lesson statements. Catholicism-in-full also recognises gods, be those the gods that terrify indigenous to a Church sometimes confused about the that, under the same divine inspiration, the peoples or, in the West, the false god of the intimate relationship between mercy and truth Church’s understanding of the truths that imperial autonomous Self – the false god “Me”. and should display the meaning of the lesson make the Church who she is develops over in his own self-emptying witness to Christ. time – always in continuity with what has THE LIVING PARTS of the world Church are been handed on from the past. Thus those that offer mercy as well as truth, while Adapted and excerpted from The Next Pope: Catholicism-in-full deploys both Gospel and recognising that the most merciful thing a The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission, doctrine in evangelisation and pastoral min- Christian can do for suffering or lost souls is published this week by Ignatius Press. istry, believing that the full truth of Catholic to offer them the truth: that, in Jesus Christ, faith is indeed liberating in the deepest mean- we meet the face of the merciful Father and George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow ing of human freedom. the truth about ourselves – the Father who of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy The failures of Catholic Lite have been man- welcomes the prodigals home when they Center, where he holds the William E. Simon ifest for some time, and it takes a special kind acknowledge that they have squandered their Chair in Catholic Studies. His books include of arrogance, or just plain stubbornness, not human dignity, and the truth that that dignity Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John to face the empirical facts of the contemporary is magnified in Christ. Paul II. Catholic situation. Catholic Lite may have the capacity to maintain existing Catholic insti- tutions for a time; Catholic Lite has demonstrated no capacity to grow those insti- tutions or, more importantly, to transform them into platforms for evangelisation and mission. This suggests that, in the not-too-distant future, Catholic Lite will lead to “Catholic in association with Zero”, or something that looks remarkably similar to Catholic Zero – a Catholicism that has lost any serious capacity for either mission or public witness. Examples of this can be found in both Europe and North America, in once-vibrant Catholic cultures and societies such as those in Quebec, Spain, Portugal and Ireland. These societies are now aptly described as “post-Christian”. 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FEATURES / The life of the mind

In a transactional, technological world riven by crisis, have literature and philosophy become redundant? An American academic argues that the renewal of our inner life is fundamental to preserving our humanity / By ZENA HITZ

my obstacle. I was comfortable, safe, travelled regularly, went to parties, and was successful In defence of at prestigious work that I loved. When the Twin Towers came down on 11 September 2001, I realised that my comfort wasn’t all there was. The fact that others suffered while bookworms I flourished seemed not right. Surely I ought to suffer for them and with them? While fan- tasy substitutes for reality, comfort gives an PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK only partial view. To catch a glimpse of what has been obscured changes us.

WHEN WE READ or study seriously, not to compete for status or to distract ourselves, we encounter the object of our attention in all of its messy, unpredictable reality. Such reading and thinking involves discipline to undertake, and a willingness to surrender to whatever one may find. We may not know in advance how entering a fictional world or considering a philosophical theorem might change us. The great chronicler of peregrine falcons, Essex office worker John Baker, may not have known in advance that he would find himself admiring the colour of blood, as he learned over time to identify with his bloodthirsty birds. Learning requires aban- donment, the fear of which has to be overcome at the outset. Our intellectual comfort is our certainty, our confidence, our sense of righteousness. It is the ease of life with others who share our views. Any encounter with the real threat- ens to unsettle that comfort, leaving us in confusion or loneliness, just as a drive through ‘Reading at its best is a an impoverished neighbourhood may mar mode of communion …’ the beauty of one’s own luxurious garden, or a visit to the hospital may reveal our health to be the accident it is. ARD-BOILED bookworms like role of a cannibal’s dinner to the real tedium Dorothy Day founded the Catholic Worker myself sometimes find ourselves of illness. movement, opened up houses of hospitality Hin a crisis of conscience when dra- It is easy to snark, but difficult to know all over the United States, and began a tra- matic human suffering forces its what to do. Amid a global pandemic and a dition of Catholic anti-war activism, protesting way into our awareness. When I was a PhD powerful movement against police violence against the atom bomb and nuclear weapons student in philosophy, the smoking ruins of and racism, what point could there be in testing. She might seem above all a woman the World Trade Center shook me out of my studying literature, philosophy, poetry or of action. And yet in an interview with a biog- contemplative slumber. I felt I could not live mathematics? Aren’t all those self-indulgent rapher, she said something surprising: she in a library: I had to “make a difference”, to hobbies for quieter times? Aren’t we bound wanted to be remembered especially as a lover help to heal the broken fragments of the to dedicate ourselves to the welfare of our of books. world. neighbours, now more than ever? The desire to make a difference is not Two sets of walls divide us both from learn- DAY DID NOT consider herself a scholar. But always easy to distinguish from the urge to ing and from service, from the true life of the she considered that her call to love her neigh- make a splash. So, in turn, one can end up mind and the true life of the heart. The first, bours came through avid reading. As a young making a spectacle of oneself. We live in a as I have suggested, is a tendency to dwell in woman, she read authors with a heart for the social world where the thirst for justice seems fantasy. Just as we may devise a theatrical poor, Dickens, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, and to lead on to fixed and rigid pathways, and fight for justice that never leaves the realm came to see working people through their where absurd performances can take prece- of pixels, we can study and think precisely eyes. She read the Psalms, and when in jail dence over substance. This is nothing new. to avoid the demands of others. We may after a suffragist protest, she felt the words Caryll Houselander wrote in 1944 of an retreat into our imagined proofs of our supe- of the Psalms echo through her own experi- invalid lady who could not forgive God for riority to others, assembling an arsenal of ence and through the desperate people not permitting her to be eaten by a cannibal facts with which to bludgeon our unsuspect- imprisoned with her. For Day, books were and so achieve martyrdom. “She could not ing enemies. So we imagine we recover status not an escape so much as they were a way to accept herself as a sick woman,” Houselander lost in erotic or athletic contests. meet the real world that her middle-class wrote. “But she would have achieved heroic The second wall is our comfort. As a PhD upbringing had hidden from her. virtue as a cutlet!” We prefer the fictional student, luxury more than competition was We are by nature animals who perceive

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and think. Yet for the most part we live win- endeavour of understanding. Like all common five-point plans and policies – all designed dowless lives. Our appetites and aspirations endeavours, learning is a bond of unity in from on high by people who do not know for ourselves come first: I am in pain, I am which our differences first drop away, then those whose lives they will shape. But we our- hungry, I am tired, I have been insulted. We return graced with new worth. selves will not grow in either learning or love animals of the screen who have evolved over The memoirs of the marginalised and the unless we look at one another at eye level. the last 20 years are more sophisticated: I impoverished testify to the power of learning Through serious reading, Du Bois found think this, not that; he is right, she is wrong; to elevate and to forge bonds of unity. The a community of the dead, and his own dignity. he is evil, she is admirable; I like this, I don’t oppressed find through books, plays, poetry Dorothy Day found a way to build a commu- like that; smiley face, angry face; heart, and astronomy a dignity denied them in nity of the living that offered a window on to retweet. ordinary life. Jonathan Rose’s wonderful the whole of humanity. She felt, reciting the In every book is at least one other human book, The Intellectual Life of the British Psalms in jail, that she experienced the suf- being: an author. The author offers us a way Working Classes, collects many such testi- ferings of others through the sufferings of of seeing, glimpses from high monies. The black American Christ. places or low from which we scholar and activist, W.E.B. The mystical body of Christ, in the world had not yet examined things. Augustine said that Du Bois, writes of finding of the living, is a suffering body. We resist Sometimes the author shares love could not among dead authors such as serious reading, just as we avoid the suffering other people with us, and we bind people together Aristotle or Balzac a commu- of our flesh-and-blood neighbours, because come to see their thoughts, nity of equals where skin we do not want ourselves to suffer. If we are desires and limitations. if no one learnt colour dropped into irrele- to pick up the fragments of a broken world, Reading at its best is a mode anything from vance. Many black American we must steel ourselves for pain, fear and of communion more than it leaders and authors describe uncertainty. Serious reading provides both is a vehicle of distraction. anyone else their education in similar practice in endurance and fuel for reimag- Augustine said that love terms. They find a freedom ining the future. Real change is organic, and could not bind people together if no one learnt in old books often denied them by living so requires patience. Patience, as Gerard anything from anyone else. He meant, I think, neighbours. Manley Hopkins says, comes those ways we that books and learning develop our capacities We live these days under a funny kind of know. to love and to choose. So too, they give us a authoritarianism. We are not meant to pick dignity beyond our ordinary usefulness as a up a great book and encounter the author as Zena Hitz is a tutor at St John’s College in grocer, a barrister, or a cleaner. They open an equal, but to sit at the feet of an expert Annapolis, Maryland. Her latest book, up points of connection with other human who tells us how to think. Likewise in service: Lost In Thought: The Hidden Pleasures beings, where we see them, and they us, not we are not meant to simply visit our neigh- of an Intellectual Life, is published by as vehicles for power or for pleasure, but as bour, get to know them, and help as we can, Princeton University Press at £18.99 fellow travellers or fellow labourers in the but we must support top-down initiatives, (Tablet price £17.09).

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FEATURES / Dowry of Mary

An ambitious proposal to redevelop the riverside Catholic Marian shrine lying south of Walsingham village is meeting stiff opposition from local people and heritage groups / By ELENA CURTI Choppy waters for pilgrims’ progress

HE CATHOLIC shrine in Walsingham there goes back at least 1,000 years. A noble- has become central to Marian devo- woman, Richeldis de Faverches, reported a Ttion with the recent rededication of vision of Mary who instructed her to build England as the Dowry of Mary. The there a replica of her house in Nazareth. The statue of Our Lady of Walsingham was taken resulting Holy House built in (Little) on a “Dowry Tour” of England’s cathedrals in Walsingham village became the shrine and, The Slipper Chapel and, below right, a preparation, but because of the Covid-19 crisis eventually, Augustinian Canons built a priory ‘concept sketch’ by the architects, Anthony the ceremony was livestreamed from the around it. It became one of the richest and Delarue Associates shrine to more than half-a-million homes. most popular shrines in Europe until it was The Rector of the Shrine, Mgr John Armitage, destroyed by Thomas Cromwell’s men in 1538. Environment Agency recommends refusal of quoted the prophecy of Pope Leo XIII, who A shrine was re-established in 1922 by the the planning application because of the flood wrote to the English bishops in 1893: “When Anglican vicar of Walsingham in his parish risk. Others are fearful of the impact of the England goes back to Walsingham, Our Lady church. In 1931 he built a Holy House in the development on the abundance of wildlife will return to England.” village and eventually established the Anglican along the River Stiffkey. Crucially, there is a During the lockdown, hundreds of thou- shrine there. The shrine church was substan- requirement that the design and scale har- sands of people have been virtual pilgrims tially extended in the 1960s, and the grounds monises with the beautiful Slipper Chapel, to Walsingham, thanks to its extensive also include several other chapels, gardens, which is Grade I listed, and the place where livestreaming programme. When physical a refectory, a café, shop, visitors’ centre and medieval pilgrims removed their shoes before pilgrimages resume, they will of necessity be several residential blocks where pilgrims can walking the final “Holy Mile” to Walsingham smaller, but the shrine’s administrators are stay. barefoot. preparing for the day when they can welcome The proposed new church would be located large numbers once again. IN 1934, CARDINAL Bourne designated a tiny behind the Slipper Chapel where the Chapel Catholic architect Anthony Delarue has wayside chapel known as the Slipper Chapel of Our Lady of Reconciliation, often known submitted plans to North Norfolk District as the Catholic National Shrine after it was as the “barn church”, now stands. This chapel, Council to double the indoor space at the site gifted to the Church by an Anglican convert where the main pilgrim Masses are celebrated, with a much bigger church, covered walkways, to Catholicism. The Slipper Chapel site is one was built in 1982 to resemble a Norfolk barn, a pilgrim centre and improved facilities for and a quarter miles outside Walsingham vil- and seats 500. Delarue’s proposed replace- visitors. There is a consensus that the latter lage through twisting, single-track lanes only ment is twice the size, with a transept, and are sorely needed. Mgr Armitage launched a little wider than the pilgrim coaches. The tower topped by a statue of the Virgin Mary. the first version of the development scheme shrine owns virtually no land for parking. A Critics describe it as “high urban Gothic”, in 2015, soon after he became Rector, but the car park is held on a lease, but for major pil- “grandiose” and “overly ornate”. Delarue has sensitivity of the site and other difficulties grimages the trust will continue to rent three reduced the scale of his church to try to meet have long delayed the project. fields for parking on an ad hoc basis. objections, but it is still claimed that it will Walsingham is known as England’s The site is in a chalk stream valley, an idyllic swamp the Slipper Chapel. Nazareth, and veneration of the Virgin Mary spot, much of it water meadow. The In its submission, Historic England agrees, raising “serious concerns” about the applica- tion on heritage grounds. The agency is most worried about the scale of the proposed let - making sense church, particularly the tower, and also the rld in lockdown spire of a new Lamps Chapel. Historic England is also critical of the church’s design, a describing it as “a mixture of styles and tra- ditions, many of them not found in the region”. It suggests that a design review or competition “might be useful in bringing a wide range of views and expertise to bear on the problem of how to produce a quality design while min- imising impact on the historic environment”. In normal times, it is estimated that around 250,000 people a year visit the Slipper Chapel site, with regular pilgrimages organised by parishes and other Catholic groups. These include the annual New Dawn festival – an SINCE 1840 important event in the Charismatic Renewal

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PHOTO:ALEX RAMSAY. © PATRIMONY COMMITTEE OF THE BISHOPS’ CONFERENCE OF ENGLAND AND WALES

church makes a bold statement,” he says. Sister Camilla Oberding, leader of the Community of Our Lady of Walsingham, who runs the Dowry House Retreat Centre in Walsingham village, describes the new plans as “wonderful” and is looking forward to the new facilities. “I’m hoping we’ll get the new toilets, larger eating areas and a cloister for when it rains, which happens quite a lot. I can understand local residents being worried about the amount of traffic while the building work is going on, but the short time when there will be disturbance will be worthwhile in the long run. You have to look at the bigger picture,” she says. Sr Camilla believes that if people have a positive experience at the shrine, they are more likely to extend the length of their stay at Walsingham, using B-and-Bs, shops and restaurants. Both Sr Camilla and David Chapman have praised Mgr Armitage for building relations with the Anglican shrine and also with Walsingham Estates, owners of the abbey ruins in the village and major landowners. They point out that Catholic pilgrims are encouraged to walk the Holy Mile, visit the Anglican shrine, the abbey ruins and the stun- ning modern Catholic parish church in Walsingham village.

MGR ARMITAGE will move on at the end of August at the completion of his five-year term. He was away on holiday at the time of writing. The incoming Rector, Mgr Canon Philip Moger, a parish priest from the Diocese of Leeds, says he “absolutely” supports the plans, but is reluctant to comment further. “When you go to a new place, the first thing you do is be patient, sit down, listen and let people speak. It’s always a mistake to go in with a great plan before know exactly how things will work out,” he tells me. Movement’s diary – and large-scale day visits the desire to have a large, grand, national North Norfolk District Council is unlikely organised by the Tamil community, Travellers shrine but I think it is completely wrong to to make a decision before September, and and the Syro-Malabar Church. The two Tamil shoehorn it into a tiny site which they don’t will hold further public consultations. The pilgrimages brought in around 13,000 people own, in a conservation area where there is East Anglia Historic Churches Committee, in 2019. very limited parking and very limited access.” which will determine listed-building consent, Contrasting comments to North Norfolk is undertaking its own consultation with statu- District Council highlight the strength of feel- ANOTHER LOCAL Catholic, Tom FitzPatrick, tory bodies. Mgr Keith Barltrop, a London ing of both supporters and opponents of the is a supporter of the shrine, a friend of the parish priest and a Walsingham trustee, says development. Residents of Houghton St Giles architect, and a district and county councillor. the Walsingham Trust has “already paid care- and Barsham write of days when the traffic “One person’s pilgrimage is another person’s ful attention to the views of local people and is so heavy that their villages are cut off. They nightmare,” he says diplomatically. “It is dif- adapted the plans accordingly, and will no complain of noise, litter and antisocial ficult and emotive and needs a lot of goodwill doubt continue to do so”. behaviour by some pilgrims. Locals also claim on all sides.” FitzPatrick believes an agreement Plans for pilgrimages will be radically that large coach parties often spend the entire on how to ameliorate the traffic would go a affected by the pandemic, according to Mgr time at the Catholic shrine, contributing noth- long way towards addressing residents’ con- Barltrop: “Large pilgrimages will be out of ing to the local economy. They do not believe cerns. He gives a brisk “no comment” when the question in the near future and ways will assurances from the shrine’s administrators I ask him whether the shrine needs a bigger have to be explored of encouraging smaller- that there is no intention to increase visitor church. scale pilgrimages in the short term.” But what numbers. The district council has received many about the long term? David Chapman believes So far, the district council has organised favourable responses to the plans, though there will be many more visitors to the Catholic public consultations in Walsingham and many of these respondents live in other parts shrine: “People will think, ‘We’ve been there Barsham, but the Barsham and Houghton of the country. David Chapman (no relation virtually, we’ve seen it, we’ve heard it. Let’s Parish Council accuses the Walsingham Trust to Frank Chapman) of Walsingham go and do it for real.’ And I think they will.” of “zero engagement” with them. Frank Association Publications, lives in north Chapman, a parish council member and prac- London and has been visiting the shrine since Elena Curti is a former deputy editor of The tising Catholic, accuses the Walsingham 1962. He believes the Slipper Chapel site needs Tablet. Her book, 50 Catholic Churches in trustees of putting the pilgrim experience a new church that befits its status as a major England and Wales to See Before You Die, before the local community, and the environ- European Marian shrine. “If you’re going to which includes the Slipper Chapel, is due to ment. Mr Chapman adds: “I can understand build, you build with confidence. The new be published by Gracewing in September.

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FEATURES / Protecting human dignity

The coronavirus pandemic has had a devastating impact on our spiritual and imaginative life, argues an Anglican bishop and writer, welcoming the government’s announcement this week of a £1.57 billion fund to help save the short-term future of theatres, concert halls, museums and galleries /By MARTIN WARNER Faith in the arts

PHOTO: PA/SOPA IMAGES, KEITH MAYHEW every background. Glyndebourne, in East Sussex, is more than an opera house for the well-to-do. It runs an amazing education pro- gramme that gives opportunities for local performers and was innovative back in the 1950s in taking opera into the nearby Lewes Prison. The award-winning partnership of Opera North with St Anne’s Cathedral in Leeds makes the benefits of music accessible to thousands of students in state schools. But the arts can be more than a vehicle for peaceful protest and engagement with our moral conscience. The arts have a capacity for social inclusion that transcends age, social status and any other forms of categorisation. They act as an international medium of com- munication, ensuring that we sustain our relationships with Europe and the rest of the world. Creative industries contributed more than £111 billion to the UK economy in 2018.

SPENT MANY childhood summers with The Piccadilly Theatre,London, wrapped in CHRISTIANITY HAS always valued the arts as my grandparents in the seaside town of pink tape last week as part of a national Missing a distinctive expression of the image of God IBroadstairs. One of the places I used to Live Theatre campaign by theatre designers in us. Our capacity for imagination and cre- visit with my grandfather was St ativity is evidence of a giftedness that comes Augustine’s Church in nearby Ramsgate, nected to others. Every death is a bereavement from God through the Holy Spirit. The arts where Augustus Welby Pugin, its famous and every infringement of human dignity is are an expression of divine love in creation, architect, is buried in his own side chapel. I an injustice that diminishes us all. giving dignity to human labour. The govern- will never forget the beauty of this sacred The pandemic has also taught us that one ment’s newly announced £1.57 billion fund space. Even Philip Larkin, a poet who was of the most powerful ways the dignity of each for the arts will help ensure the survival of this dogmatically indifferent to religious faith, person can be demonstrated is through the vital element of our cultural, spiritual and eco- recognised how the atmosphere of being in arts. The rainbow symbol, painted by children nomic life. a church building might surprise in us a and displayed in windows and drawn in chalk The Old Testament hints at this in the hunger “to be more serious”. on the pavements, is more than a popular, detailed accounts of the artistry needed to The weeks of our confinement have brought widely understood expression of support for create the Tabernacle, and ultimately the home to me how important it is for us to be the NHS. It is a statement of hope for the Temple in Jerusalem that housed the Ark of in places of beauty – and sometimes to be future. And it is an expression of human skill the Covenant. This is the template for the there with others, to be part of an assembly. modelled on natural beauty in creation Church’s worship in spirit and in truth, which Simply looking at images, or making virtual (though I fear that the biblical use of the rain- Pugin sought to present so imaginatively in visits to galleries and museums, or watching bow symbol has been largely unrecognised). his designs for St Augustine’s and elsewhere. a livestreamed religious service, is good, but Nor should we forget that the ordering of it is not the same. The lockdown has deprived STREET ART, RAP, fringe theatre, satire; the worship in the Temple set the standard for us of something more precious to us than per- cartoons and animations that are exchanged sustaining the social virtues of justice, mercy, haps we realised. on social media; the actors and musicians truth and peace. Of course, the greatest damage caused by and dancers recorded performing from home: To worship the Lord in the beauty of holi- the Covid storm has been the premature loss we have seen so much extraordinary work in ness (Psalm 96:9) is the foundation for how of so many lives. There has been so much recent weeks demonstrating the power of the Christian is shaped by these virtues and sadness and grieving. And the impact of the artists to alert us to poverty, hypocrisy or practises them. Worship is how we protest pandemic has been hardest on those already injustice, as well as celebrating the heroism our conviction in the dignity of each and every disadvantaged: the poor; the elderly; of so many ordinary people and simply person, and proclaim our solemn responsi- prisoners; the homeless; vulnerable children delighting in beauty for its own sake. bility for the stewardship of creation. Beauty, and their families. This points to the seriousness of entertain- through the labour of the artist, is a thread There is an understandable urgency now ment. It is a responsibility that those who by which God draws us to perfection and to rebuild the economy nationally and globally. work in the arts understand. Indeed, demon- glory in his presence. But it would be good to reflect, too, on the strating the dignity of life and personhood is (See also Mark Lawson, p23.) lessons that we have learnt in the past few often the motivation for their work. Here in months. Perhaps the greatest is the truth that Sussex the Chichester Festival Youth Theatre Martin Warner is the Bishop of Chichester. His no person is simply a statistic, and how much runs attractive, inclusive programmes that books include Between Heaven and Charing the health and well-being of each of us is con- reach out to some 800 young people from Cross and The Habit of Holiness.

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WORD FROM THE CLOISTERS [email protected]

was to quote with approval a music critic who The unmentionable had once said that all serious music stopped at Beethoven. More ammunition, perhaps, Mahler for those who insist that the Ratzingers never much liked “modernity”. THE FUNERAL this week of Georg Ratzinger brought back memories of an awkward CHARLES NYAMITI, one of the great pio- encounter with the brother of the Pope neers of inculturation and of African Emeritus for an English filmmaker. theological studies, has died at the age of 89. Mark Dowd had been commissioned by Ordained a priest in 1962 in his native diocese the BBC to profile Pope Benedict XVI ahead of Tabora in Tanzania, Nyamiti studied in of his 2010 visit to the UK, and was delighted Louvain and Vienna. He resisted several offers to have secured an interview with Georg. The to teach in north America or Europe: he chose brothers were close. They had been ordained instead to spend his career teaching in Africa. on the same day in 1951, and after his younger Patrick Strong, a trainer and lecturer in brother was elected pope, a separate apart- mental health issues and safeguarding who ment had been created for Georg in the papal for the past twelve years has given workshops digs in the Apostolic Palace, where he would my step, as Georg was very protective of his at the Apostles of Jesus Seminary in Nairobi, stay during visits to Rome from Bavaria. little brother,” Dowd told us. He managed to where Professor Nyamiti lived and taught, Dowd turned up at the Ratzinger home in keep out of trouble. When the camera stopped told us: “His room was next to mine and we Regensburg for his appointment. “I’d prepared recording, he relaxed, and made small talk shared many animated exchanges. He meticulously for the encounter,” he told us, about Georg’s role as the director of a boys’ regarded himself as part European by virtue “even remembering to address him correctly choir school. “He asked me if I enjoyed clas- of his long association with Louvain and as ‘Herr Domkappellmeister’.” sical music and who my composer of Vienna and was always asking me about the The interview had to traverse tricky terri- inspiration was. ‘Gustav Mahler’, I said. A Church in Europe. He was the outstanding tory: the brothers’ membership of the Hitler look of horror passed over Georg’s face. If African theologian of his generation. My abid- Youth, the clerical sex abuse scandal in the we’d started on this before the interview got ing memory of him was sitting in his chair Church, and the continuing dysfunction in started,” Dowd told us, “I’m not sure we’d have by an open door, drafting the latest edition the Holy See over reforms to the Curia and got past the first question.” of one of his many books, but always ready the Vatican’s finances. “I’d been told to watch Herr Domkappellmeister’s parting shot to engage anyone passing by in conversation.”

PUZZLES

PRIZE CROSSWORD No. 715 Enigma Across 22 See 11 Across 9 ------Magellan; sixteenth-century 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 Devotion said to have originated with 23 Outer casing of a jet engine (7) Portuguese explorer (9)

7 8 8 St Dominic (6) 24 Otto Lilienthal (late nineteenth century) 14 Film of Ronald Harwood’s play 8 The fictional Mr ------was a nobody (6) was the first really successful user of this (6) “The ------” starred Anthony Hopkins and 9 10 According to Hebrews 13:2 one may be so 25 One of those whose wings fill the evening Ian McKellen (7) 10 11 when entertaining angels (7) in Yeats’ “I will arise and go now” (6) 15 Painter brother-in-law of Mantegna 11 (& 22 Acr) Words announcing imminent (fifteenth/sixteenth century) (7) closing of doors at a conclave (5,5) 16 Small musical instrument whose felt 12 13 Down 12 Surname of actor whose character’s 1 Second name of St Oscar Romero (7) hammers strike steel plates (7) 14 14 15 16 catchphrase was “Just one more thing” (4) 2 Birth nationality of Natalie Portman (7) 19 Term for Maori nose-to-nose greeting (5) 15 16 17 18 13 They provide horizontal access and 3 Member of a mendicant order (5) 20 Surname of actress playing Lady Ludlow

19 20 19 21 20 drainage in mines (5) 4 Popular name of Lunaria Annua (7) in BBC’s Cranford (5) 17 “In which Piglet does a very ----- thing 5 In the song “Chicago” ----- Street is called 21 Fabric used in heavy-duty lining or 22 23 (Winnie the Pooh, A. A. Milne) (5) “That Great Street” (5) upholstery (5) 18 His bones are in Durham Cathedral 6 It is an aerophone, and the hydraulics is its

24 25 since 1022 (4) earliest ancestor (5)

Please send your answers to: Crossword Competition 11 July, SUDOKU | Challenging Solution to the 20 June 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 God, Miracles and Pilgrimage numbers 1 to 9. – 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 20 June crossword No. 712 Across: 7 Upsets; 8 Homily; 10 Trivial; 11 Norse; 12 Roes; 13 Fonts; 17 Pupil; 18 Slur; 22 Right; 23 Harmony; 24 Exeunt; 25 Evader. Down: 1 Mustard; 2 Aspired; 3 Stoic; 4 Hornets; 5 Liars; 6 Byres; www.oup.com 9 Algorithm; 14 Mustang; 15 Almonds; 16 Prayers; 19 Greek; 20 Egret; 21 Bravo.

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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.

Prison sort of works TOPIC OF THE WEEK l In your review (Books, 27 June) of Amanda Brown’s The Prison Doctor: Women Inside, Throw off the white man’s burden the strapline quotes Michael Howard’s assertion that “prison THE ARTICLES of Bryan Massingale (“The slave trader turned abolitionist. But if there works” and Dr Brown’s reply only thing that matters”, 6 June) and Tobias were already a Newton statue, who is to say that it definitely doesn’t. I Winright (“White privilege – a confession”, it would not be criticised, even pulled down? disagree with both. 13 June) give a one-sided account of the After all, the present argument rarely Like Dr Brown, I am a plight of people of colour. What about the allows for nuance. Nelson’s images are healthcare professional and Africans on the continent who were not questioned and there are proposals to have worked with some of the traded across the Atlantic? As a pioneer remove Drake’s statue from Plymouth Hoe. most marginalised and editor of the Nigeria Journal of Theology I Victoria, too, is in the sights of the vulnerable people. While Dr had the problem of finding contributors. iconoclasts. The train of righteous anger is Brown looks after their health The academics always found a reason for gathering speed and few are willing to in prison, many of the homeless not writing articles: they would prefer to suggest it slow down lest they themselves people that I have looked after publish in a foreign journal. Industrialists be labelled as reactionaries or racists. over the past 20 years have make similar excuses. For instance, they TERRY PHILPOT recently been in prison, and a make very good shoes in Nigeria, shoes LIMPSFIELD CHART, SURREY huge proportion of them which they export to neighbouring quickly return to prison. It’s not countries. In order to sell their product, I AM SURPRISED that Melanie McDonagh unusual for my patients to be they would label them “Made in Italy”. (Notebook, 4 July) should overlook one of liberated from prison into a The colonial policy of “the white man’s the world’s leading abolitionists, when homeless hostel and for them to burden” has enduring effect. Africans still suggesting that Catholics were not be back in prison again before assume that what comes from Europe is prominent in the campaigns to abolish permanent accommodation can preferable to what is indigenous. slavery. be found for them. Many have (DR) LUKE MBEFO CSSP The great Daniel O’Connell was a fervent been so socialised into prison BAD SOODEN-ALLENDORF, GERMANY if liberal Catholic. He not only spoke and life that they find life on the agitated against slavery; he declined to set outside intolerably stressful and IN THE LIGHT of the present obsession with foot in America as long as slavery persisted so, either deliberately or raking up the past and righting past and refused donations to the cause of inadvertently, they quickly wrongs, could I respectfully request that we Catholic emancipation from any American return to the security of prison. ask the Church of England for our source tainted by slavery. His noble stand One young man told me that cathedrals back, many of which were stolen against slavery was a major cause of the he loved the music of Johnny from us at the Reformation? Most (not all) split with the Young Ireland movement, Cash because it reminded him of of these magnificent edifices were built for some of whose members actively supported the good times inside. For many Catholic worship. It would be great to have it and all of whom believed that nothing of my patients, life is so hard that them back. Better still, to share them. should be allowed to interfere with the Irish a spell in prison improves their (FR) BRYAN WELLS, cause, even if that meant turning a blind quality of life. This is particularly ORPINGTON, KENT eye to injustices elsewhere in the world. true of many of the women I’ve O’Connell did not compromise his non - looked after. Many are in abusive YOUR EDITORIAL (“Statues and the winds violent passion for justice. He was the most relationships. Some have told of change”, 4 July) makes the not prominent lay Catholic of his day in Europe. me how desperate they are to get unreasonable suggestion that there ought to KEVIN CROSS a custodial sentence; not that be a statue to the penitent John Newton, DUBLIN they want to spend a long time in prison, but because they need some respite. One woman told prisoners for life outside. of relief when a young person is New normal me that she needed a few months However, there is a way in incarcerated as their parents inside to get away from her abusive which prison does work: it now know that they are safe. l Many individuals and groups partner who spent all their money improves the health of This sense of relief usually goes are trying to work out just what on drugs, stole her medication prisoners. I can tell hand in hand with a strong the “new normal” will mean for and was violent towards her. immediately that a patient has sense of guilt. them. I don’t get a sense of any In the sense that Michael been recently liberated from This comes at huge cost. It serious such searching within Howard meant, prison doesn’t prison because they look so costs an immense amount of our Church. May I suggest that work. Although for some it may much healthier. The daily taxpayers’ money to keep we start by looking for a new be a deterrent, for many it isn’t. routine, regular meals, good someone in prison, but more theology? For most prisoners it does access to healthcare and very important is the human cost, Why? Because Catholics and nothing to rehabilitate them restricted access to alcohol and particularly the cost to the other Christians are still living and does not address the root illicit drugs definitely improves prisoners’ families. from a medieval pattern of cause of their offending the health of most prisoners. Prison works to some extent thinking and praying. How do behaviour. It is my experience One other way in which but definitely not in the way we find a theology for the that, with the exception of lifers prison works is in reducing the that it was intended. twenty-first century? being released on licence, very stress on parents of young MARTIN MURRAY MARY WILKINSON little is done to prepare offenders. There is often a sense GLASGOW EXETER

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LETTERS

l I appreciate Ladislas Orsy’s much of Western society Damascus and Emmaus but many other things possible. words about Sunday Mass (“Religion remixed”, 4 July) is to also along the way of the Cross, I, for one, continue to be Obligation (“Word from the be welcomed. It does raise the like Simon of Cyrene; that “in gracefully amazed that the Cloisters”, 4 July). The wording question, especially in the the Church of Christ, while all Church in whatever iteration of the Catechism of the Catholic context of the New Evangelism, members are equal not all are continues to attract queer Church (CCC 2181) on the of what we are doing about it. equally members”; that the lay people, because of the subject, which you quote in the I wonder, for example, if the apostolate is not the continuing harm the Church article, sounds very threatening. Jesuit push for the “preferential participation of the laity in the seems willing to inflict on us. It’s as if one is being summoned option for the poor”, surely a confusion of the clergy but an (REVD) CARLTON KELLEY to a court hearing, with dire providential gift of the Holy exercise of their own priesthood GRAYSLAKE, ILLINOIS, USA consequences if you do not Spirit, needs now to be enlarged received at baptism; that the attend. to include the preferential pastoral priest, like the Alone in a crowd Surely the Eucharist is a option for the confused? conductor in an orchestra, does celebration of the life, death During the chaos of Paris ’68, not create the music, but by his l Like Lucy Lethbridge, I and resurrection of Jesus the the Jesuits, in conjunction with deft guidance lets it emerge. I thought Alan Bennett’s Talking Christ, which people are invited the Diocese of Nantes, took a found the review inspirational. Heads was ideal lockdown to celebrate freely, willingly and shop in the city centre and gave (MGR) ALEX REBELLO television, a single actor talking joyfully? When this pandemic is daily expositions on the nature BARMOUTH, GWYNEDD to camera on an otherwise over, why not rewrite CCC 2181 of the Incarnation; this for a disused set (Arts, 27 June). And and drop the words “obligation” whole year. Presumably, post- Employment rights then the credits rolled and I saw and “grave sin”? Or is the lockdown, there will be plenty that no fewer than 67 people Church just going to go back to of empty shops in British cities. l One must wonder why any were credited with bringing this the usual “old normal”? The BERNARD CARTWRIGHT person of good will would to our screens! pandemic, distressing as it is for STOURBRIDGE, WEST MIDLANDS deny equal and protected BRUCE CARLIN many people, is an opportunity opportunity in employment to a DEWSBURY, WEST YORKSHIRE for new vision. Priests and people person who is LGBTQ (Church FRANK GRAHAM MHM in the World, 27 June). What Knight to remember LIVERPOOL l I read with keen interest Christian principle does this Roderick Strange’s review of uphold? Is it a Christian good l Catherine Pepinster (Letters, l With the anxious discussion Stephen Cottrell’s On for people to lose their 4 July) is unfairly harsh on Sir about numbers permitted in Priesthood (Books, 4 July), livelihoods and thus housing, Keir Starmer for dropping his church buildings, it is worth which summarises succinctly food and healthcare? Is it a knighthood on occasion. The recalling that Jesus did not say: the life and ministry of the Christian good to put people on Pope’s views may be helpful “Where two or three hundred pastoral priest. the street? after his own recent difficulties are gathered in my name …” It made me further reflect As to the very stale canard of in this area (View from Rome, (FR) DES O’DONNELL OMI that while priests shepherd complementarity, Archbishop 11 April): “Francis has never DUBLIN their people, there are times Gomez needs to do a great deal looked to derive his authority when people pastor their more reading in both theology from titles.” Help for disbelief priests; that as a shepherd, the and science. I would remind him Or is he too just playing a “PR priest needs to listen in faithful that “the glory of God is a person game” or trying to be a “man of l The exposition by Tara personal prayer to the Spirit of fully alive”. That surely must the people”? Isabella Burton of the current God; that some meet Christ not mean, at the very least, the right ROBERT FLYNN “disbelief and disaffiliation” in always on the roads to to employment which makes so SOLIHULL, WEST MIDLANDS

THE LIVING SPIRIT AND LITURGICAL CALENDAR

Today, in the midst of our uneasy This is the heart of God, realizing ✦ CALENDAR ✦ culture that appears to be prayer, the cry of the that God will dominated by casual brutality, heart that has emptied never force us to Sunday 12 July: Fifthteenth Sunday of the Year military corruption, life itself of everything love him; ... if you (Year A) cheapened by the lust for control most precious to it – are not able to Monday 13 July: over its every aspect, and the even its own idea of itself understand (and Feria or St Henry destruction of the biosphere, we and its god – so that it may accept) your own self, Tuesday 14 July: are still confronted with outward be filled with the fire of the you will not be able to Feria or St Camillus de Lellis, Priest Wednesday 15 July: and visible signs of an immense living God. understand (or accept) what is St Bonaventure, inward and spiritual grace, a gift of MAGGIE ROSS beyond you. Bishop and Doctor the Holy Spirit, which is the FROM THE FIRE OF YOUR LIFE: ST BONAVENTURE Thursday 16 July: possibility to choose to let go. A SOLITUDE SHARED (DARTON, LONGMAN FROM LORD, MAKE ME AN INSTRUMENT OF Feria or Our Lady YOUR PEACE: THE COMPLETE PRAYERS OF of Mount Carmel Out letting go, particularly of AND TODD, 1992) Friday 17 July: the wish to isolate and elevate ST FRANCIS, ST CLARE AND OTHER EARLY Feria ourselves by controlling and Return to yourself; enter into FRANCISCANS, BY JON M. SWEENEY Saturday 18 July: scapegoating others, is a small part your heart; ponder what you (PARACLETE PRESS, 2020) Feria of this offering. It is a holocaust of were, are, should have been, Sunday 19 July: Sixteenth Sunday of the Year greed and security, things familiar called to be; ... meditate in your You were within me, Lord, but I and therefore safe, concepts of heart; let your spirit brood. Plow was outside myself. self, of how things ought to be and this field, work on yourself; strive ST AUGUSTINE For the Extraordinary Form calendar go to www.lms.org.uk never will, of how they might for freedom within, the freedom FROM A SUNLIT ABSENCE BY MARTIN LAIRD have been ... that leads to relationship with (OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2011)

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BOOKS

•OUR REVIEWERS• PIERS PLOWRIGHT is a former BBC radio producer • TIM COOPER is a London-based freelance writer • LUCY LETHBRIDGE is The Tablet’s TV critic ROGER HARDY is the author of The Muslim Revolt: A Journey Through Political Islam • EUAN CAMERON’s novel Madeleine is just out in paperback Chasing our tales A former bishop engages in a personal reckoning with faith and fable PIERS PLOWRIGHT

PHOTO: CHRIS BOOTH know about the universe, the biblical and sci- Stories We Tell Ourselves entific accounts of Creation, the insights of RICHARD HOLLOWAY mystical religion, and the challenges presented (CANONGATE, 272 PP, £16.99) to faith and reason by experience. And it’s a journey that should be shared, by believers TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £15.29 • TEL 020 7799 4064 and unbelievers. About time we stopped shouting at each other over the barricades. Holloway’s heroes are the “grown-ups”: EADING this wise, witty and provoca- Primo Levi, chemist and humanist; Dietrich tive book, I was haunted by a poem: Bonhoeffer, Protestant martyr under the Rseventeenth-century Welsh poet and Nazis, who wrote – in the shadow of the gal- doctor Henry Vaughan’s “Vanity of Spirit”. It lows – “Before God and with God we live begins with a hermit/philosopher, “quite spent without God”; Joan Didion, novelist and with thoughts”, deciding to leave his cell for essayist, who rejects the comfort of the stories a bit of fresh air and lie down beside a small told to her as a child and young adult; the spring of water. Here he examines the natural Richard Holloway philosopher Jonathan Rée, who sets out to world to see if he can get any of the great free philosophy from self-referential point- answers. He can’t, but “having pass’d / exploration he’s not looking in the distance scoring and change it from a “museum” into Through all the creatures came at last / To any more but, like Henry Vaughan, deep inside a “carnival”, and another martyr – Catholic search myself, where I did find / Traces and himself and others. The book ends with his this time – the Franciscan friar Maximilian sounds of a strange kind”. own “story”, but on the way we meet the nar- Kolbe, who gave up his life in Auschwitz for Richard Holloway, former Bishop of ratives and the problems that have dogged another prisoner. Edinburgh and Primus of the Scottish us since we began to talk, think and write: Episcopal Church, is on the same journey in suffering, pain, doubt, inequality, the foolish- ONE “HERO” you cannot remove from the his latest book. Its subtitle is “Making Meaning ness of fundamentalism, man’s capacity for mix is Jesus himself, with his radical new in a Meaningless Universe”. And his path is cruelty. Holloway is clear-sighted about all Gospel and, particularly in the Beatitudes, shaped by examining the stories humans have these, and quite rightly ticks off Christian lib- his reversal of the values that have largely told and tell themselves to find that meaning. erals like me who attack, sometimes rather powered the Old Testament. The cleansing Religious, mystical, scientific, psychological. smugly, the atheist camp. Among the sources power of forgiveness has entered the argument When Holloway resigned his bishopric in he cites is the philosopher William James’ forever and moves all of us who struggle for 2000, declaring himself an “after religious”, Varieties of Religious Experience, the book answers. Here Holloway and “the Faithful” and putting his hope squarely in humanity, that came out of his 1901 Gifford Lectures. will find themselves completely in step. he did not give up that search for meaning, James, an unbeliever, is discussing the “poten- Sometimes, in his search for clarity and hon- in and beyond the world, which had presum- tial forms of consciousness” that might lie esty, though, I find him oversimplifying: for ably once driven his faith. In 2004 he wrote beyond normal waking consciousness. “No example I cannot believe, as Holloway sug- a book called Looking in the Distance: The account of the universe in its totality can be gests, that the biblical account of Creation Human Search For Meaning. In this second final,” he writes, “which leaves these other forms began quite casually as a late-night yarn round of consciousness quite disregarded … At any the fire, or that it is enough to stand at the rate they forbid a premature closing of our side of the road of faith, looking both ways accounts with reality [Holloway’s italics].” for ever. At some point, a Christian has to cross it. But this is an important book, for all THIS IS SUCH an important statement: the of us who want to understand the world and temptation to close down our exploration of each other. You put it down refreshed. why and how we live because of the demands Near the beginning, Richard Holloway



is
run by Church House Bookshop of the materialist world, and the failure of so quotes the famous passage from The Brothers – one of the UK’s leading religious many answers we used to rely on, must be Karamazov where Ivan Karamazov, talking booksellers with thousands resisted. Not by retreating into old simplicities to his devout brother, Alyosha, after making of titles in stock. or sacrificing our humanity, but by doing what a study of the suffering of children, says, in Holloway does here, taking a larger view and spite of his desire for a religious answer to To place an order call: +44 (0)20 7799 4064 deeper look at how we have answered these the question “what is it all for?”, that he cannot Email: [email protected] questions in the past and continue to do so. go on believing. “It’s not that I don’t accept We live, as W.H. Auden points out in his God, Alyosha, I just most respectfully return International P&P charges will apply. famous poem “September 1, 1939”, “lost in a him the ticket.” We come back full circle to      
 haunted wood”, and the ghosts are important. this conversation in Richard Holloway’s final the published review. Our journey should perhaps begin there, as chapter. Whether or not this religious searcher Holloway’s does, taking us through what we will return his, I leave you to discover.

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BOOKS

PHOTO: PA/S&G BARRATTS/EMPICS SPEED READING Street play, 1951

TIM COOPER discovers watery wilds

In The Land of Maybe (Short Books, £14.99; Fresh air and fun over bits of wasteland, perhaps still bomb- Tablet price £13.49), Tim cratered. There is much waxing nostalgic for Ecott writes about a year LUCY LETHBRIDGE a blithe proximity to physical danger – for spent in the Faroes, 18 playing “knifey”, for example, which involved remote islands off the top of throwing a knife between someone’s legs. Any Scotland. He writes with a British Summer Time Begins: The School watercourse provided hours of dangerous fun passion for nature, which is Summer Holidays 1930-1980 from rafts, dams or fishing. A trainspotting pretty much all there is in a YSENDA MAXTONE GRAHAM 11-year-old in wartime cycled to a station nine place that can be summed (LITTLE, BROWN, 352 PP, £18.99) miles away and ended up in a wood, a dogfight up in three words – sheep, raging above, returning home with shrapnel seabirds and storms – TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £17.09 • TEL 020 7799 4064 in his bicycle basket. What larks! weaving his own Irish Maxtone Graham’s interviewees are almost background into his travels competitive in their desire to convey how around a sparsely inhabited S A CHILD, one of my favourite books cheeseparing their families were. This tells archipelago that clings to a was Noel Streatfeild’s The Growing us something about the mid-twentieth- traditional way of life in the ASummer. In it, a family of four pampered century English middle classes and ideas modern world. urban children (their parents inevitably dis- about character-building (parents having There’s more extreme patched at the beginning by death or disaster) been children in the war) through privation. weather, more seabirds, are sent to rural Ireland to stay with a splendidly There are a number of 1970s foraging recol- and a lot of fish in Lamorna rude aunt they’ve never met. She ignores them lections, for example (I put this down partly Ash’s Dark, Salt, Clear: Life completely and makes them forage for their to the publication of Richard Mabey’s Food in a Cornish Fishing Town own food. They emerge at the end of the sum- for Free in 1972), but, because Maxtone Graham (Bloomsbury, £16.99; mer holidays with their entitled corners rubbed has expanded the social delineations from Tablet price £15.29). Ash off, having learned how to skin rabbits, identify the widest reaches of the middling classes to spent several months living toadstools and other important life skills. include poor working-class experiences such in a close-knit fishing The Growing Summer was published in as hop-picking, this occasionally jars. When community, and she offers a 1966, at the high point of the period covered Rachel Johnson, Boris’ sister, says of family colourful portrait of by Ysenda Maxtone Graham’s witty and per- holidays in Exmoor “we were hungry all the Britain’s largest working ceptive new book about British summer time” and dressed in “semi-rags”, she is talking fishing port, Newlyn, holidays. Like her previous book, Terms & specifically of privilege rather than poverty. looking at how its Conditions, about girls’ boarding schools, this traditional lifestyle is is based on interviews, the earliest memories NONETHELESS, what shines through the threatened by globalisation going back to the 1930s. The time frame of book (and across wide social divides) is the and an influx of affluent Terms & Conditions ended in 1979, with the deep and forgotten pleasure of resourceful- holidaymakers. introduction of the duvet, and British Summer ness, of those long summer holidays being Suzanna Cruickshank Time Begins closes a year later, shortly before an immersive learning experience conducted moved to Cumbria after the introduction by IBM of the first personal by no one but yourself, an intense communion climbing one mountain and computer. This marked the beginning of with detail. It didn’t have to be highbrow (“I falling in love with the Lake screen dominance in childhood, the moment got over Wagner early,” remembers Rowan District, where she is now when children drew the curtains and turned Williams); it might be making a go-cart out an outdoor swimming for entertainment inside the home rather of an old pram, working in a shop, learning guide. For those of us than outside – when watching sharks on to crochet or spending time with grandparents accustomed to swimming YouTube forever dulled the excitement of fish- with strange Edwardian memories. mostly in the sea, or a ing for minnows in real life. With its bracing reminiscence of bucking- swimming pool, Swimming From the demob anticipation of the last up and making-do, British Summer Time Wild in the Lake District few days of term, to the dog days of September Begins should be inspiring reading as we (Vertebrate Publishing, when school uniform came out of storage, emerge from lockdown. And for modern chil- £17.99; Tablet price £16.19) now too tight, Maxtone Graham is a great dren, atomised in the endless click-click of opens our minds to a world chronicler of boredom, of loafing, of making insta-land, it could be a manual for real free- of swim-hikes, guided an adventure from nothing much: “A wasp dom, a break from the numbingly conformist swims and all-women buzzing at the window; a lawnmower in the modern belief that one’s own company is a walking groups amid the distance”; nothing but the Army & Navy kind of failure. As Maxtone Graham puts it: towering Cumbrian peaks. Stores’ catalogue to read and, of course, “the “The lonely ones weren’t always bored, the eternal allure of the out of bounds”. Endless bored ones weren’t always lonely and the soli- hours of pleasure could be had from rambling tary ones weren’t always miserable.”

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BOOKS

RECENTLY Credo?: Religion and Psychoanalysis / PATRICK CASEMENT / AEON BOOKS, £9.99; TABLET PRICE £9 PUBLISHED A psychoanalyst examines the rich struggle between dogmatic certainty and doubt

PHOTO: PA/S&G BARRATTS/EMPICS Following the money then the damage had been done. Salafism, wherever it had taken root, acquired a momen- ROGER HARDY tum of its own. It became mainstream. There are a few flaws. It is misleading to call Boko Haram “the world’s deadliest terror The Call: group” when, as the author makes clear else- Inside the Global Saudi Religious Project where, it is essentially a localised insurgency. KRITHIKA VARAGUR (That dubious honour goes to Islamic State, (COLUMBIA GLOBAL REPORTS, 232 PP, £11.99) to which the Nigerian group is now affiliated.) Al-Qaeda didn’t “destroy Saudi oilfields in TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £10.79 • TEL 020 7799 4064 2004”, though it did attack one facility in 2006. And the account of two of the big Saudi charities, Al-Haramain and the Benevolence HE PERVASIVE influence of Saudi Foundation, is inadequate and in some petrodollars and Saudi proselytisation The late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia respects inaccurate. Thas become a commonplace, but one This short and accessible book is neverthe- seldom fortified by hard data and cool analysis. tain world, it provides an anchor of certainty. less welcome, because it helps make sense of Krithika Varagur, who covers Indonesia for But while Salafism, both inside and outside an important and complex phenomenon. In The Guardian, examines this influence in a Saudi Arabia, can be quietist and non-violent, two respects it offers grounds for believing novel way by taking case studies from across it can also fertilise violence and intolerance, the situation is not entirely bleak. First, it the Muslim world – from Indonesia to Nigeria serving as a gateway to extremism. In makes clear, as many books do not, that the to Kosovo. The result is illuminating. Indonesia it helped produce the jihadists who Saudi da’wa is chaotic and haphazard. The The Saudi da’wa (or call) got under way in carried out the Bali bombings in 2002. In three main actors – the state, the NGOs and the 1970s when King Faisal adopted Islamic Nigeria it helped produce Boko Haram, which wealthy individuals – seldom worked in close solidarity as the cornerstone of his foreign policy. in addition to its well-publicised kidnappings coordination, and senior princes often had Flush with new oil wealth, the Kingdom started has killed an estimated 35,000 people. In little idea of where the aid was ending up, a programme of building mosques and schools, Kosovo it helped encourage a stream of young and with what result. Saudi responsibility and distributing Qur’ans, scholarships and Muslims to join the jihad in Syria. was both witting and unwitting. medical aid, around the world. Along with the Everywhere, Salafism nurtured a climate Second, during the last 20 years, the aid it exported its own brand of Islam, of intolerance, directed principally at Sufis situation has evolved. To quote the author: Wahhabism, part of the wider family of austerely and Shia – and, by extension, Shia Iran. The “Can America, and the West, learn to live with conservative Sunni Islam known as Salafism. author points out that after the al-Qaeda a world where ‘fundamentalist’ or conservative The appeal of Salafism, even to highly edu- attacks of 9/11 the flow of money diminished, Islam is a permanent part of the religious cated Muslims, is – as Krithika Varagur and in some cases dried up, as Saudi charities spectrum? It must. But it can also take heart discovers on her travels – its simplicity. It came under closer scrutiny at home and abroad that two decades of pressure on Saudi Arabia appears to offer all the answers. In an uncer- – and as oil wealth began to decline. But by have not been fruitless.”

Here be dragons HIS BRIEF, unusual, but supremely point of view in four short and very tense sea- effective novel is set on the Franco- sonal chapters. He is adept at capturing the EUAN CAMERON TItalian border, in the Jurassic Alps, and essence and mystery of mountain scenery in is narrated by Stanislas, or Stan, a professor all its various moods, and he does so with of palaeontology nearing retirement, who concise, poetic phrasing, sensitively rendered A Hundred Million Years and a Day recalls a story he first heard in the summer into English by Sam Taylor. JEAN-BAPTISTE ANDREA, of 1954, when he was 25. “When the wind blows, hold on to your soul,” TRANSLATED BY SAM TAYLOR Fascinated by fossils since childhood, Stan Gio the guide tells his colleagues as they inch (GALLIC BOOKS, 176 PP, £10.99) had become increasingly obsessed by what he their way desperately slowly with their mules, had been told by an elderly school care- laden with equipment, towards the cave TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £9.89 • TEL 020 7799 4064 taker who had got lost in the mountains inside the frozen glacier. With only when he was a boy and had discovered three metres left of digging with ice the skeleton of a dinosaur, a “dragon”, axes and using burning oil, he reckons inside a cave in a remote mountain they will need a further six days before glacier. Despite his age and the fact they can break into the cave. Tablet binders. that he suffers from vertigo, Stan deter- It would be unfair to reveal the out- mines to organise an expedition to come of the novel to the prospective The perfect way to save ascertain the truth of the story and if possible reader, but what I can say is that I have rarely and store your issues excavate the remains of this mythical “trilobite” read a more powerful or authoritative or “diplodocus”. He assembles a team to account of the poetry of the ice and the excavate the glacier: Umberto, an old friend physical effects of severe cold and freezing To order call: +44 (0)20 8748 8484 who is an experienced Italian mountaineer, temperatures. Jean-Baptiste Andrea conveys or email: [email protected] and Umberto’s young German assistant Peter, the raw beauty of white-outs, blizzards and together with Gio, an elderly, highly respected extremely hostile conditions with the breath- local guide, who speaks a Venetian patois. taking intensity of a good thriller. He also WWW.THETABLET.CO.UK Jean-Baptiste Andrea, whose second novel explores the limits of human physical SINCE 1840 this is, recounts his tale partly from a child’s endurance with total conviction.

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• DIGITAL ARTS • Wagner’s RING CYCLE from Opera North • A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM from Shakespeare’s Globe, BBC iPlayer A WHITE, WHITE DAY, directed by Hlynur Pálmason, Curzon Home Cinema • All links at WWW.TINYURL.COM/TABLETDIGITALARTS Woman in the wings Did a Catholic conservative pave the way for the Trump presidency? Lucy Lethbridge on TV’s new dramatisation of recent history, Mrs. America

BBC/FX, SABRINA LANTOS N MARCH 2016, a 92-year-old woman wearing a bright pink jacket joined the Republican candidate on stage at a pri- Cate Blanchett as mary rally in St Louis, the city of her Phyllis Schlafly birth.I He had, she said, “the courage and the in Mrs. America energy … to do what the grassroots want him to do. Because this is a grassroots uprising.” The woman was Phyllis Schlafly, the con- servative Catholic campaigner who became an icon of the Republican Right; she died six months after that appearance in St Louis, after waging a war against liberalism, femi- nism and globalism that spanned nearly three quarters of a century. This week saw the launch of a new drama series on BBC2, Mrs. America (two episodes on 8 July), which revisits the political and cultural backdrop to the 1972 campaign that led to Schlafly’s derailment of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the American Constitution. It finds a landscape that is both a radical contrast to today and – with its knotty questions of gender and female empowerment looking now differently knot- ted – surprisingly similar. It is also the story of the feminist campaigners who opposed Schlafly. Forceful, intelligent women thrash- ing out ideas about freedom and equality: bring it on! And what a cast! Cate Blanchett as Schlafly, Rose Byrne as Gloria Steinem, Margo Martindale as Bella Abzug, Uzo Aduba as Shirley Chisholm and (scene-stealingly) Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedan. Phyllis Schlafly was raised in a Catholic family during the Depression; her father’s long-term unemployment meant her mother had to return to work as a librarian to support the family. Following a law degree she went into politics, but failed in her attempts to secure a Republican seat in Congress. By the early 1970s Schlafly was also an are so many more pressing issues.” But by IN 1964, Schlafly’s book, A Choice Not an Echo, expert on nuclear strategy and a formidable 1972 she had come out against the amend- denounced the northeastern Republican elite debater. She had been a prominent supporter ment with an essay entitled “What’s Wrong and their allies in Wall Street: it sold three of the right-wing Republican presidential With ‘Equal Rights’ for Women?” million copies. By now married to fellow candidate, Barry Goldwater, in 1964; and With ruthless efficiency, Schlafly mobilised Catholic and wealthy attorney, Fred Schlafly, was as obsessively anti-communist as she conservative women, the religious Right, on and a mother of six, she was happy (or happy- was devoutly Catholic. the grounds that the ERA would destroy ish) to be described as a “housewife from Mrs. America kicks off in 1970 when women’s existing rights rather than expand Illinois”, but that was hardly the full story. Her Schlafly had just failed in her third bid for them: they would lose their protections. Under successful campaign against the ERA was just Congress. As the series creator, Dahvi Waller, the amendment, she argued, women would the beginning of a career that helped to steer (also behind Mad Men – of which there are be drafted into the services; there would be the Republican Party further towards the Right interesting echoes here) has it, the ERA, then abortion on demand; men would no longer – as one obituarist noted, by “thumbing her on its way to ratification, wasn’t of great inter- be made to pay alimony; mothers would be nose at both liberal and conservative estab- est to Schlafly until she spotted a political forced out to work and their children cared lishments [she] paved the way for Trump, a platform she couldn’t resist. “I don’t know for by strangers. It was a threat to family – man who tapped into voter discontent …” what all the fuss is about,” she says. “There CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/FLICKR, WARREN K. LEFFLER RADIO Phyllis Schlafly demonstrating Sounds of the times outside the White The UK has a new radio station - but House in 1977 did we need another?

D.J. TAYLOR

Launch programmes TIMES RADIO (DIGITAL)

OME MIGHT think we have too many radio stations already, and wonder why we need any more. As for Times Radio, launched last week amidS terrific fanfare, its principal objective – shared, one might add, with Times news- papers – seems to be to annoy the BBC. Certainly at least three of its presenters – John Pienaar, Carole Walker and Mariella Frostrup – have been poached from Broadcasting House, while the former Times CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21 Rose Byrne, serious behind a towering mane Literary Supplement editor Stig Abell, co- and the erosion of family marked the begin- and pink lenses, makes a convincing Gloria presenter of the breakfast spot (6-10 a.m.), ning of chaos. Steinem. Like Mrs Schlafly, Steinem has to could until fairly recently be heard on Radio There were many contradictions (or make compromises to get the message out – 4’s Front Row. hypocrisies) in the Schlafly political position, Bella Abzug, the feminist lawyer, tells her that A second aim, naturally enough, is to gin- and Mrs. America teases out some of them. like it or not she has to be the face of the cam- ger up sales of The Times and The Sunday Phyllis is always beautifully groomed, exercises paign because she’s got the prettiest face. Times by way of cross-fertilisation. Starting daily to keep trim for her husband, and is a Schlafly was asked to “take notes” during at 5 a.m. the station is on air for five-sixths fierce advocate for the stay-at-home wife and a political strategy meeting where she was of the day – the remaining four hours are mother yet always herself burning with intel- the leading expert but also the only woman; given over to a résumé of what went before lectual and political ambition – with staff to Steinem was told by the chief investor of Ms., – and offers half-a-dozen daily programmes take care of the homemaking she promoted a man, that he’d only given her the job because and is exceptionally news-heavy. Stig and for other women. Cate Blanchett is superb, he admired her legs – and he is only half jok- his co-presenter, Aasmah Mir, front an alter- swinging into action in her twinsets, glowing ing. The patriarchy is made up of patronising native version of the Today programme, with self-satisfaction, bringing home-made creeps in bad suits. while Matt Chorley (10 a.m. to 1 p.m.) and muffins to a fundraiser, suppressing her irri- Viewers will need to concentrate to keep Pienaar (4-7 p.m.) submit the political and tation at the stupidity of the men around her on top of the internecine political arguments economic plums pulled out of the bran-tub while at the same time exhorting them to step within the feminist movement. In the pro- to yet more relentless analysis. up to the manly role that is their calling. ERA gang (which is split politically – or at She has a face that is beautifully expressive least more than one would assume from the ON THE PLUS side, it is all extremely pro- of unspoken (and perhaps not even realised) perspective of 2020), it is the Republican fessional and clearly benefits from a feeling. Her husband (played with a mixture feminist, Jill Ruckelshaus, who dismisses top-of-the-range contacts book. Thus the of weediness and steel by John Slattery) dis- Schlafly as “a right-wing nut from Illinois”. debate about Hong Kong involved the for- courages her trying again for Congress as he Some characters are drawn crudely, every mer Legislative Council member, Emily wonders who’s going to look after the children perceived aspect of the female social experi- Lau, and ex-foreign secretary, Sir Malcolm if she goes to live in the “lefty, Godless swamp- ence getting a look-in. I’d never heard before Rifkind. Culinary matters featured Heston land” of D.C. In 1972, it couldn’t possibly be of the conservative Catholic organiser (and Blumenthal and there was also space for him. Of the Schlaflys’ Catholicism – Phyllis founder of the anti-communist Cardinal such radioland trusties as Michael Portillo. was almost single-handedly responsible for Mindszenty Foundation) Eleanor Schlafly, On the negative, most pundits seemed to the Republican Party moving to a pro-life Fred’s sister, but she surely deserves more agree that the prime minister, star guest of position in the 1980s – we have seen almost than to be portrayed as a weepy and disap- Stig and Aasmah’s inaugural sit-down, was nothing so far except the family saying grace pointed spinster. There is something a little given a pretty soft ride. It would be a shame at mealtimes. This aspect is crucial but so far too obvious too about the scene when Phyllis’ if all the Tory politicians who ostentatiously the series appears unsure what to do with it. black housekeeper is cleaning the kitchen avoid Today simply end up trading bromides while on TV there is an interview with Shirley with the Times team. EPISODE TWO introduces the pro-ERA fem- Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Amid the relentless drip of headlines and inists in Manhattan and it will be pretty clear Congress. Steinem incidentally wanted to put opinion, one looks for an ethical side. The to most viewers of Mrs. America who is having Chisholm on the cover of the first edition of nearest thing to this would seem to be the best party in 1972. Back in suburban Ms. but was told Wonder Woman would be Frostrup (1-4 p.m.), whose slot is billed as Illinois, the Schlaflys have a merry chuckle less contentious and more profitable. “a chance to escape the hurly burly of daily about the “libbers”: “Well, they’re no fun,” But arguably Phyllis Schlafly’s greatest tri- news”. The adjective “thoughtful” has also smiles Phyllis as though anyone could possibly umph came half a century after her victory been used. On the day I tuned in they were think otherwise. Ha! Cut to the Guggenheim over the ERA. At her funeral in the packed discussing the possible role of the Covid- in New York, a funky soundtrack and the basilica of St Louis, the candidate she had 19 crisis in helping to reduce obesity rates, opening party for Steinem’s Ms. magazine endorsed weeks before ascended to the but no doubt the focus will widen. It is all and lots of clever, independent women with podium to give the eulogy – and as he did so, very slickly done, but this is a crowded mar- blissfully untidy hair wearing fabulous sun- he turned and gave the waiting cameras a big ket and the first month’s listening figures glasses and gossiping about Andy Warhol. thumbs-up. He was, of course, Donald Trump. will make interesting reading.

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ARTS

YOUTUBE THEATRE Kid”, by Matilda Ibini, features still pho- tographs of a young girl under the Emergency a long disembodied voice of the child’s grandmother, time in the making passing on advice before death. Although, to Racism in the spotlight powerful effect, it is left unclear whether the for theatre under threat older woman is dying from the new flu. Both “Your Work” by Anoushka Lucas and MARK LAWSON Kalungi Ssebandeke’s “The Fire This Time” (on which Lucas also features) are mainly or The Protest: Black Lives Matter wholly sung monologues. But the most strik- BUSH THEATRE YOUTUBE CHANNEL ing use of the restrictions is Fehinti Balogun’s “You Just Don’t Get It – And It Hurts”, con- FTER ALMOST four months of all sisting of a 10-minute WhatsApp conversation UK theatres being temporarily shut, (complete with typos and thinking pauses) the fear of several more major between two people about the use of the venues following the Nuffield Benedict Lombe in Do You Hear Us Now? N-word at a party both attended. The absence SouthamptonA into permanent closure finally of voices means that we can never be certain persuaded the government to agree, on 6 July, 19 isolation have understandably dealt with of the gender or race behind the speech bub- after long resistance, a package of grants and the pandemic, these half-dozen works respond bles, which removes easy nudges about whose loans to keep the cultural industry solvent. to the focus on the value of black lives follow- side to be on. The £1.57 billion is very welcome although, ing the protests caused by the suffocation of The separate pieces are united by a fasci- with performance still outlawed, the next step George Floyd, an African American, by a white nating undercurrent of debate about the form is for politicians to explain why it is safe to Minneapolis policeman in late May. that political protest should most effectively sit with others on a plane but not at a play. Having been given, through this new mate- take, challenging stereotype of the tone (angry) The continuing absence of live theatre is rial, late entry to the genre, the Bush project and form (rap/gospel) expected from black made additionally painful by reminders – seems clearly to have benefitted from seeing pushback art – Lucas’ song is a ballad and through the online lockdown projects – of the strengths and weaknesses of others’ Ssebandeke’s starts as rap but then moves the artistic creativity and social contribution attempts. into melody. we are missing. The Zoom monologue has become the Combining a format imposed by a medical The Protest: Black Lives Matter, a set of six default of lockdown drama, but only one of crisis with the issues provoked by a moral short digital pieces that the Bush Theatre in these six – “Do You Hear Us Now?”, by one, The Protest is among the best work west London is streaming on YouTube, will Benedict Lombe – is a self-filmed soliloquy. achieved in emergency theatre and, rightly, be doubly useful to future historians as a Subtly varying that form, “Black” by Roy does not spare white liberals. Lucas’ list of record of the time, during the early summer Williams is an interior monologue – exposing her post-Floyd emotions includes feeling of 2020, when two emergencies blurred. the hidden vulnerability of a young man about “angry that my white friends are suddenly so Whereas most dramas made so far in Covid- to leave home to join a protest – and “Hey well-meaning”.

MUSIC in Rough and Rowdy Ways. Though the title, The best for last? referring to a Waylon Jennings song, suggests New Dylan album up with the greatest another set of country covers, it is in fact the first album of new (or nearly new) songs for eight years. Significantly, “Murder Most Foul” BRIAN MORTON is on a disc of its own, which most purchasers Bob Dylan: Rough and Rowdy Ways will soon leave unplayed, largely because the COLUMBIA other songs are so good. Like all geniuses, Dylan has the ability to put out masterpieces LOT OF people thought that 2012’s and rubbish with the same hand. Tempest would be Bob Dylan’s last The songs are nearly-new because most of album. Dylan himself grouchily them seem to reference some predecessor. pointed out that Shakespeare had “False Prophet”, a tremendous snarly blues, usedA a “the”, but didn’t quite deny anything. is adapted from a single B-side by Billy “The What followed were three very patchy albums Kid” Emerson, made at Memphis’ Sun Studio of covers, Shadows in the Night, Fallen Angels around the time Elvis Presley was recording and the three-disc Triplicate, which allowed “That’s Alright Mama” there. Elsewhere Dylan Dylan watchers to conclude that Tempest was JFK, played out over a minimal accompani- references Jimmy Reed, early rock’n’roll songs to be his last album of original material. Like ment. He followed up with the Whitman- and blues, almost as if Dylan is trying to recre- a lot of the later output, it had been uneven, quoting “I Contain Multitudes” and then the ate the time before his own debut as if he had bleakly brilliant on things like “Early Roman savage “False Prophet”. The Nobel laureate been there. The whole thing builds towards Kings”, “Pay In Blood” and the 14-minute title was still peppering his songs with obscure the burning beauty of “Key West (Philosopher track, hitting something of a bathetic bump references, though nobody can tell whether Pirate)”, which sounds as if The Band had on its last track, “Roll On John”, a mash-up the name spoken at the start of “I Contain reconvened behind him. of Beatles lines addressed to their creator. Multitudes” is “Ballinalee”, and thus a refer- As perverse and tricksterish as ever, Dylan Early in the spring of 2020, with Covid-19 ence to the blind eighteenth-century Irish has turned the tables on those who assumed putting at least a temporary end to the Never poe, Antoine Ó Raifteirí, or “Balian Bali”, or he had decided to work out his time singing Ending Tour, Dylan put out a new contender something else altogether. The fact that Dylan torchsongs and pop ballads. Rough and for worst Dylan song since “Hurricane”. At 17 seems to half-swallow the name suggests that Rowdy Ways stands up among his greatest minutes this time, “Murder Most Foul” is a he doesn’t want it hunted down. recordings. If, Prospero-like, he does now burn laconic recitation about the assassination of These all now join another seven new songs his books, the magic is already in the air.

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NEWS BRIEFING THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD

Probe into the Fabric of St Peter movement. Cardinal Farrell said colluding with health officials in by not closing his son’s shop. Pope Francis has appointed a that the Vatican had marking up the cost of body The son was then arrested when commissioner to investigate the “repeatedly” asked the bags for hospitals by up to 13 he inquired about his father at management of the Fabric of St movement’s president to reform times the regular price. the police station. Both were Peter, the body that oversees St the statutes and directorate but dead within four days. Peter’s Basilica. Last week the no action had been taken. Peru’s bishops have launched a Vatican announced that joint campaign with the USIL electronic devices and Kenyan bishops have expressed Educational Group and the documents had been seized concern over continued Società Nacional de Industrias from its offices, following a insecurity and tensions in to raise funds for oxygen report by the Holy See’s auditor. Marsabit and Narok counties cylinders so that no one need die The Fabric of St Peter has that have left scores dead. The for a lack of supplies. The responsibility for both the bishops blamed clan hatred, country is facing growing running and maintenance of St competition over resources and challenges in treating Covid-19 Peter’s, which until Covid-19 leadership wrangles in the patients, as hospitals run short struck attracted thousands of region. “We strongly condemn of oxygen canisters. Some visitors a day. It is led by these barbaric acts and appeal families are resorting to buying Cardinal Angelo Comastri, to the concerned communities them at significant markups on although it operates as a to embrace peace, love and the black market to keep family separate entity to the rest of the harmony,” said Bishop John members alive. Roman Curia. There is no Oballa Owaa, the chairman of Calls are growing for the suggestion that the cardinal the bishops’ Justice and Peace As D R Congo celebrated 60 European Union to reinstate himself is under investigation. Commission last week. years of independence from its Special Envoy on Religious Belgium, Cardinal Fridolin Freedom after the new EU Trump disapproval rises Ambongo Besungu, Archbishop Commission under Ursula von The Pew Research Center has of Kinshasa, accused successive der Leyen (pictured) abolished reported that Catholics in the regimes of impoverishing the the post. US are increasingly voicing their country despite its “immense “In some countries, religious disapproval of President natural resources”. Speaking at a oppression has now reached the Donald Trump. It said last Mass to mark the anniversary, level of genocide,” said Cardinal week that only 41 per cent of the cardinal said: “This dream Jean-Claude Hollerich of Catholics approve of his job of redeeming the Congolese Luxembourg, president of performance, a decline of four from colonialism has been Comece, which represents the points since January. progressively destroyed.” EU’s Catholic bishops’ Differences between white and conferences. “The EU must Latino Catholics are profound: Egypt’s highest court has continue campaigning for 47 per cent of white Catholics upheld a death sentence for a religious freedom, with its own said that President Trump was former monk convicted of representative included,” he Cardinal Kevin Farrell doing a “good” or “great” job, killing an abbot in a desert said. The cardinal made the (pictured), Prefect of the compared to only 20 per cent of monastery north of Cairo in comments to German’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Latino Catholics. 2018. It commuted the death Deutsche Welle agency last Life, has appointed Fr sentence of another monk to weekend, as 135 German MPs Gianfranco Ghirlanda SJ, a The murder trial in Madrid of life. Both were removed from urged their country to use its specialist in canon law, to revise Inocente Orlando Montano, the clerical state by Pope new tenure of the EU’s rotating the statutes and directorate of former colonel and former Tawadros II, head of the Coptic presidency to press for the the lay association Memores deputy public security minister Orthodox Church of Alexandria, restoration of the post. Domini – consecrated lay in the government of El after the killing of Bishop Anbar faithful who are part of the Salvador, was scheduled to Epiphanius, abbot at St The head of the Catholic Church Communion and Liberation resume this week. Mr Montano Macarius Monastery. in Gabon, Jean Patrick Iba-Ba, is accused of involvement in the the Archbishop of Libreville, has killing of six Jesuits, their cook Charges over Christians’ deaths condemned a vote in parliament For your once a day walk - and her daughter at El Four police officers in the state to decriminalise homo sexuality. put faith on your feet with Salvador’s Central American of Tamil Nadu in southern Archbishop Iba-Ba urged Holy Socks University on 16 November India have been charged with MPs to think again, saying: . 1989. murder, after street protests “Bishops of the Catholic Church accused them of torturing and launch a cry of distress at this The Ecuadorian Episcopal killing a Christian father and latest fracture between our Conference has denounced son in custody. Church officials people’s decision-making corruption and extortion and human rights groups representatives, our country’s involving at least 50 public welcomed the intervention of institutions and the Gabonese hospitals in Ecuador. It is the state high court that people as a whole.” Gabon’s alleged that hospital supplies resulted in the arrests last week. lower house voted by 48 to 24, Need a special gift? were disproportionately “The high court has done a with 25 abstentions, to reverse a Which pair will you give? distributed to areas where commendable job and now we 2019 law imposing six months’ National Assembly members can hope the victims’ family will jail for homosexual acts. www.holysocks.co.uk are from, disadvantaging other get justice,” said Bishop Stephan 01671 404043 areas. Officials have also Antony Pillai of Tuticorin. The Compiled by James Roberts identified a criminal network father broke a Covid-19 curfew and Ellen Teague.

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NEWS •QUOTE OF THE WEEK• If women are allowed more chances, our societies will be more stable because women represent a family Stephen Ameyu, Archbishop of Juba, calls for many more women to be appointed to leadership roles in South Sudan (see page 26)

UNITED STATES / Bishops welcome tax-credit decision by the federal Supreme Court Committee, in welcoming the decision. “This decision means that religious persons and organ- isations can, like everyone else, Judges rule in favour of public participate in government pro- grammes that are open to all,” the bishops said. “This is good news, funds paid to Catholic schools not only for people of faith, but for our country. A strong civil soci- ety needs the full participation of MICHAEL SEAN WINTERS wide have announced that they religious institutions. By ensuring will not be able to continue oper- the rights of faith-based organi- THE UNITED STATES Supreme ating, according to the National sations’ freedom to serve, the Court last week ruled 5-4 that Catholic Education Association. Court is also promoting the com- Montana’s tuition tax credit pro- The group expects that number mon good.” gramme is unconstitutional to double before the school year The bishops added that “the because it forbids payments for starts in September. Court has also dealt a blow to the tuition at religious schools. The Montana tuition tax credit odious legacy of anti-Catholicism The ruling overturns laws programme was enacted in 2015. in America. Blaine Amendments nationwide that bar religious The state’s own Supreme Court … were never meant to ensure schools from receiving funds had ruled that the programme government neutrality towards raised via state-run scholarship could not include religious schools religion, but were expressions of programmes – which are devised because of Montana’s Blaine hostility towards the Catholic to permit under-privileged chil- Archbishop Thomas Wenski amendment, a nineteenth-century Church. We are grateful that the dren to attend private schools. law that barred any governmental Supreme Court has taken an Chief Justice John Roberts solely because of the religious assistance to “sectarian schools”. important step that will help bring wrote the majority decision, saying character of the school.” Named after James Blaine, a an end to this shameful legacy.” that the Montana law violated the Previous rulings held that the nativist congressman, senator and Notre Dame law professor Rick First Amendment guarantee of constitutional ban on ecclesiastical Secretary of State from Maine, 37 Garnett praised the decision, say- freedom of religion because it establishments prohibited state other states enacted similar laws ing: “For too many years … Court “bars religious schools from public funds from going to assist religious after Blaine failed to get a federal majorities held that the … ‘sepa- benefits solely because of the reli- schools. prohibition passed. ration of church and state’ requires gious character of the schools”. The decision came at a time Archbishop Thomas Wenski, a strict prohibition on financial He added: “The provision also when Catholic education in the chair of the bishops’ conference and other forms of cooperation bars parents who wish to send US is in perilous financial health Committee on Religious Liberty with religious schools, notwith- their children to a religious school due to the coronavirus pandemic. joined Bishop Michael Barber, standing the valuable role these from those same benefits, again Already, some 100 schools nation- who chairs the Education schools play.”

GERMANY VATICAN Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – have now been revealed Choir bids farewell Founder of by documents from the recently opened Pius XII archives. to Georg Ratzinger Schönstatt According to Teuffenbach’s report, the Holy Office believed the PLANS WERE finalised this week Graveyard in Regensburg where Movement reports of Kentenich’s manipulative for the funeral in Regensburg on Georg Ratzinger was to be buried in accused of abuse abuse of power and sexual abuse, Wednesday of Georg Ratzinger, a grave endowed by the which several Schönstatt sisters Pope Benedict XVI’s elder brother, Domspatzen Foundation. accused him of during a two-year who was Director of Music and Pope Emeritus Benedict, who is VAT ICA N documents from the visitation conducted by Fr Master of the famous Domspatzen 93, decided not to fly back to Pius XII archives confirm that the Sebastian Tromp SJ. boys’ choir, writes Christa Pongratz- Regensburg for the funeral after a founder of the Schönstatt The numerous letters that the Lippitt. tiring visit to the city and his brother Movement, Fr Josef Kentenich, was Schönstatt sisters wrote to Pope On Sunday afternoon 220 last month. However his secretary, accused of sexual abuse and Pius XII describing Kentenich’s members of the Domspatzen choir Archbishop Georg Gänswein, abusing his power by Schönstatt abusive behaviour have been found bade farewell to their former choir indicated that he would attend. religious sisters. The Vatican upheld in the archives. master, who died aged 96 on 1 July, In a letter of condolence to the accusations and exiled The Holy Office finally exiled by singing the Vespers for the Dead Benedict, Pope Francis said: “You Kentenich, writes Christa Pongratz- Kentenich to the United States in in Regensburg Cathedral. had the sensitivity to be the first to Lippitt. 1951. He was rehabilitated under After Wednesday’s Requiem, due inform me of the news of the death In an article in the conservative Pope Paul VI in 1965 and returned to be celebrated by Bishop of of your beloved brother, Monsignor German Tagespost, Church historian to Schönstatt. A beatification Regensburg Rudolf Voderholzer, Georg. I wish to renew my deepest Alexandra von Teuffenbach says process for Kentenich was opened mourners who had been asked to condolences and spiritual closeness that the real reasons why Kentenich in 1975. The Schönstatt Movement reserve a place by telephone were to you in this moment of sorrow. was exiled in 1951 by the Holy published a long statement firmly to proceed to the Lower Catholic Filially and fraternally, Francis.” Office – the predecessor of the rejecting Teuffenbach’s claims.

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HOLY LAND AMAZON / Region to ‘experiment’ with synodality, says bishop Annexation plans ‘put peace at risk’, Ecclesial Conference is a Vatican warns ‘testing ground’ for Church US and Israel

THE VATICAN has warned the FRANCIS McDONAGH “It is meant to be an expression the bishop said. “As Pope Francis United States and Israel that of the synodal nature of the said in Evangelii Gaudium, the Israeli plans to annex one third FOLLOWING THE decision at the Church in the region … Like the pastors are there, sometimes in of the West Bank put at risk end of last month to establish an Amazon Synod, where there were front, sometimes in the middle, efforts to bring peace between Amazon Ecclesial Conference, its bishops who had a vote, but many sometimes at the back.” Israelis and Palestinians, writes president, Cardinal Cláudio others, lay people, indigenous, In Brazil in 2013 Pope Francis Ellen Teague. Hummes (inset), former with the right to speak, it is a told the Brazilian bishops that At the end of last month Archbishop of São Paulo, Brazil, Church that listens to the com- the Amazon region is the testing Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the and its vice-president, Bishop munities and with them looks for ground for the Brazilian Church Holy See’s Secretary of State, David Martínez De Aguirre, ways of evangelising that are and he is now “applying this to summoned US ambassador to of Puerto Maldonado in incarnate and incultur- the whole of the universal the Vatican, Callista Gingrich, southern Peru, have ated,” the cardinal said. Church”, Bishop Martínez De and Israel’s ambassador, Oren shed further light on Bishop Martínez De Aguirre said. David, for separate discussions the significance of the Aguirre went further “He thinks that the Amazon on the planned annexation, new body and how it and stressed that the region, this Amazon Ecclesial which includes parts of the will be structured. new body is intended Conference, is a testing ground strategic Jordan Valley. They say it will empha- to be a model for the … a practical application of the In a statement the Vatican sise the participation of Church as a whole. “We Second Vatican Council in this said Cardinal Parolin wanted to the laity, especially women and can say that this could be con- form of church life.” “express concern of the Holy indigenous people. sidered a sort of experiment – I’m Asked about the role of women See regarding possible “Following a suggestion from not sure if that’s the most appro- in the new body, the bishop said: unilateral actions”. The Holy the Pope himself, this is not going priate word – for a new form of “One of the things the Pope has See “reiterates that the State of to be an episcopal conference, like church life, based on synodality, said is that we want a Church Israel and the State of Palestine so many others, but what he has in which the bishop is no longer with an Amazonian face … and have the right to exist and to called the Ecclesial Conference someone that leads the Church the face of women as protagonists liveFRANCE in peace and security, of the Amazon Region,” Cardinal on his own, but someone who is in the Church is a very clearly within internationally Hummes said. part of the whole church journey,” defined face.” recognised borders”. The statement said that negotiations should be “on the n Days after South Sudan’s “The President and the First Vice- will be more stable … because basis of the relevant resolutions president appointed state President should encourage the women represent a family, which is of the United Nations, and governors and chief administrators, governors to appoint more women the basic institution of society.” aided by measures that can re- the Catholic Archbishop of Juba, than men in ministerial posts,” Coinciding with the International establish reciprocal confidence”. Stephen Ameyu, called for more Archbishop Ameyu told ACI Africa Day for the Elimination of Sexual Opposition to the planned women in leadership roles, writes last week. He said women in South Violence in Conflict, church leaders annexation continued in the James Roberts. Sudan “would be the better in South Sudan, including West Bank and on the Last week President Salva Kiir element to bring the country Archbishop Ameyu, have appealed international stage, despite a appointed governors for eight of together, to bring our parties for the return of “abducted women continuing delay in the the country’s 10 regional states. Of together. If women are allowed and children used as sex slaves” to implementation. In the West the eight, just one is a woman. more chances, I think our societies their respective communities. Bank Palestinian city of Ramallah, hundreds of protesters carried posters and waved Palestinian flags, as they TURKEY chanted: “We will resist until full liberation. We will not Patriarch warns against Hagia Sophia becoming a mosque leave.” Palestinian leaders, the United Nations, European THE CONVERSION of Istanbul’s dividing us and I am saddened cathedral from the sixth to the fif- powers and Arab countries have Hagia Sophia from a museum into and shaken.” He called on the peo- teenth centuries before becoming all denounced any unilateral a mosque would cause a rift ple of Turkey to champion Hagia a mosque and then a museum in territorial steps planned by between Christians and Muslims, Sophia’s universal character, say- the 1930s. It may become a Israeli Prime Minister according to Bartholomew I, the ing the conversion of the building mosque again if the court Benjamin Netanyahu, who is Ecumenical Patriarch of would “disappoint millions of approves the move. Turkey’s thought to be awaiting a green Constantinople, writes Ellen Christians”. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan light from the US. Teague. Last week, Turkey’s Council of called for the change during an Pax Christi, the Catholic Speaking from Istanbul, the State – the country’s highest election rally last year and is sup- peace movement, has called on spiritual leader of an estimated administrative body – delayed a ported by Islamists in his country. the global community to hold 300 million Orthodox Christians decision, promising a ruling Last Saturday, the Russian Israel accountable for violations worldwide said: “Instead of unit- within 15 days. The Unesco World Orthodox Church described the of international law. ing, a 1,500-year-old heritage is Heritage site was originally a reconversion as “unacceptable”.

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VIEW FROM GENEVA Vatican warns ROME of inequalities in post-Covid Christopher Lamb education OUR YEARS ago I watched Ennio Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican’s “culture min- Morricone majestically conduct an ister”, said the music from The Mission orchestra playing the world-famous “expresses the ineffable and the invisible at A TOP VATICAN diplomat has warned Fmusic he had composed for The the same time, which are the soul of religion”. the closure of schools during the Mission. Memories of that concert in the coronavirus crisis will deepen injustices Vatican came flooding back when I heard on N THE FACE of a rising tide of national- and inequalities, and urged government Monday that Morricone had died in Rome ism across Europe and North and South action to compensate for the loss of at the age of 91. It struck me as a moment America, the Holy See is doubling-down classes by 90 per cent of children that brought together various strands of Pope Ion its support of multi lateralism. Last worldwide, writes Jonathan Luxmoore. Francis’ pontificate. Sunday, the Pope gave his backing to a “This pandemic has highlighted The 12 November 2016 event was a musical United Nations Security Council resolution fragilities and fractures in our societies – extravaganza for the socially excluded which calling for an immediate global ceasefire in we have noted its broad impact on Francis had wanted to be “with the poor and light of the Covid-19 pandemic, to allow for schools and academic institutions,” said for the poor”. That evening the homeless were the safe passage of humanitarian assistance. Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, the Holy See’s treated as guests of honour, taking their seats Four months earlier, Francis also supported Permanent Observer to the United in the front rows of the Paul VI Hall ahead the “global and immediate ceasefire” called Nations and Other International of diplomats and other VIPs. Sitting in the for by the Secretary-General of the UN, Organisations. auditorium behind them with my then seven- António Guterres. “Covid-19 has directly affected entire year-old son (who later took up playing the Throughout his pontificate, Francis has families whose parents were constrained oboe), it was a privilege to witness the then used the moral authority of his office to push to carry out their regular work 88-year-old maestro conduct the haunting for peace. Last November he said he would responsibilities, while having at the same “Gabriel’s Oboe”, the main theme of the movie, update the catechism to prohibit not only time to adapt their schedules to assist along with the premiere of a new composition, the use but the possession of nuclear and monitor their children,” the “God, One of Us”. weapons. For some time now, there have Slovenian diplomat said. “Not all Morricone’s atmospheric score for Roland been whispers in Rome that Francis’ next families are equipped with the Joffé’s Oscar-winning film evokes the mis- encyclical will look at how the Church, in necessary information technology tools, sionary work in Latin America of the Pope’s the prayer of the Pope’s namesake St Francis nor always capable of making Jesuit order, opposed by a powerful European of Assisi, can be an “instrument of peace”. accommodations for the continuous cardinal who wanted to shut down their mis- During the Francis papacy, the Holy See has presence of children at home.” sion to the indigenous Guarani people. They become more active in working with the UN, Addressing the UN Human Rights lost the battle. The contrast with today – when with which it has observer status. Using its Council in Geneva, Archbishop Jurkovic we have a Jesuit Pope determined to renew vote for the first time in 2017, it voted in said education remained a “fundamental the Church’s missionary efforts in the Amazon favour of nuclear disarmament. enabler” for sustainable development, region – is poignant. The Pope believes the world’s problems can adding that the right of families, of Three years on from that concert and in only be solved through international co-oper- churches and of social groups to help the same building, Francis convened an ation, and the Vatican is worried by the shape it had been reaffirmed by the Pope extraordinary synod of bishops gathered to growing tendency for countries to think they in the address he gave to the UN General discuss the pan-Amazon region. The synod can solve global problems in an isolationist Assembly in 2015. gave a voice to the voiceless indigenous com- fashion. Last week, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, munities of the Amazon, who are facing Vatican Secretary of State, summoned the environmental destruction, and listened US and Israel ambassadors to the Holy See MEXICO respectfully as local leaders – religious sisters to express concern about Israel’s intention to and lay ministers as well as bishops – showed annex parts of the West Bank. The cardinal the universal Church what can be learnt from called for Israelis and Palestinians to return Gangsters kill 26 incarnating the Gospel in culture. to direct dialogue with each other, with UN In his response Francis avoided trying to resolutions as a basis for their discussions. at rehab clinic impose NGO-style proposals or devise pastoral plans. He urged the Church to approach the ULY is when Francis slows down and Amazon on “tiptoe” and to respect “the poetry has something of a “staycation”. The VIOLENT attacks in recent weeks have of the people”. His post-synodal exhortation, Wednesday General Audiences are sus- raised concerns among church leaders Querida Amazonia, was peppered with lyrical Jpended and there are no official about the security strategy of Mexican language and paid respect to the “artistic, lit- meetings. He puts his alarm back 15 min- President Andrés Manuel López erary, musical and cultural inspiration” that utes and allows himself more time to read Obrador, writes Martha Pskowski. comes from the Amazon. “Only poetry, with and pray. The Bishop of Irapuato, Enrique Díaz its humble voice, will be able to save this But the 83-year-old Pope does not really Díaz, condemned an armed attack on a world,” wrote the Pope, quoting Vinicius de believe in holidays and there is still a lot in drug rehabilitation centre last week that Moraes, a Brazilian poet. his in-tray: planning for the future post-Covid, left 26 people dead. The clinic in the Morricone’s music is a reminder that at the reforming the Roman Curia, the pending central Mexican town was one of many root of all the Church’s missionary work is report into ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick private unregulated centres around the the mystery of God, a mystery that cannot be and investigations into Vatican finances. country. Gunmen entered, forced packaged into simple cultural categories. Someone recently asked the Pope how he was, patients to the ground and shot them. Speaking after the maestro’s death, Cardinal and he jokingly replied: “I’m alive!”

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Right to Life welcomed the House anniversary official statistics reveal that 24 Fr Bill was asked by the withdrawal of proposed Caritas Bakhita House, which abortions were carried out on International Commission on amendments to the Domestic provides accommodation for medical grounds. Another 100 English in the Liturgy (Icel) to Abuse Bill as a “major victory”. and supports women escaping were carried out on the grounds work on the new translation of Bishop John Sherrington, the from trafficking and slavery, of a “condition that was likely to the Missal. Icel executive lead Catholic bishop for life celebrated its fifth birthday lead to the death of the foetus”. director Mgr Andrew issues, had warned that the last week. In that time the house Wadsworth said: “It is hard to amendments – which would has welcomed 123 guests and Archbishop Philip Tartaglia adequately express our gratitude have made it easier for women, 11 babies from 39 different of Glasgow has spoken movingly for the highly significant particularly in domestic abuse countries. of the recent death of his sister. contribution Bill has made to situations, to access abortion – On a livestreamed Mass from St our English liturgical texts.” would have led to “abortion on The Archbishop of Canterbury Andrew’s Cathedral, he demand”. The amendments to has honoured the Catholic described the comfort he had the Bill would have allowed Bishop of Derry and the retired drawn from Dina’s intimate women in abusive situations Church of Ireland Bishop of Funeral Mass, which was access to medical abortions Derry in this year’s Lambeth attended by close family but at home. Awards for their work for peace with many parishioners waiting and social cohesion in outside to pay their respects, Northern Ireland. and from the words in this Archbishop Eamon Martin of week’s Gospel where Jesus says: Armagh in a message of “Come to me, all you who labour congratulation described and are overburdened, and I bishops Donal McKeown and will give you rest.” Kenneth Good as “two very It was an emotional week for worthy recipients of the the archbishop, who also Lambeth Award 2020”, which celebrated the 45th anniversary recognised their contribution to of his ordination as a priest. Singalong surprise Church unity and their lived Sisters of Mercy in Sunderland testimony to reconciliation in Tributes have been paid to the say they were “totally taken the wider community. former long-serving parish aback” by the international priest of St Joseph’s in reaction to their weekly The Irish bishops’ Council for Pickering, Fr Bill East, who singalong (pictured) for the Professor Tina Beattie Life has expressed dismay over died on July 1 after a long NHS outside their convent – (pictured) has announced that the number of abortions which illness. Fr Bill, who was 72, and are now actively she is to step down at the end of took place in Ireland in 2019, spent 11 years at St Luke’s Parish investigating new forms of July from her role at the the first year that abortion was Church in Pallion, Sunderland, outreach to their local University of Roehampton. legal following the repeal of the from 1983 to 1994 before being community, building on the Professor Beattie, who has been Eighth Amendment. A received into the Catholic links developed in recent at the university since 2002, Department of Health report Church along with his wife, months. Their singing has been said that she would continue detailed 6,666 “terminations of Betty. He was ordained at Our reported widely, including by to focus on writing and pregnancy” during 2019, the Lady’s in Acomb, York, and CNN in the United States. academic research, and would first full year of legal abortion served in the parish before continue as director of since the new law came into spending 18 years in Pickering. Compiled by Ruth Gledhill Catherine of Siena College. effect in January 2019. The An accomplished Latin scholar, and Liz Dodd.

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PERSON IN Mark Davies, Bishop of Shrewsbury, pleading for government help for dioceses hit by Covid-19: THE NEWS “The weeks of the national lockdown saw a dramatic fall of about a third in parish income.”

APPOINTMENT / Francis chooses Italian patristics scholar to serve as papal nuncio HERITAGE Uphold Polish Pope picks his new traditions, ambassador to Great Britain bishop tells expats

PHOTO: PA/TASS, MIKHAIL SOKOLOV ulations to Archbishop Claudio bishop in charge of CHRISTOPHER LAMB THE POLISH Gugerotti on his appointment as Polish missions in Britain and POPE FRANCIS has chosen the new apostolic nuncio to Great other countries has warned of Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti to Britain. I very much look forward continuing problems in co- be his next ambassador to Great to working with him to keep UK- operating with local dioceses, Britain. The 64-year-old Italian Holy See relations strong.” and urged priests and parishes diplomat will move to London As nuncio, the archbishop’s role to ensure they “respect and from Ukraine, where he has will see him draw up shortlists accept local tradition”, writes served as papal representative, for crucial leadership positions Jonathan Luxmoore. known as an apostolic nuncio, in the Church in England and Bishop Wieslaw Lechowicz, a since the end of 2015. Wales. Later this year the Arch- Tarnow auxiliary, said: “In our As papal ambassador to the bishop of Westminster, Cardinal pastoral service for Poles Court of St James’s, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, will reach the abroad, what’s most important Gugerotti will represent the Holy retirement age of 75, while in is openness to others and to new See to government authorities in 2021 the Archbishop of Cardiff, challenges. England, Wales and Scotland, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti George Stack, also turns 75. “We seek to uphold our Polish while also playing a crucial role The post of Vatican ambassador identity, Polish traditions and in the selection of bishops. appointed him as the papal rep- to Britain has traditionally been patriotic spirit. But we are also The new nuncio succeeds resentative to Georgia, Armenia a final appointment before retire- in a foreign environment, often Archbishop Edward Adams who and Azerbaijan. ment. Following the rupture of alien in culture, and the stepped down at the end of The archbishop’s appointment the Reformation, formal diplo- question of integrating with the January after reaching the retire- to the complex and delicate post- matic relations between the milieux in which Poles live and ment age of 75. ing of Ukraine signalled his United Kingdom and the Holy with the local Church is proving Born in Verona, Archbishop diplomatic expertise. He took over See resumed in 1914 and a Vatican difficult.” Gugerotti is a patristics scholar the position from Archbishop “Apostolic Delegation” to Great The 37-year-old bishop was and expert on the Eastern Timothy Gullickson, who had Britain was established on 21 addressing an online training Churches, who has taught at the been openly critical of Pope November 1938. course for Polish priests Pontifical Oriental Institute and Francis. It wasn’t until 1982, however, preparing for work among worked at the Congregation for Following news of the latest that the delegation was promoted Polish migrants and expatriates Eastern Churches. appointment, Sally Axworthy, to a full nunciature with the papal in Britain and other foreign He is not a career diplomat, British ambassador to the Holy ambassador today residing in states. but in 2001 Pope John Paul II See, said: “My warmest congrat- Wimbledon, south-west London. He said visiting Polish pastors faced a special task in ministering to foreign-based Poles who had a better section has its own entrance/exit knowledge of English and other Irish bishops welcome guidance for route; and that there are specific local languages, but still churches accommodating 50 or more arrangements for elements of the identified with their roots and service involving close contact, wished to participate in the such as the distribution of Holy Polish community. IRISH CHURCH leaders have wel- Welcoming the guidance, Communion. The guidance was He added that the wide comed the Dublin government’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said also welcomed by Archbishop dispersal of Polish Catholics had new guidance on indoor gather- parishes would work diligently to Michael Neary of Tuam. also posed added pastoral ings of more than 50 people in observe the new norms to ensure Meanwhile in Scotland, difficulties during the places of worship, but it will people can attend Mass safely. He parishes are making tentative coronavirus pandemic, but said involve separating worshippers reminded those intending to steps towards reopening, but it Polish priests working abroad into zones of 50 within churches, attend Mass that the use of masks has been left to priests and con- should always remember they write Sarah Mac Donald and is “strongly recommended for gregations to make their own remained under the jurisdiction Brian Morton. indoor settings”. determination of when and how. of local bishops. The Cabinet Committee on The updated guidance requires Scotland has a huge dispropor- “We must respect and accept Covid-19 announced last Friday churches to ensure that social dis- tion between city parishes – with local tradition, while that churches whose size allows tancing guidelines are adhered up to 1,000 regular Mass-goers – simultaneously making sure for a capacity greater than 50, with to; that a church can be subdi- and rural ones in Argyll, Aberdeen that traditions linked to Polish social distancing, can now accom- vided and cordoned into distinct and Galloway, where the numbers religiousness are also upheld modate larger congregations if sections of not more than 50 peo- attending are in single figures and and passed on,” said Bishop certain criteria are met. ple in each section; that each social distancing is not an issue. Lechowicz.

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HOUSING / Religious asked to open their buildings for shelter which could be adapted to house “This catastrophe is avoidable the many homeless who are about if there is a temporary reprieve to find themselves back on the for the growing number of desti- Hotels put homeless streets as the lockdown eases?” tute who have no recourse to Any congregation that might public funds,” Fr Robinson said. be able to help is asked to email: “If public funds are made avail- back on the streets [email protected] able for this group of people left Fr Robinson’s call, which was on the streets, we stand ready to posted on the website of the work together for what we all want Conference of Religious in – a permanent and holistic solu- LIZ DODD England and Wales, comes as tion to this affront to human Caritas Westminster appealed for dignity which sees those who have RELIGIOUS in England and Wales any accommodation across lost everything with nowhere to have been asked to offer space in London and Hertfordshire that turn,” he commented. their buildings to vulnerable peo- might be used to house these indi- Catholic Union head of public ple who face homelessness on the viduals. There will be a full risk affairs, James Somerville-Meikle, streets as the emergency housing assessment with support from the said: “The new funding from the scheme put in place for the pan- local authorities and agencies, government is a step in the right demic draws to a close. prior to accepting an offer. direction, but it has come late in Hundreds of vulnerable people The Catholic Union, along with the day. will urgently need accommoda- other charities that work with “Many rough sleepers face being tion by the end of July, when the homeless people, are warning of turned out of hotel and hostel hotels and hostels currently hous- an impending crisis. rooms in the weeks ahead. Whilst ing them reopen for business. In a letter to Dame Louise the long-term commitment to end Around 5,400 people who were such as some migrants and asy- Casey, who is heading a govern- homelessness is welcome, we need housed in emergency accommo- lum seekers. Caritas Westminster ment taskforce on homelessness, an immediate plan for how to pre- dation for the three-month estimates that this group makes the Union – along with the Justice vent a rough sleeping crisis. lockdown now face the streets up around 70 per cent of the peo- and Peace Department of the “Church groups stand ready to again: 1,200 people were moved ple currently sheltering in hotels Catholic Diocese of Westminster, be part of the solution and can into hotels from the streets in in Greater London. working in conjunction with help get support to some of the Greater London alone. In a direct plea to Congregations Caritas, the social action depart- most vulnerable people in society While the government has in England and Wales this week, ment of the Diocese of – people that government services announced extra funding for Fr Dominic Robinson SJ, the chair Westminster, and the Jesuit often struggle to reach,” Mr housing support, that funding of Westminster Justice and Peace Refugee Service UK – said that Somerville-Meikle said. will be unavailable for those Commission, said: “Have you got asylum seekers and others with n Support for victims of modern homeless people on the streets buildings that you are no longer no recourse to public funds are slavery and human trafficking has with no recourse to public funds, using or could spare temporarily, particularly at risk. continued throughout the pan- demic, writes Ellen Teague. The Medaille Trust, formed in 2006 by Catholic Religious, is the Bishops urged to mark fifth Fr Lane’s book, Theology and largest provider of safe-house beds Ecology in Dialogue: The Wisdom for victims of modern slavery in anniversary of Laudato Si’ of Laudato Si’, was recently pub- the UK with a national network lished by Messenger Publications of nine safe houses providing shel- in Ireland, and it is due out in the ter and support for 116 men, IRISH bishops need to give more at Dublin City University told The United States in the autumn. women and their children at any leadership on the climate crisis Tablet he felt the bishops hadn’t The Dublin priest acknowl- one time. and promote Laudato Si’, accord- adequately recognised that this edged that the bishops had Medaille Trust safe houses have ing to theologian Fr Dermot Lane, year is the fifth anniversary of the established a Laudato Si’ working taken in people of all faiths or no writes Sarah Mac Donald. encyclical, and that Pope Francis group and for the last number of faith, and nationalities of current The retired president of the has urged the Church to reflect years had promoted the Season guests include Albanians, Mater Dei Institute of Education and take action on it. of Creation, and that they were Romanians, Vietnamese, Chinese beginning to incorporate Laudato and British. Si’ into catechetical textbooks, Sr Imelda Poole, a sister of the which he said was “a step in the Blessed Virgin Mary, speaking at right direction”. But he added: an online gathering of Women “My personal view is that they are Religious on the Frontlines organ- not doing enough.” ised by the US and British Of the Pope’s call to the Church Ambassadors to the Holy See, to reflect and take action on reported that, in her work with Laudato Si’, he said: “That is an Renate (Religious in Europe enormous challenge and I think Networking Against Trafficking it is even more interesting when and Exploitation), she sees a mas- it is coming from the top and very sive increase of hunger. little is being done.” She said counselling of traffick- The theologian admitted that ing victims was now largely Covid-19 had made things more online. There has also been an difficult for the Church in recent explosion in the numbers of chil- months, but he said the bishops dren going online unsupervised, had seen the pandemic solely as leading to an increase in sexual a global health crisis. exploitation.

30 | THE TABLET | 11 JULY 2020 For daily news updates visit www.thetablet.co.uk 31_Tablet11Jul20 Kitchen Glimpses.qxp_Tablet features spread 07/07/2020 14:03 Page 32

THE ETHICAL KITCHEN Fennel flower fantasia ROSE PRINCE

N THE Saturday restaurants at home throughout the last months, my reopened, I was on the kitchen a haven and food the best of ONorthcote Road in Battersea comforts. We will I am sure, though, eat at lunchtime, waiting to meet out again. my daughter. With pavements broad enough to accommodate market stalls GRILLED PORK WITH FENNEL FLOWERS, and outdoor eating spaces this has always BULBS AND LEAVES - SERVES 4 been a thriving high street. There was joy in the atmosphere as 4 free range pork loin chops locals rediscovered their favourite places 2g fennel pollen* to eat – or get their hair cut. Putting 150ml extra virgin olive oil stomach before bad hair, I headed Every available space 60ml lemon juice towards an old haunt, the Osteria Antica 3 fennel bulbs – leaves reserved Bologna, to see if I could get a table. was filled with 150g Greek yoghurt Nothing could be nicer, I decided, than beautiful, seasonal 1 tbsp tahini paste to break my eating-out fast with a plate of Marzio Zacchi’s homemade pappardelle vegetables and specialist Use a meat hammer to flatten the loin with peas and broad beans. But though foods from Italy chops to 1cm thickness. Marinate them the doors were open and a smiling for 40 minutes with the pollen, 50ml Marzio was there, no tables were laid olive oil, 20mls of lemon juice, salt and ready. Instead every available space was curries. The leaves, or fronds, can be used pepper. Heat a grill or prepare the filled with beautiful, seasonal vegetables as a herb, raw in salads and are especially barbecue then cook over a moderate and specialist foods from Italy. He hadn’t good with fish. heat for 4 minutes each side. the confidence to reopen the kitchen, he The base of a fully-grown plant, the Meanwhile make a sauce: bake two said, and the pop-up grocery had been a familiar “bulb” with its hard ribbed stalks, quartered fennel bulbs rubbed with a lockdown success. can either be cooked slowly until soft or little oil until soft and tinged brown. A bucket on the floor caught my eye. It eaten raw, thinly cut, with lemon juice Puree them in a blender with 50ml was filled with flower stems from green and olive oil. Fennel’s best friend in a olive oil, 20ml lemon juice and the fennel plants. The tiny neon blooms were recipe is pork, however. In Florence the tahini until you have a thick creamy heavy with pollen, a rare and wonderful flowers and their pollen are used to puree. Finally, as an additional “salad” cooking ingredient used in traditional season the world’s most delectable cured – shave the final fennel bulb with a Florentine cooking. Lucky locals, I salami, finocchiona. peeler or mandolin then, dress with thought, to have such a place to inspire So this month’s recipe is “all hail the remaining olive oil, lemon juice their home cooking. fennel”, with every bit of this wonderful and fennel leaves. Serve all together. Fennel is a member of the carrot family vegetable-herb-spice. In truth, Marzio’s and a plant of many edible components: inspirational bucketful of flowers *Calabrian fennel pollen is available the seeds are a spice used in many Indian reminds how much I have loved to cook online from souschef.co.uk; 15g for £15

Glimpses of Eden JONATHAN TULLOCH

THESE GLORIOUS days of early July belong grasshoppers are active by day. I could hear to those who love to stroll, amble, saunter, voles too, squeaking as they busily built their mosey, potter. As well as often being too hot nests. The day was also graced with the do anything else, it’s also by far the best way grand silences of butterflies, which seemed to enjoy the unique gift of this time: to fly up with every step I took. The dark midsummer grassland. Although we’ve lost brown ringlets; the brilliant tortoiseshells; most of our proper flower-rich hay and the fox orange small skipper, a tiny meadows, at this time of year any patch of butterfly with huge eyes. And it wasn’t long long grass is bursting with slow-moving, before I’d met that hero of July, the creeping surprising beauty. hum, I always find this sound soothing, like thistle. Those fabulous violet flowers were On my leisurely wade through a waist- lullabies heard in the afternoon. I knew they laden with pollinators. It was here that high- high field margin, grasshoppers called from were grasshoppers because crickets are summer was at its most mesmeric – the all around. Halfway between a rattle and a crepuscular, they “sing” at dusk, whilst shimmering murmur of foraging bumblebees.

Volume 274 // No. 9360 // ISSN: 0039 8837

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