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9 770039 883226 Free at last? James Roberts and Janice McLaughlin consider ’s uncertain future

Julia Langdon despairs at the turmoil in Westminster • Jeremy Dauber uncovers the biblical roots of Jewish humour • Michael W. Higgins profiles the feted and derided J ustin Trudeau PLUS ADRIAN CHILES • ALEXANDRA COGHLAN • MELANIE McDONAGH • RICHARD LEONARD 02_Tablet25Nov17 Leaders.qxp_Tablet features spread 11/21/17 6:52 PM Page 2

THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY THE TABLET FOUNDED IN 1840

EUROPEAN he mass exodus of refugees fleeing conflicts in immigrant anti-Muslim right-wing insurgent party, POLITICS the Middle East was the biggest challenge to Alternatives for (AfD), also tells a story. It is the conscience of Europe for a generation. strongest in the East, ironically Mrs Merkel’s own MERKEL’S The one European leader who stood out for heartland. And the cultural history of eastern theT quality of her moral leadership in that crisis was Germany is quite different from the rest. After the end BRAVERY IS Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of the Second World War, underwent a of Germany. Now she is fighting for her political life – thorough process of denazification. Extreme German very largely as a result of her vision and courage. She nationalism and anti-Semitism were largely exorcised STILL UK’S knew she was taking a political risk. And millions of from the national soul. But not in the East. Under Germans also deserve credit for supporting her. The Communism, people were told that fascism was an BEST HOPE fact that Germany took the lead in such circumstances extreme product of capitalism, not of racism and when most of the rest of Europe dithered and xenophobia. Western Germany also experienced a vast demurred speaks volumes about how far Germany has influx of internal refugees, fleeing from the East. Many travelled since the end of the Second World War. of those welcoming Middle Eastern immigrants But that is not the whole story. Mrs Merkel suffered recently are the children and grandchildren of those a reverse in the recent German election mainly earlier refugees. Eastern Germany does not have that because of a populist backlash expressly against the memory. Finally, it is significant that AfD did best immigration she had allowed and encouraged. More where in the 1930s Nazism put down its deepest roots. than a million Muslims, mainly from Syria and Iraq, So the battle for the soul of Germany is not finally sought refuge in Germany. The process brought with won. Mrs Merkel’s mainstream opponents, on being it problems both real and imagined. It is notable that invited to join a grand coalition, have conducted the some of the areas where the right-wing backlash has negotiations in search of party advantage. They see been most vociferous are not those with the highest her weakened, and have pressed the dagger in further. proportion of immigrants. It seems that those who Germany and Europe itself still need the leadership of have actually experienced a significant influx of someone who seeks the entire common good of the foreigners are more tolerant than those who merely Continent. That still includes Great Britain. Angela fear them at a distance. Negative stereotypes usually Merkel has been the United Kingdom’s most start to fade when those who hold them are faced with important ally as it travels through the long dark the reality of other people’s lives. tunnel of the Brexit negotiations, and her presence is The geographical spread of support for the anti- the best hope that there might be light at the end of it.

TRANSLATING ust grin and bear it” is not a rubric that Divine Worship (CDW), the change in canon law does THE MASS appears in the currently authorised not allow bishops to interfere with translations translation of the Mass into English. already authorised. But guidance from the Roman Maybe it should. It sums up the outcome Curia to the bishops can always be challenged, and AN “J of a discussion at the latest meeting of the even rejected. Francis could have been appealed Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, in the to directly, and a review of the version the bishops OPPORTUNITY light of a change in canon law giving them more themselves had commissioned and approved be authority over liturgical translations. But not enough commissioned immediately, to make it ready for use. MISSED authority, they have decided, to dispose of a seriously The bishops of England and Wales are well aware of flawed translation and replace it with a very much the unpopularity of the current translation, and of its better one – or even to allow that alternative flaws, as Archbishop Smith was candid enough to translation to be used beside the current one. concede. It includes many crude attempts to find ’ literal equivalents in English to the official text. was hailed – and recognised as such by Archbishop Some English-speaking Catholics may have become at the press conference at which the inured to its poor, exclusive language, and the bishops bishops’ decision was announced – as part of his may be counting on them to accept the status quo. programme of reform intended to return to diocesan They are mindful too that new missals cost money. bishops and hence to episcopal conferences their Yet England is the motherland of the English jurisdiction over such matters as the translation of the language. English Catholic bishops have missed the liturgy best suited to their territories. Under the chance to show the way forward to the other 10 previous system, translations had been imposed by nations where the Mass is usually said in English. irrespective of the wishes of the bishops. That Before deciding to “grin and bear it” they could at least was wrong in principle, theologically unsound, and have consulted the others, including the bishops of contrary to the intentions of the Second Vatican New Zealand, who have already indicated they are Council. But the bishops of England and Wales, and of considering reviving the translation the Vatican every other English-speaking part of the Catholic buried. It is quite possible that bishops in other Church, felt they had no choice but to knuckle under English-speaking countries too will not take the when in 2010 Rome issued the English text of the CDW’s “guidance” lying down. Might we one day Roman Missal now in use, despite the fact that they witness the sight of the Catholics of England – who had previously agreed to a superior translation. have included Chaucer, Shakespeare, Pope, Newman, According to guidance – which the bishops said Hopkins, Chesterton, Tolkien, Waugh and Greene – they were “grateful” for – from the Congregation for being reluctantly dragged along behind?

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May Morris’ ‘Honeysuckle’ 22 wallpaper, at the William Morris Gallery, London

Canadian prime minister 12 Justin Trudeau - more than just his father’s son

COLUMNS CONTENTS B O O K S / PAG E 1 8 David Chater 25 NOVEMBER 2017 //VOL 271 NO. 9227 On Form MIKE BREARLEY FEATURES Brian Morton 4 / The humiliation of Mugabe Pale Rider: The dramatic events in Zimbabwe this week reminded our assistant editor The Spanish Flu Melanie of the role of the Church in resisting injustice / BY JAMES ROBERTS of 1918 and How it McDonagh’s Changed the World Notebook 5 / He could have been a hero… LAURA SPINNEY ‘As with all good A Maryknoll religious sister, who has lived and worked in Zimbabwe for more satires, Swift’s than three decades, remains hopeful for the future / BY JANICE MCLAUGHLIN Philip Crispin essay makes Larkinland 6 / Nightmare on Downing Street JONATHAN TULLOCH you consider A purposeless and enfeebled government faces political challenges things afresh’ / 7 of unprecedented scale / BY JULIA LANGDON 8 / It’s a funny old testament Persecution, cultural assimilation and diaspora have been grist to Jewish humour through the generations – but its roots go back to the Bible / BY JEREMY DAUBER 12 / Father and son A R T S / PAG E 2 0 Justin Trudeau, Canada’s media-savvy, politically astute leader, finds himself Richard Leonard more feted on the world stage than he is at home / BY MICHAEL W. HIGGINS Music ‘Christ our king is The Sixteen not found among ALEXANDRA COGHLAN earthly wealth and splendour’ / 10 Theatre Network; Quiz MARK LAWSON

NEWS Radio A Burnt-Out Case REGULARS 23 / The Church in the World / News briefing D.J. TAYLOR From the Archive 14 24 / Prioritise the people, warn Zimbabwe bishops Exhibition Puzzles 14 26 / View from Rome May Morris Letters 16 27 / News from Britain and Ireland / News briefing LAURA GASCOIGNE The Living Spirit 17 Cinema Extra Time 30 28 / ‘No going back’ to the 1998 Missal Battle of the Sexes Glimpses of Eden 30 COVER PHOTO: PA/NURPHOTO/SIPA USA, BELAL KHALED ANTHONY QUINN

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FEATURES / Zimbabwe in crisis

PHOTO: PA/REUTERS, PHILIMON BULAWAYO as immune to self-contradiction as Mugabe, his loss of all status in Zanu-PF must have been a shattering blow, as his rambling appearance on ZTV on Sunday evening showed. He would, he assured his audience, who had been expecting to hear him announce his decision to resign, still preside over the party congress in December. When the electorate turned on Mugabe from 2000 onwards, he turned on them. The deeper the poverty in which they were mired by his ruinous economic policies and what was by now was a well-established kleptocracy, the more opulent his own lifestyle became. He boasted that he was ready for violence. He said with the disingenuousness that was always one of his hallmarks that true Zimbabweans would be happy to live on sadza (the national maize meal-based staple), because their patriotism came first for them, and they could make sacrifices.

HIS REVENGE on the people had by now included letting so-called “war veterans” loose on the country’s white farmers. Some were beaten badly, others were killed, nearly all were driven from their land, which was then Robert and Grace Mugabe handed to Mugabe’s cronies. The country’s at a meeting of Zanu-PF’s agriculture has never recovered and a land youth league last month that could easily feed itself and export to its neighbours has been reduced to dependency on food aid. The dramatic events in Zimbabwe this week reminded our assistant In 1983, I met Mugabe personally. With the Zimbabwean children I was teaching, I editor of the scale of repression the people had experienced and of had written a play, a kind of black Romeo and the role of the Church in resisting injustice / By JAMES ROBERTS Juliet, that made gentle fun of some Shona customs, in particular the payment of lobola in property or cash to a bride’s family. I knew by now that this was a common source of social friction, and was able to double-check The humiliation the plot and the jokes with my black teenage students. My headmaster had the idea of invit- ing the prime minister, as Mugabe then was, to come and see the play. He agreed. of Mugabe He arrived with only modest security and when we chatted during the interval he was polite and complimentary. But he did not refrain from correcting me on a point of Shona culture. I had made the father of the HE FIRST time I saw robust health despite years of sanctions aimed heroine demand lobola from the hero’s fam- was at a Zanu-PF rally in the at the UDI regime of , would not ily. “That would never happen,” he told me townships late in 1981. He had been suffer. The world and the country’s whites firmly. “Never.” in power for a year or so. I had breathed a sigh of relief. recentlyT arrived in the country to teach The arrival of the leader’s ostentatious cav- my students, it certainly ACCORDING TO English, keen to help build the new non-racial alcade at the stadium did not quite evoke the did happen, but Mugabe’s deep and genuine Zimbabwe. I went with a black neighbour, egalitarian rhetoric that had helped bring pride in Shona culture and customs was evi- who had told me about the rally and promised him victory in the country’s first free elections dent, and was, I thought, to his credit. Before to translate for me from the Shona that was in 1980, but what gave me greater pause was leaving, however, he asked the cast to assem- the likely language of address, given the venue. my neighbour’s translation of Mugabe’s ble on the stage. Keeping his back to everyone I was slightly surprised to find myself just repeated rallying cry during his hour-long else, he addressed them at some length in about the only white person in the assembly speech. “Zanu-PF will rule for ever!” he Shona about how to be a true Zimbabwean. of 10,000 or so, but was regarded with only repeated, over and over again. He had not, What I did not know then was that, even mild suspicion by the Zanu-PF security per- so far as I knew, said this in any of his many as we spoke, the North Korean-trained Fifth sonnel who let us in. interviews in English. Conveniently, his flu- Brigade – under the jurisdiction of Emmerson Mugabe had assured the world on taking ency in both languages enabled him to tailor Mnangagwa, for so long Mugabe’s vice pres- office the previous year that the necessary his message to his audience without being ident and, at the time, the security minister Africanisation process in the newly independ- easily caught out contradicting himself. in charge of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence ent country would be carried out in an orderly Sunday’s expulsion of President Mugabe Organisation – was pacifying Matabeleland. and fair manner. Whites from the old from the party he led for more than 40 years, The region is home to the Ndebele people, Rhodesian order would be replaced voluntarily whose spirit he believed he embodied, brought who make up about 20 per cent of the coun- by well-qualified blacks. The economy, in that day back to my mind. Even for someone try’s population; the other 80 per cent are

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A PRESIDENCY IN PERSPECTIVE I was taken completely by surprise by recent events. Like every Zimbabwean, I have He could have been a hero… learned to patiently bear mismanagement and In spite of the uncertainty over the future of Zimbabwe, a Maryknoll religious sister corruption, and all kinds of who has lived and worked in the country for one year less than the 37 Robert Mugabe difficulties and inconveniences. has served as the country’s leader, remains hopeful / BY JANICE McLAUGHLIN We have stood stoically in long bank queues to withdraw cash, often receiving only a handful of coins. We have found ways to The sTreeTs of harare were televised to the nation less than impatient with outsiders evade police road blocks quiet earlier this week as people 24 hours later, the mood in intervening in Zimbabwe’s affairs. because we know that the police went about their business. harare swung between hope “They never intervened to help us would stop us and demand a Vendors were selling and despair. when we were being tortured and bribe whether we had done newspapers; gardeners were The war veterans who until killed in 2008. Why do they care something illegal or not. We cutting well-manicured lawns in recently had been faithful now?” was the common refrain. have grown frustrated at the more up-scale neighbourhoods; supporters of the president Christian leaders have called ever-increasing prices for food coffee shops were crowded with issued a strong statement last for patience and restraint and for and the ever-diminishing customers; students walked to saturday, calling Mugabe a tyrant the media not to spread false availability of commodities once school in their starched and well and the intervention by the news. Nevertheless, rumours in plentiful supply. I had given pressed uniforms. But when I military “a watershed revolution”. abound. I heard whispers on up hoping that change would stopped to talk to people on They demanded an end to Monday that Mugabe had left the come; I had come to simply Monday, without exception they “killing, maiming, intimidating country for an undisclosed focus on survival. were frustrated, angry and innocent people who hold location, even as plans were “At last”, I thought when I heard puzzled by robert Mugabe’s different political views … and to being laid for his impeachment; that the army had acted. “The failure to announce the previous looting of national wealth and other whispers suggested that army has kept him in power all evening that he would step down bleeding the country”. his wife, Grace, and their children these years. Now it is only the as president. The military intervention has had left the country for Namibia. army that can bring the suffering “he’s an obstinate old man,” a been welcomed by almost There is no way to check the facts. of the people to an end.” Of priest told me. everyone here. some are The meetings between the course, there is the danger that “We don’t want war,” a young describing it as a “benevolent generals and a mediator acting one dictator will simply be accountant said. “We are willing coup”, while others maintain that for the president, Fidelis replaced by another. “Mugabe to wait for him to go, but we it was not really a coup at all, Mukonori sJ, are being held at must go” one commentator has hope it will be soon.” merely a purge within the ruling state house, behind closed said. “But more fundamentally, From the euphoria of last Zanu-PF party. All agreed that the doors. Fr Mukonori, who played the system must go.” It will not be saturday, when thousands of army commanders are bending an important role in the Catholic easy or quick to transform a people of all ages, races and over backwards to avoid the Commission for Justice and Peace system that has thrived on political persuasion had marched appearance of a coup, which in the years before and after intimidation, violence, patronage together, confident that change would be unacceptable to the independence, has asked for and corruption. I am not was coming, to the rambling and international community. prayers as the future of the nation dismayed by the possibility that defiant presidential address Zimbabweans, by and large, are is being discussed. CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

Shona. Joshua Nkomo’s Zapu-PF was the to visit. Up to 10 per cent of Zimbabwe’s 13 John Paul II and hear what he had to say. I other section of the Patriotic Front and many million people are Catholic. Mugabe’s wondered what his first words would be. With of its fighters and politicians felt they had Catholicism was well known, and even today my family, I joined tens of thousands at been ignored in the distribution of the spoils he has been accompanied in his conversations Harare’s Borrowdale racecourse. after independence. The campaign against with the generals detaining him by his con- Mugabe was in the front row with his these “dissidents” came to be known in Shona fidant of several decades, Fr Fidelis Mukonori. mother. The Pope got up to speak. “The Lord as gukurahunde, or the sweeping away of the For the past 10 years, however, since the pub- is my Shepherd!” he intoned in his unmis- chaff. An estimated 20,000 people were lication of their pastoral statement, “God takeable Polish accent. It was suddenly clear slaughtered. A report on the killings was Hears the Cry of the Oppressed”, in March to me why I had come. There was Mugabe, painstakingly assembled by the Catholic 2007, the Catholic bishops have bravely main- shepherded by I knew not what, although he Institute for International Relations (which tained a highly critical stance towards Mugabe certainly seemed to have made some sort of subsequently became Progressio and has now and the Zanu-PF government. bargain with evil. And here was the head of folded) but it never saw the light of day. the Church saying, it’s not about me, it’s about Over the next five years, with the neutral- “AS THE SUFFERING population becomes the Lord, who is my guide and protector. In isation of Nkomo and his assumption of the more insistent, generating more and more that moment, I understood Christianity for executive presidency, Mugabe’s personality pressure through boycotts, strikes, demon- the first time. cult became ever more extravagant, his por- strations and uprisings, the state responds The following year saw the collapse of trait now ubiquitous in the streets and inside with ever harsher oppression through arrests, Mugabe’s allies, the communist regimes of in the workplace. I started to work as a sub - detentions, banning orders, beatings and tor- Eastern Europe, in no small part thanks to editor in the evenings on The Herald ture,” the bishops stated. Pope John Paul II. We do not know whether newspaper, a government mouthpiece then There was no such open opposition in 1988, the fall of Mugabe will be as bloodless as the as now, although then, unlike today, there however. The avenues of Harare were deco- Velvet Revolution or the fall of the Berlin was no independent source of printed news. rated, tall lamp post after tall lamp post, with Wall. But, as far as a free Zimbabwe any time I learned about the day-to-day management alternating images of the Pope and of Mugabe, soon is concerned, I have some doubts. of news in a de facto dictatorship. in a calculated display of equivalence. I was Mugabe said that Zanu-PF would rule for Then, in 1988, Pope St John Paul II came not Catholic then, but decided to go and see ever. And it hasn’t gone yet.

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FEATURES / Political turmoil

Westminster has never experienced anything comparable to the A rehearsal of the circumstances is neces- sary here to point up the extraordinary nature current uncertainty, with an enfeebled government facing political of our current state of affairs. Mrs May is By JULIA LANGDON prime minister by default. She got the job challenges of unprecedented scale / because she was the least worst option, but she espoused a decency that was evident to all. The daughter of the vicarage, she is socially and economically conservative, but it was an Nightmare on Anglo-Catholic vicarage, and she has been imbued from birth with the values of citizen- ship and with the sense of duty and responsibility to help others in practical ways. Downing Street She taught Sunday school. She has told us that her faith informs her actions, frames her thinking: “It’s part of me. It’s part of who I am and therefore how I approach things.” But, having set out with the best of inten- T WAS, ludicrously enough, the chan- tions, the prime minister has been beset and cellor’s stated intention of taking a ride bested by a combination of events and bad in a driverless vehicle that said more judgement, culminating in this year’s unnec- than anything else about the parlous essary and calamitous general election. She stateI of the British government in these trou- remains prime minister by default, because ble-torn times. Or, rather, the reaction of those the alternatives that could keep the who, laughably, are responsible for the gov- Conservative party from falling apart – and ernment’s public image and who then felt it from losing office – are either non-existent necessary to ensure that there would be no or too terrible for her and her advisers to con- circumstances whatever, not the slightest pos- template. There is no candidate to succeed sibility, no glimmer of an opportunity, for her who might be able to keep the party Philip Hammond to be allowed even to look together, when the prospect of its disintegra- at, let alone be photographed near, any kind tion is very real. And anything that might of car, lorry, truck or van which did not have precipitate another general election carries a driver. the obvious possibility of a resurgent left- wing Labour Party storming into power. IT IS THE METAPHORS that are proving the undoing of this disastrous administration. In THAT CHILDHOOD inheritance of rights and years to come, when these dreadful days are responsibilities means, therefore, that she at last over and the memory of Theresa May’s must accept the duty of leadership, however government is consigned to the dustbin of his- limited her ability to respond. And limited tory, it will be the pitiable image of a prime she most certainly is. She has a chancellor of minister pathetically struggling to articulate yet the curious thing, which is both hard to the exchequer she doesn’t trust and who she her political intentions against the artificial explain and utterly puzzling to the world out- would willingly replace if she could. Mr backdrop of a slowly disintegrating stage set side Westminster, is that Mrs May could be Hammond is regarded with disdain by much that will serve as her epitaph. Just as the picture ousted, or obliged to resign, tomorrow; or, of the Tory party; he has an unerring ability of Neil Kinnock being knocked over by a wave alternatively, she could remain in office, fatally to do or say the wrong thing and he found on Brighton beach on the day of his election damaged as she is, for months or even years. himself last week faced with the unusual as Labour leader in 1983 somehow served to I have been reporting from Westminster prospect of presenting a budget he had pub- encapsulate his ensuing years of luckless lead- for 45 years and I have never seen a govern- licly discussed in advance, knowing that it ership, it is the mind’s eye image that fixes the ment in as much disarray. The law of scarcely mattered, since he could not succeed meaning of the metaphor. Watching Mrs May’s consequences suggests that it cannot continue. whatever he did. Somewhat vacuously, he tussle at the time of her party conference But somehow it limps along. “I’ll tell you said he intended his budget “to tell the story speech, it was tragically evident that this was what’s going on!” Harold Wilson once about where Britain is going”, but in doing a disaster from which she would not, from declared, when confronted with an onset of so drew attention to the fact that actually which she could not, recover. particularly poisonous plotting in his own nobody has a clue what that story might be, Nor will she. Like John Major in his last party: “I’m going on!” Mrs May does not have thanks to the dark, heavy cloud we call Brexit days at No. 10 (as derided by Norman the authority today to make any sort of asser- obscuring every inch of the route ahead. Lamont), she in office but not in power. And tion like that. She has a foreign secretary in Boris Johnson

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 am being a sentimental following year to work in be remembered only for may optimist. I supported the education and development. I everything that went so take over, even though he has a liberation struggle and was have witnessed the ups and painfully and disastrously checquered past. Only a man arrested and deported by Ian downs of the last 37 years, wrong under his command. It is who has the backing of the smith for my work with the marveling at the patience and a tragic end for someone who, military could have taken over. Church’s justice and peace resilience of the people. As I for all his misjudge ments and Those who know Mnangagwa commission. I am one of the watched the pathetic faults, I will nevertheless say he is a pragmatist, likely to many who was elated when performance of this once remember as proud, dignified form a coalition government Mugabe was elected the first charismatic leader on television and intelligent man. with other parties, and focus on prime minister of an last sunday, I shed a tear. had he restoring the country’s shattered independent Zimbabwe in stepped down after his second Janice McLaughlin was President economy. 1980. It was at his request that I term in office he would have left of the Maryknoll Sisters between I am hopeful. But perhaps I returned to Zimbabwe the the stage as a hero. Now, he will 2008 and 2015.

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MELANIE McDONAGH’S NOTEBOOK

who is an international laughing stock and who should have been fired. She cannot do As with all good satires, so because (see above) she does not have the political strength and cannot afford to lose a third cabinet minister in as many weeks. She Swift’s essay makes you has a deputy, her first minister, Damian Green, whose usefulness is somewhat limited because consider things afresh of an investigation by the morality police for alleged wrongdoing that he strenuously denies. As Mrs May herself has given the morality police the upper hand in today’s THE BEST conversations on his best side: Gulliver, of course, but febrile climate, inquiries will have to be left not only don’t exclude pol- also that savage little essay, the “Modest to take their course. itics and religion; they’re Proposal”, that one-year-old children of As if all this were not enough, she has a the substance of them. So the Irish poor should be handed over to home secretary, Amber Rudd, who wants her it was when I met one of their betters – to be fricasseed and eaten. job, an environment secretary in Michael the Evening Standard columnists, Rob They also had kind words to say about Gove who wants anybody else’s job, a chief Rinder, who is known to lots of people his legacy, the first Irish mental hospital. whip, Julian Smith, who is new in the job and as Judge Rinder, from the television show Yet Swift is more complex than that, has no experience, and thus runs a whips’ which he hosts. Not having a telly myself, as a recent biography by John Stubbs office with no authority to rein in a parlia- I had to confess I’d never seen it. Anyway, makes clear. He doesn’t shirk the prob- mentary party at war with itself. If she turns he was terrific, and during our lunch at lematic aspects of Swift, such as his to breathe the air outside Westminster, she The Ivy (he was, very kindly, paying), our now-embarrassing proposal that the finds Donald Tusk, the European Council talk turned inexorably to Catholicism and native Irish should, in their own interests, president, setting her ever more pressing Judaism – he’s Jewish. Why, he asked, at be debarred from speaking their language deadlines. Or there is the Irish taoiseach, Leo one point, did I think Jews were such in places of trade and business. Yet the Varadkar, rightly anxious about the impact high achievers in terms of being lawyers, best way to understand Swift is to read of Brexit on the Republic’s border with and similar? Obvious, I said. If you have him. For Catholics, I’d say, his Tale of a Northern Ireland (wherein, of course, lies Mrs a religion of the book, and emphasis on Tub is still worthwhile. It’s a little allegory May’s House of Commons’ majority in the the law, well, you’re bound to be academ- about a father (Christ) who leaves his shape of the ten Democratic Unionist MPs). ically inclined, and value book-learning, three sons three coats, instructing them no? to leave them alone. Yet the eldest, Peter HER POLITICAL agenda is, of course, neces- “Not quite,” he said – I am paraphrasing (representing Catholics) adds all kinds sarily dictated entirely by Brexit, but also freely here, because by this time drink of ornamentation to the cloth, which the assisted to some extent by the pro-Brexit, had been taken. “It’s because you never middle son, Martin (as in Luther) anti-European parts of the press, which have quite feel safe. You focus on the profes- painstakingly removes. The third son, lately embarked on an exercise of bullying sions because you’re never quite sure of Jack, is so keen to get rid of the accretions, both the prime minister and any MPs who your standing.” “So, it’s because Jews feel he tears the coat to shreds: he represents put respect for their own consciences ahead insecure that they do so well?” I said. the Presbyterian tendency. As with all of the votes of their constituents in last year’s “Yes”, he said. good satires, it makes you consider things referendum. This despite the fact that we Now, I know it’s stupid to generalise afresh. The greatest tribute to Swift is have a representative democracy in this coun- about any group, but this gave me pause that he’s still a bracing read. try, not a delegated one. Would it be any for thought. Rinder’s grandfather was a wonder if Mrs May did not, like the character Holocaust survivor. And when he says POPE BENEDICT was universally con- in the new production of the play Network, that, when he wears a Jewish head-dress demned for his Christmas address to have a breakdown and repeatedly scream: in Israel, he feels safe doing it, as he cardinals in 2012 in which he was “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this doesn’t anywhere else, I believe him. We thought to have condemned homosexu- any more”? She will need all her Christian talked about the foundation of the state ality. The misunderstanding was partly forbearance not to do so. of Israel and I mentioned the objections because the text was issued in Italian, It is impossible to predict what might hap- of Edwin Montagu, the Jew who was a with an English translation following pen next. Working all these years at member of Asquith’s cabinet, to the much later. Yet, a closer reading of his Westminster, I have witnessed many crises, Balfour Declaration (its centenary was address – it’s available online – shows sat on the edge of my seat many times, won- last week), on the basis that it suggested that he was doing no such thing: he was dering how each in a succession of prime that Jews didn’t identify fully with Britain. addressing what is now the most topical ministers will weather the political trials they “Obviously, that was before the issue of the moment, whether gender is face – but doing so somehow always with a Holocaust,” I said, breezily. God given, or a social construct. confident sense that right will prevail. “Exactly”, Rob says. “Before the “According to the biblical creation I have never known uncertainty on this Holocaust.” account,” Benedict observed, “being cre- scale, with such a weak and enfeebled gov- Now, Rob Rinder is very liberal on the ated by God as male and female pertains ernment, unsure of its own purpose and faced Palestinian issue, and belongs to an Israeli to the essence of the human creature. with the most critical political situation for group that fights for their legal rights. This duality is an essential aspect of what the future of the state and its institutions. Yet, even for him, the state of Israel is the being human is all about, as ordained by “Anyone who tells you that they know what ultimate guarantee of Jewish security. God. This very duality as something is going to happen in British politics between As with the best talk, it gave me pause previously given is what is now and Christmas is deluding themselves,” for thought. I’m still thinking. now disputed.” Ken Clarke, the “Father” of the House of Read the text now: it Commons, its longest-serving member, said THIS YEAR marks the 350th anniversary turns out to be extraordi- this week. He spoke the truth, a rather fright- of the birth of Jonathan Swift, perhaps narily prescient. And, I’d ening one. the greatest satirist ever. There was a col- say, correct. lection of little reflections on him in The Julia Langdon is a political journalist, writer Irish Times last weekend by assorted lit- Melanie McDonagh is a leader writer for and broadcaster. erary people, and they focused inevitably the London Evening Standard.

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FEATURES / Jewish humour

Persecution, cultural assimilation, religious revival and diaspora have been grist to a comic mill that ranges from Kafka to the Marx Brothers. But its roots go back to the Bible / By JEREMY DAUBER It’s a funny old testament

N THE SPIRIT of my new book on the fair enough to say that the Bible is, generally history of Jewish comedy, I would like speaking, not funny. Or, more precisely, Not to begin by telling you a joke. A Jewish Funny: because its general thrust is to be hard joke, of course; and – perhaps also unsur- on a certain kind of laughter that displays an prisinglyI – one with a kind of bite to it. It may ironic sensibility, a knowledge of the way the not be to everyone’s taste; you may not find world “works”. it laugh-out-loud funny. But it has the benefit Take Sarah, wife of Abraham, that first – at least in the eyes of this writer – to be the laugher: her mirth is occasioned by her greatest Jewish joke in history. It also, for the understanding that the angelic promise of historically minded, has the benefit of being her delivering a child is biologically impos- root-word within it – is something closer to one of the earliest, one that – as much as any sible, as she is long past the age of a humbled grin. single joke can do – explains how Jewish menopause. But her understanding, in a If laughter is based on knowledge and humour got to be the way it is. world saturated with God’s presence and understanding (you can only truly laugh at a But before the punchline, the set-up, which active intervention, is a faulty one, and her joke if you’re in on it enough to get it), then entails a quick trip through Jewish biblical second laugher – embodied in the Hebrew it seems to follow that the kind of laughter theology, at least as it applies to comedy. It’s name for Isaac, her son, which contains that the Bible does prize is that of those who are in sync with the divine plan for the world, and who are on the right side of God’s covenant. Thus we have the onomastic and linguistic play that pervades the Bible as an understanding of the mystical, religious right- ness of the connection between word and thing (or, on occasion, its direct reverse). Or – perhaps more troublingly, to modern comedic sensibilities – there is the triumphal comedy of punching down against those who weren’t on the right side of God’s programme. Take, for example, the case of Eglon in the book of Judges. Eglon, the king of Moab, whose name comes from the Hebrew word for “calf”, is, like his namesake, corpulent and ignorantly led to the slaughter.

An oasis of peace in Northumberland THE ISRAELITE hero Ehud is able to assas- sinate this enemy of the Jewish people by Come and experience monastic life the fairly simple expedient of telling him Be part of the monastic rhythm for a few days taking part in communal prayer and acitivty. that he has a secret for him, and so he should Monday 28 May– Friday 1 Jun - £250 dismiss all of his guards. This the king does, Integrating Liturgy, Music and Prayer, lead by Paul Inwood allowing Ehud to stab him in the gut – a gut A weekend to help deepen our experience of liturgy and music in the prayer life of the parish. so extensive, by the way, notes the usually Friday 21 – Sunday 23 September - £140 laconic biblical narrative, that the dagger and the handle were embedded all the way On a journey with the Northern Saints into the belly. Follow in the footsteps of Northern Saints with visits to Holy Island, Bamburgh, Durham and This kind of humour was perfectly in line Hadrian’s Wall where they lived out their faith. with what Thomas Hobbes considered to be Monday 23 – Friday 27 July - £275 the essence of comedy: “The passion of laugh- On pilgrimage while standing still - John Bell ter is nothing else but sudden glory arising 5H¾HFWLQJKRZZHDUHPRYLQJWRGHHSHUXQGHUVWDQGLQJVRIRXUVHOYHVRXUZRUOGDQGRXU0DNHU from a sudden conception of some eminency Friday 9 – Sunday 11 November - £140 in ourselves by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly.” Visit www.minsteracres.org for our full programme of retreats and events. Superiority theory, as this idea of how comedy Call 01434 673248, or email [email protected] for bookings and further details. works has come to be known, was unsurpris- Registered charity: 1144385 ingly championed by the man who both was responsible for the idea that life was nasty,

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words, in biblical books depicting the rise of ing forces are – far from their own self-image the kingdom of the House of David, and the as conquerors and empire-builders – simply construction of God’s house on earth, the instruments in the Jewish God’s plan, chess Holy Temple; when the covenant between pieces in a larger history. Their triumphal God and Israel is in good, easy, strong, uncom- laughter is akin to Sarah’s: they think they plicated operation. know, but they do not understand. But what happens when the kingdoms of But that laughter has a doubled, anxious, Israel and Judah lie in ruins? When God’s inward focus; not simple superiority, but with house has been consumed in fire? When the a nervous edge. What if they’re right? The leadership of the Jews has been scattered to Jews of the Bible, after all, are as loath to be the diasporic winds? What then? Well, “what the butt of someone else’s joke as anyone else, then” is the development of the greatest Jewish as the book of Lamentations suggests over joke of all time. You’ve been very patient, and and over again: “ sinned grievously, I thank you for it. But here it is. It’s a joke told so she has become a mockery,” the mourning by the Jews, to the Gentile nations among narrator intones. whom they would coexist throughout post- There’s that small, heckling voice in the exilic Jewish history. back of the Jewish consciousness. Who are we kidding, what with the superiority complex. “YOU BABYLONIANS, Assyrians, Romans, Look at where they are and look at where we etc.,” it goes, “You think that just because are: we’re history’s joke, not them. Non-Jews you’ve destroyed our temple, killed our leaders, made this point, too – as early as the fourth The Marx Brothers in 1931. Harpo exiled us, you think you’ve won? You think century, Julian the Apostate said: “Will anyone (left), Zeppo, Chico, and Groucho you’re in charge? You think you know what’s think that victory in war is less desirable than in a scene from Monkey Business going on? What shmucks you are!” defeat? Who is so stupid?” – but the Jews lis- Of course, I’m paraphrasing (Yiddish hadn’t tened to their own voices most of all. PHOTO: REX/SHUTTERSTOCK even been invented yet). But this joke, like all And so, this leads to the greatest of all brutish, and short, and was a subtle and care- the best Jewish jokes, is deeply barbed. On Jewish works of comedy, the one that carries ful reader of the Bible. the one hand, it seems, ostensibly, to be a the seeds of all Jewish comedic effort after it, But this kind of comedy – which is present pious statement, if impiously rendered, of the one that outlines the blueprint for how in numerous instances in the Bible – works theology. The covenant obtains: these histor- to survive in the Diaspora: the book of Esther. best when there is an uncomplicated and pure ical events are merely the result of national For Jews, the book of Esther is practically sense of the superior, of the victorious, of sin, and with appropriate behaviour and synonymous with joy and merriment: it is being the top dog. It works well, in other repentance will be rectified; and the maraud- Continued on PAGE 10

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RICHARD LEONARD

Continued FroM PAGE 9 the liturgical reading for the holiday of Purim, Christ our king is not found which commemorates the salvation of the Jews from the genocidal depredations of Haman, the vizier of Ahasuerus. If ever there among earthly wealth were a text dedicated to the old Jewish joke about celebrating – “they tried to kill us, we and splendour survived, let’s eat” – that text would be the book of Esther. And yet the book describes a salvation not based on God’s providence: Esther bears the Recently, I saw the starts to be called the Queen of Heaven; distinction of being one of the only books of digitally reworked film of by the high medieval period she is often the Bible where the divine name goes unmen- Queen Elizabeth II’s cloaked in blue, the prerogative of kings tioned in the text. Befitting the name of the coronation. This was at the time. holiday it is read on – a word that means “lots” British ritual at its most We cannot change history, but we do or “a lottery” – the salvation of the Jews takes brilliant. The sense of flow, dignity and not have to be trapped by it either. In the place by a string of coincidences. beauty was quite overwhelming. I was very Scriptures given into our monarch’s What would have happened, one imagines, struck by how this rite mirrored the hands we discover Christ our king is not were it not the case that Ahasuerus, suffering ordination of a bishop. It has a call, found among earthly wealth and from a case of royal insomnia, happened to oaths, the reception of the Scriptures, the splendour, but in desperate poverty, in read of Mordechai the Jew’s good deed for Liturgy of the Word, recitation of the homelessness, in seeking out and saving the king, rather than anything else? What if Creed, an anointing, the presentation of the lost, in getting down and dirty in the Haman had not happened to be outside wait- the symbols of office leading up to the service of those on the margins of society. ing in the king’s courtyard? What if he had crowning, the acclamation by the people, I am not convinced such groups would not tripped and fallen on the queen after she an enthroning, the homage of the be welcome or at home in the lavish revealed her Jewish heritage, making the king subjects, Holy Communion, the Te Deum coronation ceremonies conducted in believe she was the victim of an attempted and then the Recessional. Christ the King’s name in the seduction or assault? And, for that matter, It was made explicitly clear that Christ Westminster Abbeys of our world. what if the king had picked for his consort was anointing Elizabeth Alexandra Mary If we take Christ’s kingship seriously, someone who was not Jewish? “to govern the Peoples of the United we cannot delude ourselves into Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern understanding it in terms of worldly TRADITIONAL authorities have said, as a Ireland, Canada, Australia, New status. Jesus said, if any of us want to be matter of theology, that this string of sheer Zealand, the Union of South Africa, first, we have to be least, and the servant coincidences are so deeply unlikely that there Pakistan, and Ceylon, and of your of all. I admire the lifetime of privileged must – must – be an author to them, and the Possessions and the other Territories …” service our queen has rendered and her rabbis acted, through midrashic intervention, As I watched, however, I became obvious and sincere Christian faith, but to place God back into the narrative. But this increasingly uncomfortable. While Christ does not anoint any social or is interpretation, not text; and the text is everything was said to be done in Christ’s ecclesiastical system of privilege and blackly comic indeed. In a world of divine name, I could only think that Christ wealth that is extravagant or disordered hiddenness (and Esther’s name, which can would prefer to be anywhere but here. in its social relationships. be etymologically related to “secret” or “hid- For millennia, in ceremonies like this all The most moving moment when Jesus den”, was taken by the rabbis as a nod to just around the world, Christ’s kingship is speaks of his kingship is from the Cross, such a concept, albeit for very different rea- often called upon to confirm that God when the good thief simply asks: sons), another interpretation darkly suggests approves of not only this particular “Remember me.” Jesus replies that being itself. And what can you do about it, but laugh? monarch or that particular president, remembered by God is paradise. The Well, lots of things. And Jews did, in many but also of the entire social, economic power of Christ the King is seen in his ways, and in many works of brilliant comedy, and religious hierarchy that seems to go memory, in holding every person in this over the centuries. But that’s a story for with the institution of the state. world close; in calling each one of us by another time: helpfully written, case bound, Following on from Jesus saying he was name and challenging us to live lives of and now on sale from a reputable publisher. a king, “but not of this world”, Christians sacrificial love. It is seen where simplicity celebrated his reign as that of the is valued, where there is a right Jeremy Dauber is Atran professor of Yiddish Messiah, or the Christ literally – “the relationship with the Earth, where the language, literature and culture at Columbia anointed one”, the Redeemer King who poor are recognised as special points of university, new York, and the author of would defend the rights of the poor, and God’s revelation to the world. several books on Jewish literature. His latest, establish an everlasting reign of justice The test of those who live out the reign Jewish Comedy: A Serious History, is and peace. of Christ is not whether we are published by W. W. norton & Company. The notion of Jesus as an earthly king successful, or have made it to Who’s Who. and an anointer of earthly kingdoms Christ our king calls us to follow him in came with the conversion of Emperor remembering all people, regardless of Constantine in AD 313. Bishops started who they are, and being prepared to pay to wear the magenta robes of Roman the price in fighting for the dignity of Remember The Tablet senators. Churches took on the shape of each person. And what is our reward for in your will. Roman basilicas, while the government bringing Christ’s reign to For more information please of the Church came to mirror that of the bear in our world? That empire. The Christian liturgy imported visit www.thetablet.co.uk or Christ will remember us all sorts of practices popular in the when we come into his if you would like to speak Roman temples and in civic rituals. kingdom. to someone at The Tablet, Within a century, Christian art began please call 0IPPA,ee On to depict Jesus dressed in royal robes, Richard Leonard SJ is the author of What +44 (0) 20 8748 8484 with a crown, a sceptre and an orb. Mary does it All Mean? A Guide to Being More is often presented in similar dress, and Faithful, Hopeful, and Loving (Paulist Press).

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FEATURES / Justin Trudeau

At just beyond the mid-point in the first term of his government, Canada’s media-savvy, politically astute leader finds himself more feted on the world stage than he is at home / By MICHAEL W. HIGGINS Father and son

PHOTOS: PA T ALL BEGAN with a son’s eulogy of his three children, share the same values, and father. It was the day a political career have an abiding professional interest in the was born. On 3 October 2000, Justin media. With a candour that is characteristic Trudeau delivered his passionate, of their very public marriage, Sophie has spo- almostI visceral, tribute to Pierre Elliott ken of her teenage struggles with bulimia, and Trudeau, at his state funeral in Notre-Dame embraces a holistic approach to life that pro- Basilica in Montreal. fesses a deep spirituality minimally laced with Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte was pre- more conventional religious sentiments. siding, the homilist was family friend Fr The senior Trudeau’s Catholicism was per- Jean-Guy Dubuc, the readings were judi- manently etched – no theological trifling, no ciously chosen, the choir was in fine form, anti-intellectualism, no ersatz spirituality. He and the artful alternation between post- valued his Jesuit education at the Collège Second Vatican Council liturgical practice Jean-de-Brébeuf with its Ignatian emphasis and ritual with pre-Second Vatican Council on the cultivation of languages, logic and hymnody and chant provided an exquisite intellectual pugilism; he maintained a long portrait of the aesthetic and spiritual leanings and generative – spiritually and intellectually of Trudeau père. – relationship with the Quebec Dominicans, But it was Trudeau fils whom people Louis-Marie Régis, Benoît Lacroix and Gilles- remember. The dignity, dramatic delivery, Dominique Mailhot, that spoke to his abiding measured pacing, the eloquentia perfecta of Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau. Thomism; he was drawn to the serenity of the Jesuit-schooled youth were all on full dis- Inset below: his late father, Pierre the Solesmes tradition that he found in his play. “My father’s fundamental belief in the favourite retreat house, the monastery of sanctity of the individual never came from a Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, coupled with his attrac- textbook,” said Trudeau. “It stemmed from leader Stephen Harper, Trudeau was recruited tion to the meditation practices espoused by his deep love for and faith in all Canadians in the hope that he would draw on the lasting the Benedictine spiritual master, John Main. and over the past few days, with every card, mystique of his father’s charisma, rejuvenate every rose, every tear, every wave and every the rank and file, inspire confidence in a for- TRUDEAU’S CATHOLICISM has neither the pirouette, you returned his love. We have ward-looking agenda that would break free layered complexity, Gallic tonality nor ethical gathered from coast to coast … united in our of the economically and socially tepid policies “flexibility” of his father’s faith. He is more grief to say ‘Goodbye’. But this is not the end. of the Tories, rebuild the party’s brand as the the activist, tactician and image-shaper, ever He left politics in 1984, but he came back for national party, and offer a new vision that massaging the message with his aides Gerald the Meech Lake Accord, he came back for would shatter the traditional conventions that Butts and Katie Telford, and none too keen Charlottetown, he came back to remind us define political Ottawa. in defining his personal faith in the public of who we are … But he won’t be coming back In 2013 he won his party leadership; two manner of his father. He and Sophie were any more … Je t’aime, papa.” years later he won the national leadership married in a , and have had and now, once again, the nation is their children baptised as Catholics. BUT HE HAS come back – in the person of his awash in Trudeaumania. His father’s He identifies as a Catholic, and made son. And Canada has never looked so good flamboyance, quixotically mixed a special point in his visit to Pope on the international stage. Now with its second with a professorial air, is not quite Francis in May of underscoring Trudeau as prime minister, Canadians of all the son’s style. Although they the fact: “I had a deeply personal political stripes, ethnicities, creeds and philo- share a love of physical endurance and wide-ranging, thoughtful sophical perspectives find themselves, tests, wilderness trips, and feats conversation with the leader of atypically, in the full glow of media attention of athletic prowess, Justin’s shirt- my own faith.” as their telegenic, social media-savvy, politically less forays and tight trousers have Conservative Catholics are astute leader wends his way through the night- more of the rock star’s eroticism than incensed at Trudeau’s no-holds-barred mare landscape of contemporary turmoil. His would have appealed to his father. approach to free choice regarding abortion, country abuts Donald Trump’s domain and Yet, his father’s marriage to Margaret his promotion of an open definition of gender dealing with the US president’s capricious Sinclair, their scandal-tinged separation, identity, his advocacy of physician-assisted judgements and unsteady personality would divorce and annulment, the media fest around death (although his legislation was more challenge the most seasoned of politicians. his post-marital relationships with an actor, nuanced and moderate than his critics allow) Trudeau’s ascendancy was by no means auto- a singer, and a guitarist, the subsequent birth and his facile manner when dealing with matic. He has been variously a mathematics – shrouded in secrecy – of a daughter, and the issues of moral density. teacher, a snowboarding and white-water raft- sexual magnetism that never seemed to dimin- The loathing the Trudeau name continues ing instructor, a nightclub bouncer, an amateur ish with age, is very distant from the stable to generate in traditional Catholic circles is boxer, a radio host and an author. relationship Justin has with his wife, Sophie perhaps encapsulated in a conversation I had Following the disarray of the Liberal Party Grégoire Trudeau. with the sister of a senior Canadian prelate of Canada in the wake of a succession of elec- Equally as telegenic as her husband, Sophie when I asked her what she had in her pet car- toral defeats at the hands of the Conservative and Justin co-parent in a serious way their rier. I thought she said a dog when she said

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a cat, and when I asked its name I thought the sacrament in his home church. The matter tional monarchy so our real first couple sits she said “Trudeau” when she actually said was quickly put to rest. If Trudeau has run in the vice-regal residence) has generated a “Frodo”. To get the species mixed up was one offside when it comes to official church teach- star power the usually staid Canadian political thing, but to think that she would name any- ing on life issues, he shares that status with arena rarely gets. Here is where memories of thing after a Trudeau bordered on sacrilege. the majority of Canadian Catholics, as survey the elder Trudeau surface, while the A-list The Trudeaus have been notorious for lib- after survey demonstrates. celebrity of both Justin and Sophie continues eralising Canada’s laws on all matters sexual Trudeau’s alignment with Catholic Social to command unrelenting media coverage. – Pierre, while justice minister in 1968, Teaching, on the other hand, has an orthodox The international media is especially fawning. decriminalised homosexuality – and for many ring to it. He has advanced legislation that But at just after the mid-point in the first in the Church they have been less than ideal will constructively deal with the country’s term of Trudeau’s government – he has been models of Catholic rectitude. Invigilating bod- original sin – its treatment of the indigenous in power for two years and he has by law two ies of Catholic orthopraxy hyperactive on peoples, especially the children forcibly sent years left in his mandate – the Trudeau ark social media often focus on the perceived per- to residential schools (funded and mandated is beginning to take on water. Much of his fidy of Justin Trudeau and excoriate Canada’s by the federal government but operated by progressive legislation has either died on the bishops for their failure to take him to task. the Churches and Catholic religious orders), parliamentary floor, been abandoned, or has Most recently, the Archbishop of Montreal, which systematically undermined Aboriginal been sundered by too many compromises; Christian Lépine, was criticised for having culture and disrupted families for generations. and the emergence of a new leader for a given him Communion at a Mass marking slowly reviving Conservative party whose the 375th anniversary of the founding of TRUDEAU HAS pledged enhanced foreign credentials are far less showy but not without Montreal. Canada’s two current residential aid; he has promised to restore Canada’s con- substance – Andrew Scheer is a classically cardinals, Gérald Lacroix and Thomas Collins, tribution to international peacekeeping; he devout Catholic and the darling of many a as well as the papal nuncio, Luigi Bonazzi, has been a vocal, articulate and persistent bishop – guarantees that a second term is were concelebrants. advocate for remedial strategies to address not a shoo-in. The incident created barely a stir in the global warming (in striking contrast to the Still, the Trudeau phenomenon recidivus country at large. After all, when the philo- recalcitrance of President Trump); he has has not been eclipsed, only tampered with. sophically schooled and spiritually reflective aggressively championed the cause of women’s As all Canadians know, never underestimate Catholic prime minister, Paul Martin, passed employment rights (his cabinet is 50 per cent a Trudeau. They tend to come back. same-sex marriage legislation in 2005, the women, by design); and he has opened episcopal response was largely mute, and Canada’s doors to refugees and migrants with Michael W. Higgins is distinguished professor when one bishop protested that he would not more generosity than the vast majority of of Catholic Thought at Sacred Heart give the PM Communion in his diocese, Western powers, Germany excepted. University, Fairfield, Connecticut. His books Martin’s parish priest rejoined that the The promise, glitz and trumpeted glamour include biographies of Thomas Merton, Henri national leader would never be deprived of of Canada’s “first couple” (we are a constitu- Nouwen and Jean Vanier.

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FROM THE ARCHIVE

50 years ago 100 years ago THE TABLET • 25 NOVEMBER 1967 THE TABLET • 24 NOVEMBER 1917

hen the Lords debated surely is a prize example of the ir … [Mr T. A. Lacey] two ideas of “Catholic” and Wreligious instruction in kind of current educational Sbrought forward this case as “being within the Church”. state schools last week, Lord theory by which a child is an argument against my According to him these are not Willis, better known as the isolated as far as possible from position, that a man synonymous. I think this new author of Dixon of Dock Green, the influence of its parents and excommunicate is no Catholic distinction one of the strangest speaking as a Humanist, argued its home, where, throughout … He now denies that he things I have heard … What he that … children should be history, children have grown up claimed the excommunicate does mean I cannot imagine. I taught about all the main into their religious faith. Only Cardinal as being a Catholic. am glad to have reached these religions, and left to make their someone who thought religion Therefore, by his own conclusions about Mr. Lacey’s choice … The House of Lords is really a very minor matter admission, this case … has no views; but I regret that I did not often claims that its debates are would suggest it should be value as an argument that succeed in doing so without better than those in the presented in this way, with, as it people excommunicate are still making him cross. Yours, &c., Commons. But it can also hear were, a series of brochures Catholics. That is all I want, or A. Fortescue. the most extraordinary and setting out the rival attractions have urged. He also confesses to [This correspondence may wild propositions, and this of holiday resorts. holding a distinction being the now cease.—Ed. TABLET.]

PUZZLES

1 2 3 4 4 4 5 6 PRIZE CROSSWORD 15 Promotion in realm about having security device (7) No. 585 | Alanus 7 8 16 Damage to body of a holy man by down in the mouth worker (7) 9 19 Early martyr saint with single priest’s vestment (5) Down 20 Posh newcomer leading King to composer Louis (5) 10 11 7 & 24 Acr: Helena icon I move around within West 21 Nearly a square meal (7) occasionally (4,2,1,5) 8 Prepares horsemen for marriage? (6) 12 13

10 Pursuit game for six in test (7) 14 15 16 11 Painting we returned for volume of writings of Buddha (5) 12 See 18 Across 17 18 13 States time for deployment (5) 19 20 21 17 Arab I hunted holds captive Aaron’s son (5) 22 23 Please send your answers to: 18 & 12 Acr: Sad force of US rosary promoters (4,4) Crossword Competition 25 November 22 Reason for mistake is trainee by back of church feature (5) The Tablet, 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 0GY. 23 Fictional detective greeted in new Baltic capital (7) 24 25 Please include your full name, telephone number and email address, 24 See 7 Across and a mailing address. Three books – on Augustine, Christianity and 25 End letters before sect breaks up American people (6) Thomas Aquinas – from the OUP’s Very Short Introduction series will Down go to the sender of the first correct entry drawn at random on Friday 1 Pagan pipe player about to change into early Pope (7) 15 December. 2 Breaches half-break from school and Miss upset (7) l The answers to this week’s puzzles and the crossword winner’s 3 Noted palindrome (5) name will appear in the 16 December issue. 4 Have foreboding before one of wisdom (7) Solution to the 4 November crossword No. 582 5 Numbers game sudden widower fleeing Sodom adds to (5) Across: 7 Mensa; 8 Alumnus; 10 Charles; 11 Blair; 12 Palmerston; Win three bo oks on 6 Heard solver and playwright at former northern seminary (5) 16 Baldachins; 20 Conte; 21 Godfrey; 23 Satsuma; 24 Duomo. Augustine, Chr ristianity, 9 By holding palms he disfigured commits sin against second Down: 1 Amice; 2 Incas; 3 Paul; 4 Ransom ;5 Zurbaran; 6 Infanta; commandment (9) 9 Spring; 13 Agapetus; 14 Abacus; 15 Planets; 17 Haggai; 18 Arrow; Thomas Aqu uinas 14 Basil in ropy fashion gets down when in area (7) 19 Synod; 22 Dada. Winner: Mark Taylor, Waterthorpe, Sheffield. SUDOKU | Tough

Each 3x3 box, each row and each column These new priz zes are must contain all the kindly sponso red by numbers 1 to 9.

www.oup.ccom Solution to the 4 November puzzle

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LETTERS •the editor of the tablet• 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 0GY 020 8748 1550 [email protected] All correspondence, including email, must give a full postal address and contact telephone number. The Editor reserves the right to shorten letters.

Purely political TOPIC OF THE WEEK l “Tories deserve to be out of office”, says the headline on your leading article of 18 November. A moment for hope and sadness I have been a subscriber to The Tablet for a number of years. I GABRIEL DALY’S backward look over his august background in the Church with my have read many articles, most of long theological life (18 November) seems experiences as a lay person. I married in which I find interesting and to lack hope. I share his chronological 1968, an ex-Anglican with the promise of informative. There have window, and can only admire the clarity the changes from the Second Vatican naturally been some I have and accuracy of his recollections and Council and the statement from my local disagreed with but did not analyses. But he fails to appreciate the parish priest, confirming that we would see object to because they had a instant kairos – this wonderfully big changes and new life in the Church; a religious aspect. challenging, opportune moment . recognition that contraception was a However, your leading Reform is already under way through a matter of conscience and that no one article is solely party political shift of emphasis from discussion of ideas, should bring into this world a child they with no religious base. We in what the late Cardinal Francis George of could neither care for nor afford. subscribe to The Tablet for the Chicago called a “debating society” Church, Nearly 50 years later and after 20 years as news and educated views about to a person-centred exploration of non- deacon, I am in reality still a lay person in the religious side of our daily intellectual encounter with God and with the eyes of most clergy and find the Church lives. We do not expect the one another. Already we have that “soft moving further and further away from the leader to criticise the focus”, that “dim” theological light which intentions of the Second Vatican Council. government (or the Daly so admires in von Hügel. A new From my perspective, we are slipping opposition) unless they “cloud of unknowing” is sheltering a further and further into the theology of the are acting in a non- Church in which the Pope can say: “Who Middle Ages, with a Missal which is neither Christian manner. am I to judge?” appropriate nor poetic, certainly not one KERRY RICHARD HARDING Yes, there is still today what Daly terms a which praises our Creator and gives GORING3ON3THAMES “battery of traditionalist Catholics”, pleasure to those who read and hear its OXFORDSHIRE insistent on preserving an introspective, words. We have a hierarchy doing all it can dogmatic, legalistic, literally-minded to downgrade the current Pope, which is l Your leader “Tories deserve to Church. Pope Francis is vehemently laughable when you think that only a few be out of office” argues its case opposed to this rigidity, which seeks to years ago one of our bishops stated: persuasively – “The original cripple the spiritual suppleness of the “Everything uttered by the Pope is to be Tory sin ... was to put party young people who are both the Church of considered infallible.” before country”, a sin of today and the hope for the Church of Fr Daly has my undying admiration for Cameron’s repeated by May. tomorrow. And next year they will have standing up to the developing tyranny that The sin however is even graver. their say in a Synod. is bringing down the Church, driving away The government is BASIL LOFTUS the young, and continuing to denigrate prioritising the perceived short- HELMSDALE, SUTHERLAND women and find ever more important roles term commercial and economic for those select few men. benefits of the new UK fossil THE ARTICLE by Fr Gabriel Daly fills me REV. STEPHEN MCKEVITT fuel industry, represented by with sadness and loss. I compare his very CONGLETON, CHESHIRE shale gas, over what an ever louder consensus of scientists pronounce to be to the common good – the drive to save the planet via expansion of 54 pictures of men and 17 of grandchildren. The Church as surely aware of communism’s renewables and abandonment women. But I am pleased to say it is could be accused of atheistic grip on the country. of unnecessary fossil fuels. that in the edition of 11 inequality and misogyny and Orban, like many other The Tories promise to save November there were 61 of men dragging its heels. Hungarians, was only free to the party by enriching those and 33 of women. This is KATHY MCVAY turn to religion once the strict who will profit from shale gas. progress, although the progress BRISTOL religious prohibitions were And, as Yanis Varoufakis has got to be much faster. We lifted with the end of reminds us, “the weak suffer cannot afford the leisurely pace ’s strongman communist dictatorship. what they must”. the Church of England allowed Orban is a popular leader, By its silence, its failure to itself over female priests, and l I read the article “The freely elected twice by a two- “speak truth to power”, our then female bishops. It is not phenomenal rise of Viktor thirds majority. hierarchy also is complicit. about pictures, of course, but Orban” by Paul Lendvai (4 For three centuries, from DAVID CRAGG4JAMES about the integration of women November) with a sad heart. about 1450 to 1699, Hungary YORK into the hierarchy. We should The article raises a good few was defending herself and just do it. questions about its truthfulness Christianity against the Slow progress We should be discussing how and purpose. Ottoman Empire. During this we can eliminate world poverty, I find the author’s criticism of long struggle, the Hungarian l You failed to publish my and about how we can help to Orban’s gradual embrace of population of approximately six letter which said that in a recent save the planet in good shape Christianity curious. As a million was practically edition of The Tablet there were for our children and Hungarian himself, Lendvai is decimated. Hungarian national

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LETTERS

memory will not willingly master and slave races”. By the Conference among the 300 can we avoid “becoming like the welcome Islam back in. promoting the insertion of bishops, diplomats, experts and ‘rich man’ who pretended not to It should be noted that Orban European Jews into the midst Nobel peace laureates, to hear know the beggar Lazarus”. has organised and financed the of the majority population of the Pope’s clear words in Rome. PHILIP WESTMACOTT resettlement of about a Arabs, we neatly transformed However, what we can expect BARTON3LE3STREET thousand Syrian families in two peoples into colonisers and from our Bishops’ Conference NORTH YORKSHIRE their homeland. Hungary has colonised. now is a courageous, clear lead also offered asylum to The resulting logic of what in challenging our own Divine revelation persecuted Christians. happened from then on, Government’s nuclear GYULA KOZMA between a European-educated weapons policy. l Gabriel Moran’s claim that PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA sophisticated people and an ANNE DODD Vatican II did not say what unorganised peasant ABINGDON, OXFORDSHIRE divine revelation actually is Balfour’s colony population, continues in all the (letter, 18 November) is subsequent disastrous history, l Three cheers for Pope baffling. Dei Verbum famously l In his letter (11 November) as their relative positions Francis, and to The Tablet for taught that Jesus Christ himself Terry Philpot is very clear where remain the same. reporting Francis’ opposition to is “both the mediator and the blame for an unhappy Holy Moreover, Britain’s perfidious nuclear weapons. But, oh dear, sum total of revelation” (n.2). Land lies— with the Palestinian promise to the Arabs of self- your headline: “Pope joins fight MGR PAUL MCPARTLAN people. I believe that we can determination in reward for for a nuclear-free world”, is CARL J. PETER PROFESSOR OF only begin to understand the revolt against the Ottomans surely an oxymoron. SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY AND tragedy of Palestine if we look at during the First World War has “‘Fighting for peace” is like ECUMENISM, THE CATHOLIC the context in which the also played its part. “screaming for silence”. UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Zionist project was set up To apportion blame SR GILLIAN PRICE WASHINGTON DC, USA and supported by the simplistically, without MUCH HADHAM, HERTFORDSHIRE Balfour Declaration. acknowledging the great Perfect wife The wishes of the non-Jewish cultural clash fostered so Social morality inhabitants of the land were not carelessly by us, is a sad mistake. l Omitted in last Sunday’s first worthy of consultation. They JOHN PRANGLEY l I was puzzled by the apparent reading on the perfect wife, were a population long OXFORD suggestion in C.D.C. Armstrong’s Proverbs Chapter 31, were occupied and subject to the letter (18 November) that verses 16 and 17, which read: great Ottoman Empire. They Pope bans the Bomb Catholic Social Teaching does She sets her mind on a field, were now at the disposal of not raise issues of morality. If then she buys it; another great empire, our own, l Thank you for the coverage, we are to uphold the sanctity of with what her hands have in which a fifth of the peoples of in article and editorial (18 human life, it seems to me that earned she plants a vineyard. the world were subject to our November) of the Vatican our moral imperative is not She puts her back into her work power. Balfour, from Ulster Conference on Nuclear merely to preserve it until the and shows how strong her arms roots, probably thought human Disarmament. Pope Francis’ moment of birth, but thereafter can be. plantation policy a good idea. outright condemnation at the to work tirelessly for each I find this of some comfort History gives us a different Conference of both the use and person’s flourishing. That because, as my husband will story. possession of nuclear weapons flourishing requires adequate attest, I am really no good at all It was Europeans in the poses a particular challenge to food, housing, education and with flax and wool. modern world who initially British Catholics, lay and clergy. health care, as Sollicitudo Rei ANNE JEWELL reordered humanity, in the None of our bishops, alas, for Socialis points out. Only by this DOWN HATHERLEY, words of Hannah Arendt, “into whatever reason, was present at love of preference for the poor GLOUCESTERSHIRE

THE LIVING SPIRIT and liturgical calendar

in the past i always thought of “Who does not thank for a way to pray for all seasons ✦ CALENDAR ✦ gratitude as a spontaneous little will not thank for under the sun. response to the awareness of gifts much.” acts of gratitude make RICHARD LEONARD SJ Sunday 26 November: received, but now i realize that one grateful because, step by FROM WHY BOTHER PRAYING? Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (Year A) gratitude can also be lived as a step, they reveal that all is grace. (PAULIST PRESS, 2013) Monday 27 November: discipline. The discipline of HENRI NOUWEN Feria gratitude is the explicit effort to FROM THE WAY OF GRATITUDE: READINGS lord, we are aware that we have Tuesday 28 November: Feria acknowledge that all i am and have FOR A JOYFUL LIFE, EDS. M. LEACH, T. KEANE, many shortcomings. but we have Wednesday 29 November: is given to me as a gift of love, a gift D. GOODNOUGH (ORBIS BOOKS, 2017) the joy of knowing with certainty Feria to be celebrated with joy. […] The that ‘being your living word’ Thursday 30 November: choice for gratitude rarely comes Why bother praying? It does not removes all the dross, so that we St Andrew, Apostle, Patron of Scotland without some real effort. but each matter if we have developed bad emerge anew moment by moment, Friday 1 December: time i make it, the next choice is a habits in limiting prayer to only like a nut from its shell. ‘being your Feria little easier, a little freer, a little less asking for things, but prayer is word’ means being in another, Saturday 2 December: Feria self-conscious. because every gift i much, much richer than that. By all acting as another who lives in us, Sunday 3 December: acknowledge reveals another and means let’s keep asking God to finding our freedom in freedom First Sunday of Advent another until finally, even the most keep changing us, but let’s also give from ourselves, from our normal, obvious, and seemingly praise and thanksgiving; cry out in shortcomings, from our non-being. For the Extraordinary Form calendar mundane event or encounter lamentation; affirm our trust and CHIARA LUBICH go to www.lms.org.uk proves to be filled with grace. There faith; sing of our salvation; and FROM ESSENTIAL WRITINGS is an estonian proverb that says: simply wait upon the Lord. There is (NEW CITY PRESS, 2007)

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BOOKS •OUR REVIEWERS• DAVID CHATER is a former TV critic for The Times BRIAN MORTON’s books include Shostakovich: His Life and Music • PHILIP CRISPIN is a lecturer in drama at the University of Hull Sticky wickets Mike Brearley’s journey from cricket captain to psychoanalyst is no laughing matter DAVID CHATER

PHOTO: PA ARCHIVE On Form MIKE BREARLEY (LITTLE, BROWN, 416 PP, £20)

TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £18 • TEL 01420 592974

HE FORMER England cricket captain- turned-psychoanalyst Mike Brearley Toriginally set out to write a book about what it means to be “on form”, not just in cricket but in all walks of life. Trainers, he says, know when a horse is in fine fettle and sailors know when their ship is in trim, and since the same principles seem to apply to everyone from financiers to canoeists, why not write a book about it? What does it mean to be on form? How do you train for it? How do you lose it, and what can be done to regain it? DON’T RUN: Brearley All this might sound like a good idea, but walks to Lords in 1981 unfortunately – like everything in life – it is after being reappointed not that simple, at least not by the time Mike as captain of England Brearley has been at it. For one thing, there are countless different forms of form, just as there are innumerable ways of losing it. And Brearley-the-psychoanalyst is adamant that humility is not the answer if an incompetent in Bombay. In the Chinese tradition of Taoism, there is no simple narrative logic to this book. or depressed team needs to build up its pride the best butcher in the village has been chop- You won’t find Tips for Being on Form in 10 and confidence. Form may be impaired by fear ping meat for so long that he doesn’t need to Easy Chapters here. He has no intention of of failure, but it can also be impaired by fear pause and consider where the next slice should offering hard and fast signposts, and no route of success. Sometimes a loss of form can be fall; if he stopped to think about what he does, planner to a clearly defined destination. helped by a quick fix, but a torn ligament cannot the perfect efficiency would be lost. And the What you have instead is a succession of be fixed with a sticking plaster. tree surgeon in India who risks his life without contradictions, digressions, reroutings, paren- harness or helmet says: “You have to do the theses, qualifiers and quotations. It’s almost IT TAKES CONSTANT practice, training and job in peace and in concentration … There is as if – in psychoanalytic parlance – Brearley hard work to lay the groundwork that enables only the tree, and being in the present.” Like is free-associating thoughts and ideas, like one a person to find form, but it also requires everything in the book, these nuggets are bol- of those television presenters who announces effortless action and the letting go of control. stered by a succession of quotes plucked from at the beginning of a documentary: “I am going Dudley Doust, the co-author of Brearley’s first Tolstoy to The Guardian, and all of it is tinged on a journey of discovery …” He says one thing, two books on cricket, said: “If he [Brearley] with a distinct whiff of humourlessness and and soon afterwards suggests that its equal writes an autobiography, its title should be On self-importance. Mike Brearley takes Mike and opposite can also be true. Humility, for The Other Hand.” And it becomes even more Brearley pretty seriously. example, is an invaluable quality in helping a opaque. “My editor,” Brearley cheerfully The best thing about this shaggy-dog team or an individual remain on form, but admits, “had already commented that after treatise is that it occasionally provides food two years, he had decided that this was not for thought. Five-days-per-week psycho - really a book about form after all; rather its analysis, he argues, is under threat from main subject – discovered as we went along package treatments such as cognitive THE TABLET BOOKSHOP – was, he suggested, my psychoanalytic atti- behavioural therapy, just as five-day Test Postage and Packing for books up to 1kg* tude to life, sport and psychoanalysis itself.” cricket is challenged by much shorter forms UK £.5 (4 books or more: add £5) EUROPE £. per book Or, as E.M. Forster wrote, “How do I know of the game – and yet the shorter game relies REST OF THE WORLD £. per book what I think until I see what I say?” for some of its depth and appeal on the long *P&P for oversized books will be charged at cost Somewhere, though, buried under all these version. The worst thing is that it makes you We accept Visa, MasterCard and Switch Cheques payable to Redemptorist Publications intellectual perambulations, is a recognition feel sympathetic towards Geoffrey Boycott Call: 01420 592 974 Fax: 01420 888 05 of what it means to be on form. In cricketing and his grumpy Yorkshire mutterings about Email: [email protected] Post: The Tablet Bookshop, Alphonsus House terms, Brearley reckons Tony Greig captured Brearley’s “egghead intellectual stuff”. Finding Chawton, GU34 3HQ the essence of good form when he described yourself in agreement with Geoffrey Boycott Redemptorist Publications will endeavour to sell you the book at the price feeling perfectly relaxed and perfectly con- is almost as bad as being made to feel advertised. However, occasionally on publication the published price is altered,in which case we will notify you prior to debiting your card. centrated while scoring his first Test century sympathetic towards Donald Trump.

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BOOKS

RECENTLY The Bible: From Late Antiquity to the Renaissance / EDITED BY AMBROGIO M. PIAZZONI et al. / LITURGICAL PRESS, £60 / PUBLISHED TABLET PRICE £54 / Illustrated highlights from the fabulous collection of Bibles, in dozens of different languages, in the Vatican Library

lives) and was a key trigger of Modernism. Going viral Spinney describes how even a global pan- BRIAN MORTON demic such as this had strong local variations, killing disproportionately according to gender, class, race and health in such a way that it is Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 almost impossible to generalise about it. Her and How it Changed the World investigations range from crowded New York, LAURA SPINNEY where enlightened public health kept the (JONATHAN CAPE, 352 PP, £20) mortality rate down to half of one per cent of the population, to Ciskei in South Africa and TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £18 • TEL 01420 592974 Gujarat in India (just under 10 per cent), and Bristol Bay in Alaska where a staggering 40 per cent succumbed. It was in the permafrost DEADLY contagion stalked the world of Alaska that the flu’s virulent DNA survived in 1918. Its provenance was disputed, in the frozen body of a woman, allowing sci- Abut its speed was unprecedented. In entists to map its genetic profile, a task PART OF AN ADVERTISEMENT FOR A ‘CURE’ SOLD DURING THE FLU EPIDEMIC: PA, TOPHAM just two years, the Spanish flu reached every completed in 2005. The next pandemic is continent except Antarctica, and every country overdue. Its impact is hard to predict, but its except Australia and a few Pacific islands. It entirely paranoid. Large crowds were the play- impact could be terrifying. killed somewhere between 50 and 100 million ground for the flu, whether in churches, public Spanish flu left the human race depleted people – more than two world wars combined. squares, slums or trenches. and depressed, but also seemed to accelerate The canard about the flu being “Spanish” At the time, no one knew that a virus was the birth rate. But Spinney claims it trans- is explained by the simple fact that neutral responsible, because no one had yet seen formed a world that even in an era of Spain had no wartime censorship in 1918, such a thing. The electron microscope was mechanised destruction was still strikingly and thus no reporting restrictions on the dis- some way off. What Laura Spinney does bril- pre-modern. And, through the offices of a ease that was killing combatants in droves liantly is to balance the scientific and human Pope, Benedict XV, who had remained con- on every front. For their part, Spaniards called dimensions of the greatest modern pan- troversially neutral during the First World the disease “the Naples soldier”, though some demic, which seems until recent years to War and had a point to prove at its conclusion, of the country’s rising tribe of anti-clericals have almost disappeared from the collective it began to mend the severed connection also wondered if it might have come from consciousness. Katherine Anne Porter’s short between religion and science – just a few of Rome. Zamora in the north-west seemed par- novel Pale Horse, Pale Rider is a rare literary dozens of the effects, influences and aftermaths ticularly badly hit, which some connected to evocation of the disease (although, as that strongly vindicate Laura Spinney’s patient the arrival of a new bishop. They weren’t being Spinney shows, it affected countless artistic and readable argument.

Any-angled light of Eden” columnist, has his own formidable references to Waugh and Eliot in the protag- writerly powers. onist’s Pennyfeather-Prufrock-like ineptitude. PHILIP CRISPIN Filtered through Merryweather’s wearish A key moment comes when he visits his lens, marauding Teds with luxuriant quiffs, mother and they play a duet together. There bosomy landlady Ma Glendenning and the is a tear on her cheek, a shared moment of Larkinland curious denizens of coastal towns are all vivid tenderness. “There is nothing wrong with lov- JONATHAN TULLOCH and droll. Tulloch gives extended treatment ing someone,” she tells him. Other characters (SEREN, 268 PP, £9.99) to the paradox between Merryweather’s (and share this yearning, too. The shady and long- Larkin’s) joyful name and his lugubrious, absent Mr Bleaney himself, who spent his TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £9 • TEL 01420 592974 coldly observational and embittered nature. holidays “pushing cripples up and down the He is haunted by the negative spirit of his esplanade”, is reunited with his faithful lover Nazi-sympathiser father and selfishly uses and they flit with a case of poetry books pur- ARKINLAND RECOUNTS the (mis) - and abuses his long-distance loined from the university library. adventures of Arthur Merryweather, academic “lady friend” as he archly Niamh the Catholic librarian gives Lnewly arrived to take up the post of head calls her. When he falls for his cynical Merryweather a collection of librarian at a far-flung provincial university, beautiful assistant librarian, Niamh, Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poems and “the necessity to earn a livelihood hunkering “whose laughter takes flight like a he despises the Jesuit’s lush epiphanies down on one like a farting toad”. Bald, charm of goldfinches”, the self-styled (“glimpses of Eden” no less). Yet the pebble-eyed and ostensibly misanthropic, “balding centaur” becomes viciously marriage-averse and bigoted protag- Merryweather dubs his freshly adopted city jealous of a virile colleague. onist’s “curiously clunking heart” is “fish town” and accepts seedy digs in a room Like its poet subject, this work is troubled. Larkinland comes to a pro- that was once a certain Mr Bleaney’s. profound and complex, full of wit, satiric found and deeply moving climax when the Merryweather is Tulloch’s fictionalised humour and a range of reference. Increasingly poet-librarian, who has seemingly experienced Larkin and the city, where “the smell of obsessed by his enigmatic predecessor Mr his own revelation, follows Niamh to herring hung like a dragnet”, is 1950s Hull. Bleaney, Larkin becomes caught up in under- Benediction. Even as the “wide river of her The novel plunges the reader into Philip world shenanigans, mistakenly arrested by religion flowed between them”, he is shaken Larkin’s imaginative and workaday world. two gruesome detectives who have seen serv- by the Tantum Ergo: “Faith, our outward sense Fans of the poet will relish the references ice in the Black and Tans. Throughout, there befriending, makes the inward vision clear.” and the riffs but Larkinland delights are shades of Greene and Orton in the But this is not the end of the story … Tulloch’s regardless; Tulloch, The Tablet’s “Glimpses intrigue, seediness and satire; and specific novel is magnificent.

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ARTS • COMING SOON • HANDEL’S MESSIAH, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester (2 December) • LOVE IS THICKER THAN WATER, starring Juliet Stevenson (in cinemas 2 December) • KEATS AND MILTON: PARADISE LOST, Keats House, London (opens 6 December) • LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, Wyndham’s Theatre, London (from 27 January 2018) saving church music – then and now Palestrina and MacMillan united in a common goal

ALEXANDRA COGHLAN

The sixteen – Queen of Heaven TEMPLE CHURCH, LONDON PHOTOS: BERGEN PUBLIC LIBRARY; PA, COLIN MEARNS; MARCO BORGGREVE iovanni PierluiGi da Palestrina and James MacMillan – two com- posers separated by 450 years, but united in a common goal: to revi- taliseG and refresh an ailing tradition. Hailed as the “Saviour of Church Music”, it was Palestrina who defended the Catholic Church’s extraordinary musical heritage in the face of Counter-Reformation attacks, offering a new musical model for a new reli- gious age – simplicity instead of lavish complexity, reverence in place of pomp. Fast-forward several centuries to our own age and some believe the Catholic Church is again facing a musical crisis, one born of neg- lect, apathy – a tradition out of touch with its contemporary worshippers. Step forward James MacMillan, the Scottish composer whose emotive, evocative sacred works are finding a fresh voice for the Catholic faith in the twenty-first century. musical saviours: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (left) and James MacMillan Setting these two composers alongside one another, vocal ensemble The Sixteen and its solemnity of Advent (MacMillan’s “O Radiant the release and redemption of MacMillan’s conductor Harry Christophers (pictured below) Dawn”). But at the heart of the concert were “Miserere”, it couldn’t be more marked. drew out the many strands of kinship between three large-scale works: Palestrina’s Stabat Driven by the penitential text, which begs them. Clarity, emotional directness, harmonic Mater, and two very different settings of Holy for deliverance, cleansing from sins and beauty: all are common to both musical worlds. Week psalm “Miserere mei, Deus” by wickedness, MacMillan’s music rises out of a But the thread that binds them most tightly, MacMillan and Gregorio Allegri. dismal fog of men’s voices that grope tenta- the heartstring running through the core of One of the best-known and most instantly tively after hope, but find themselves unable each, is plainchant – those long, lovely melodies recognisable pieces of sacred music, Allegri’s to escape the darkness. Anger, violence and that have underscored Catholic worship since “Miserere” is a work whose mythology has bitterness all swell as the women’s voices join, the very beginning. long been in danger of eclipsing its with plainchant-inspired lines offering musical So it was only fitting that this is music. But what we heard here paths that only seem to lead the speakers in where we began. Members of The was something quite unex- circles. But, infinitely gradually, the fog lifts Sixteen assembled in front of pected. Musicologist Ben and at the text’s crucial turning point, when us last Tuesday, ready to sing, Byram-Wigfield has spent the speaker turns from sin to redemption, an but the voices that first broke years with the work, returning ecstatic hymn-like moment of clarity “Asperges the silence came not from to original Vatican sources in me” brings all voices together. them, but from out of sight. an attempt to scrape back the The effect is startlingly tender, its bittersweet Assembled at the back of the dodgy nineteenth-century fragility a natural language for an age of con- Temple Church, the men of the anachronistic version we all know flicts and doubts, where peace seems further choir suddenly filled the space with to something closer to the original. than ever from our grasp. Christophers, the the first verse of the expansive, joyous What gave the work its appeal, its work’s dedicatee, and his singers have an “Regina caeli laetare” chant – a hymn of praise repute in Allegri’s day, was the virtuosic orna- ingenuous directness to their delivery (art to the Queen of Heaven. Processing up mentation and embellishment provided by concealing art) that never feels worked, their through the church while singing, they trans- the papal choir. Mindful of this, Byram- cloudy blend and beautifully arched phrases formed their audience into a congregation, Wigfield has produced an edition that takes allowing listeners to see straight through to inviting us into music that may have evolved listeners from the simplest iteration of the the text beneath, just as Palestrina’s music into artful choral sophistication, but which music through increasingly embellished verses did so many centuries earlier. His exquisite began as a shared, corporate musical gesture. to arrive at the familiar nineteenth-century Stabat Mater, the lyrical grief of its music cra- A wide-ranging programme took us from version (complete with top C). dled softly between two choirs who pass it to youthful sensuality (in Palestrina’s Song of The result here was completely beguiling. and fro, may belong to another age, but its Songs setting “Pulchrae sunt genae tuae”) to The warm, blooming acoustic of the Temple legacy is clearly felt in MacMillan’s music, his ebullient Easter joy (Palestrina’s double-choir Church held the work’s three separate vocal mantle of “Saviour of Church Music” sitting motet “Regina caeli laetare”), and the rapt groups in resonant balance. As a contrast to firmly on fresh shoulders.

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PHOTO: TWITTER ARTS

DIGITAL art in the age of instagram. A Ted talk by JiaJia Fei, director of digital at the Jewish Museum in New York City, ARTS on how fine art is influenced by, and interacts with, visual social media https://tinyurl.com/tablet-digitalart

PHOTO: JAN VERSWEYVELD radio mad as Hell: lost in africa Bryan Cranston Freighted with menace in Greene-land is magnetic on stage as D.J. TAYLOR Howard Beale a Burnt-out case BBC RADIO 4

ccordinG To fellow Catholic Evelyn Waugh, A Burnt-Out Case (1960) was the novel in which Graham Greene recanted his faith. Ifa the jury is still out on that charge, then to listen to the first instalment of Nick Warburton’s excellent two-part dramatisation (19 November) was to be struck by the absolutely elemental nature of the landscapes on display. Physical and spiritual terrain alike had been remorselessly pruned back – so remorselessly that, as very often happens in Greene-land, you sometimes suspected that THeaTre urably recreates the imperial arrogance of there was hardly any space left in which the network TV in the pompous epoch midway characters could manoeuvre. Prophet for profit’s sake between consumer novelty and threatened Not only was the backdrop reduced to a All change in TV eclipse by the internet. The newsroom teems vista of tiny villages, muddy rivers and with liberal pieties, cynical audience manip- Congolese jungle; not only did the slightest MARK LAWSON ulation and sexual harassment. Crucially, the human transaction seem to be caught up in news division will tolerate the prophet for as a fog of brooding; but from the very first line network long as he turns a profit. Bryan Cranston, each utterance came freighted with menace. NATIONAL THEATRE, LONDON bankable from TV’s Breaking Bad, proves “I feel discomfort. Therefore I am.” “You have Quiz equally magnetic on stage. a passion of slaughter, captain.” However MINERVA THEATRE, CHICHESTER innocuous these exchanges, there was a way even THeaTreGoers unfamiliar with the in which Querry (laconically voiced by Ben once-headline source story might guess that Miles), the disillusioned architect come to HeaTre Has always had a strained Quiz is fact-based because of the improbability lose himself in Africa, incriminated himself relationship with television, with the that dramatist James Graham would invent from one sentence to the next. fear that home entertainment stops a character called Tecwen Whittock. He was Meanwhile, the plot was slowly uncoiling: people going out to see live shows. found guilty by a 2003 jury of conspiring with Querry’s cover blown; his condition compared SoT this antipathy adds an interesting edge Diana Ingram to help her husband, Charles, by non-believing Dr Colin (Danny Sapani) to two new plays set in the TV industry at steal the title-prize in the ITV quiz show, Who to the “burnt-out cases” of the leper hospital; key periods. Wants to be a Millionaire? It was alleged that his interest piqued by strait-laced plantation Network adapts Paddy Chayefsky’s Oscar- Whittock used a coughing-code to guide the manager Rycker (Jonathan Aris); his profes- winning screenplay for the 1976 movie in former major to the correct answer from the sional help solicited in the building of the which Peter Finch played American news- multiple-choice options. new hospital; his dreams plagued by the mem- caster Howard Beale, who, on the day he is Graham, with his parliamentary play This ory of his suicidal mistress. given notice for falling ratings, breaks off from House and Murdoch bio-drama Ink, is a spe- As for the considerable challenges Greene’s the teleprompter to announce that he will cialist in recent historical fiction, but, this novel offers to a radio dramatist, Warburton’s shoot himself live on air the following Tuesday. time, is playful with the factual basis. Despite solution was to provide a helpful narrator As viewership soars, Beale uses his reprieve the court judgement, the two acts present the (Adjoa Andoh) who, as well as retailing travel to become an on-air “prophet”, encouraging prosecution (bronchial conspiracy) and arrangements, was not above dropping useful the public to fight back against politicians, defence (luck, last-minute cramming) cases. bits of personal data into the mix. The scenes corporations, and the media itself, with the Aping the “ask the audience” lifeline on the that followed positively reeked of nervous slogan, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to show, we pass judgement with electronic tension: Rycker patronising his meek-voiced take this any more.” handsets. Gavin Spokes and Stephanie Street child bride (Kathryn Drysdale); Querry deal- Theatrical talent of the magnitude of direc- skilfully play alternative versions of Charles ing with a native “boy”, Deo Gratias (Tayla tor Ivo van Hove (recent radical revisions of and Diana, with Keir Charles offering an Kovacevic-Ebong) bewildered by his kindness; A View from the Bridge and Hedda Gabler) entertaining essence of Chris Tarrant. the brittle mirth of the breakfasting priests. and adapter Lee Hall (Billy Elliot, The Pitmen Like the theatrical version of Network, Quiz You don’t need to have read the urtext to Painters) have clearly been attracted to this is as much about Trump and “fake news” as know that, in the concluding episode, all man- tale now by the consensus that mad-as-hell the time it dramatises. So fragmented is screen ner of consciences will be stretched, loyalties attitudes among electorates led to Brexit, entertainment today that the 19 million who trashed and certainties broken into fragments. President Trump and the electoral humbling watched Millionaire at its peak now seems But that’s how it is with a man whose name, of Mrs May. an absurd dream. These stories from a time when transliterated into French, comes out But, while that resonance undoubtedly of terror about TV gain extra power from as “Grim Grin”. brings energy, van Hove’s staging also pleas- being seen when TV fears for its future.

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ARTS

© WILLIAM MORRIS GALLERY, LONDON BOROUGH OF WALTHAM FOREST exHiBiTion Heaven on earTH: ‘Spring and Summer’ a remarkable woman panel of around 1895-1900 by May Morris Stepping out from the shadows includes a reredos for an altar table stitched by May herself in the 1910s with a design of LAURA GASCOIGNE trees and birds under the verse from Psalm 19 in Gothic script: “The heavens declare the art & life: may morris glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his WILLIAM MORRIS GALLERY, LONDON handiwork.” But her taste in dress was more contemporary: a photograph of 1904 shows He was just eight when May Morris her in a North African-striped cloak, holding wrote: “I am a great tomboy. I am very a guitar. untidy and always very dirty and The instrument was not just a prop. May sometimes I am ashamed to say it very played guitar and piano, duetting with George naughty.”s Bernard Shaw at the Morrises’ London home, Born in 1862 on the Feast of the Kelmscott House. She and Shaw were close, Annunciation and christened Mary, the but at that stage in his career he was not in younger daughter of William Morris and Jane a financial position to propose. In 1890 she Burden had an unconventional Victorian settled for another socialist, Henry Sparling, childhood. In her father’s London workshop but the marriage only lasted nine years. she was permitted to play with the “queer In her capacity for work, May was her powders and lumps and grains” from which father’s daughter. She taught and lectured, he mixed his fabric dyes, and in the took up spinning and weaving, tried her hand Oxfordshire countryside around the family’s at tapestry and branched out into jewellery- retreat, Kelmscott Manor, she was allowed making. In 1907 she founded the Women’s to run wild. It was the perfect upbringing for Guild of Arts for professional craftswomen a designer of nature-inspired embroidery. excluded from the Art Workers’ Guild. But Until recently May Morris’ contribution to she didn’t neglect her father’s legacy: a water- the Arts and Crafts movement has been sub- colour by Mary Sloane shows her in 1912 sumed under the Morris & Co. banner, but a designed aged 21 for Morris & Co. is still a seated at a table piled with manuscripts, edit- new exhibition, “Art & Life: May Morris”, at top-seller at John Lewis, but her first love was ing the 24 volumes of his collected writings. the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow embroidery and at 23 she was running the In 1936, two years before her death, she (until 28 January 2018) and an accompanying firm’s embroidery department. wrote to Shaw: “I’m a remarkable woman – book, May Morris: Arts & Crafts Designer, Like her father she drew on historical always was, though none of you seem to think have brought her out from under her father’s sources, scouring church treasuries for exam- so.” Anyone visiting this exhibition will think shadow. The honeysuckle wallpaper she ples of medieval embroidery: the show so now.

cinena.cinecinema tennis players made an eighth of the prize award of his own as the World’s Most money men did) and the intransigence of its Understanding Cuckold. The real prize organisers, King (Emma Stone, pictured) The directors, Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Game, set and match to women and her adviser Gladys Heldman (Sarah Faris, scored their first hit with Little Miss Silverman) launch a breakaway association. Sunshine (2006), a comedy that told ANTHONY QUINN Having secured sponsorship from the ciga- Americans uncomfortable truths about them- rette brand Virginia Slims, they take their selves. Battle of the Sexes gets similar mileage Battle of the sexes fellow women pros on tour. from its combination of high jinks and heart- DIRECTORS: VALERIE FARIS AND JONATHAN DAYTON As her opponent and goad, Riggs is break. In the build-up to their something of an Aunt Sally. Yes, showdown, while Billie Jean is sTensiBly, this comedy-drama he’s a sexist idiot, but as played working on her backhand, Riggs is about the 1973 exhibition tennis by Steve Carell he’s puppyish prefers horsing around the match between 55-year-old ex- and rather lonely beneath the pool and doing promo- world champion Bobby Riggs and showman’s bravado. He’s also shoots, often in the nude – 29-year-oldo Billie Jean King. The purse for a gambling addict, which is “I don’t need to practise,” he the winner was $100,000, though behind why his heiress wife says, almost inviting hubris the showbiz flimflam far more was at stake. (Elisabeth Shue) has kicked to kick his ass. When it Riggs had made a song and dance about him out the house. His chal- finally does, Carell invests the women being only good for the kitchen and lenge to King seems inspired moment with a pathos that the bedroom – “I’m gonna put the ‘show’ more by attention-seeking than surprises. You can’t really hate back in chauvinism!” he crows – and, having any serious belief in his superiority. someone who is so upfront about already beaten Australian women’s champ Stone hasn’t quite got Billie Jean’s face, his buffoonery. Margaret Court, he was raring to put King but she gets her front-loaded, head-down If the film has a villain it is TV commentator in her place, too. walk just right. Her romantic awakening on and committee man Jack Kramer (Bill Yet “The Battle of the Sexes”, as the match tour – she falls for the team hairdresser Pullman), the smirking chauvinist who tried was billed, is merely the sideshow. Written (Andrea Riseborough) – was probably more to justify the imbalance of male-female remu- by Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire) terrifying for her than it plays here. King had neration. “People pay to see the men play – the film is really about a cultural turning not yet come out, and lesbian sports stars they’re the draw,” he tells her. There is the point in American history, and the bravery weren’t much embraced in American public moment of provocation. King beat Riggs on of a woman who took on the establishment. life during the 1970s. Austin Stowell as Billie the court, but more significant was the way Outraged by the game’s inequity (women Jean’s blond-god husband Larry wins an she aced Kramer and his cronies off it.

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NEWS BRIEFING THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD

displaced almost 400,000 good, distancing ourselves interest in ending the violence – people. Among the Asean from purely ideological or it’s fuelling this war to prevent countries that have promised economic visions.” Ukraine turning to Europe”, financial aid are Australia and Bishop Stanislav Shyrokoradiuk Japan. The European Union of Kharkiv-Zaporizhia told a says it is looking to offer a grant Caritas conference in Germany. of up to 100 million euros. The commission that speaks for Cathedral entry fees rejected the European Union’s Catholic The French bishops have Bishops’ Conferences, Comece, sharply rebuffed suggestions has welcomed the EU’s that they should charge entry adoption of a “European Pillar fees to their cathedrals to raise of Social Rights” at last week’s money for their upkeep. They Gothenburg summit, and Germany and the Sovereign recalled in a statement that pledged Church backing for a Order of officially France’s 1905 law on the “deeper and fairer internal established diplomatic relations separation of Church and State market”. “This is a vital further in Rome on 15 November. The turned cathedrals into public step towards the European German Foreign Minister, property dedicated to worship Sistine chapel ‘first’ social market economy,” Comece Sigmar Gabriel, and the Order’s with free entry. The French state Cecilia Bartoli (pictured), one of said in a joint statement with Grand Chancellor, Baron maintains cathedrals but the ’s most renowned classical the non-Catholic Conference of Albrecht von Boeselager Church has had on occasion to singers, has become the first European Churches. (pictured), signed the appeal for private funds. woman to perform inside the corresponding mutual “Cathedrals are places to express Sistine Chapel with the all-male Murder victims remembered agreement at the Order’s a living faith, not museums,” the Sistine Chapel Choir, as part of a In San Salvador, a headquarters on the Aventine statement said. musical project that draws on commemoration took place on Hill and announced that above ancient, forgotten musical the 28th anniversary of the all they wish to intensify their archives of the Church. killing of six Jesuits and two cooperation on helping refugees On Friday night last week, female staff at the University of and immigrants. the mezzo-soprano joined the Central America (UCA). The “I would like to express my 20 men and 30 boys who killings on 16 November 1989 deep gratitude for the great make up the choir, among the were carried out by US-trained work of the Federal Republic of oldest choral groups in the members of the Salvadoran Germany in relieving human world, to sing Beata Viscera, military. During the event at the suffering, particularly in helping by the thirteenth-century UCA, the rector, Fr Andreu migrants and refugees. It shows composer Pérotin. Olivo, said: “The death of the an ambitious commitment that Jesuit martyrs and laywomen fully reflects the principles and Copts ignore security warning encourages us to work tirelessly values that inspire the activities Tens of thousands of Coptic to change the course of history of the Order of Malta”, Grand Christians from around Egypt and country.” Chancellor Boeselager said. gathered last week at the St Chile’s former president, George monastery in Rizeigat, Churches in France and some The Catholic Bishop of Marawi Sebastian Pinera (pictured), Luxor province, to celebrate one other French-speaking regions in the southern Philippines has the Conservative candidate in of the largest annual Christian are to begin using a new welcomed pledges from regional the presidential election, will festivals in an Arab country. The translation of the Lord’s Prayer leaders who attended this year’s advance to a run-off after pilgrims ignored warnings given at Mass. The wording, to be Manila ASEAN summit to help winning 36 per cent of the vote over recent months by Egypt’s introduced on the first Sunday rebuild the city. Bishop Edwin in Sunday’s first round. Four security services to avoid big in Advent, says in French: “Do de la Pena, of the Prelature of years after he left office, largely public gatherings because of the not let us enter into temptation” Marawi, said providing relief to due to unpopular austerity dangers of jihadist groups, rather than “Do not subject us to those who suffer can be an measures and cuts in particularly at places of worship. temptation”, as the phrase was “opportunity to experience our education spending, Mr Pinera This followed a number of rendered in an ecumenical common humanity”. The took the highest percentage of deadly attacks in the past year, translation agreed after the reconstruction aims to help votes in a field of eight. He will including the bomb blasts at Second Vatican Council. “The displaced civilians to return face the centre-left candidate, two Coptic churches on Palm 1966 version was not wrong but home. President Rodrigo Alejandro Guillier, who came Sunday, which killed at least 47 it was often misunderstood,” Duterte last month declared second with 22 per cent, in the people. Local and national said Bishop Guy de Kerimel, Marawi liberated from jihadis second round on 17 December. politicians and imams also head of the bishops’ conference’s after five months of fighting The incumbent centre-left attended as guests. liturgy commission. The new between the Islamist militants president, Michelle Bachelet, wording was closer to the Greek and government forces, which may not seek re-election under The Ukrainian Catholic original and would “remove the Chile’s constitution. The bishop whose diocese includes ambiguity”. The Congregation bishops’ conference called for the rebel-occupied Donbass for Divine Worship approved For daily news updates Chileans to create “civic spaces region has warned that Russia is the translation in 2013 and of dialogue and respect” in a still “pouring arms and bullets” Protestant Churches have also on the top stories, visit letter published before the into eastern Ukraine, with up to accepted it. www.thetablet.co.uk elections, and to put “people at a dozen Ukrainian soldiers the centre of the common dying each week. “Russia has no Compiled by James Roberts

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PHOTO: ANDRIES VAN DEN ABEELE NEWS •QUOTE OF THE WEEK• The culture of death is widespread. We have tried to ban euthanasia in our institutions, but pressure from outside is very strong. Br René Stockman, Superior General of Belgium’s Brothers of Charity who run hospitals in the country. (See page 25)

ZIMBABWE / Sacked vice-president tells Mugabe to step down tary. However, in a rambling The Church has “keenly and address, he said – bizarrely, given prayerfully followed the recent the Zanu-PF vote on Sunday to tense events in the country,” the Bishops warn army remove him from the leadership Bishops’ Conference said in its 19 – that he would preside over the November statement, signed by party congress next month. the conference president, Bishop and politicians to Mr Mnangagwa said he fled Michael Bhasera of Masvingo, abroad two weeks ago when he vice-president Archbishop Robert learned of a plot to kill him, and Ndlovu of Harare and other bish- prioritise the people would not return until he was sure ops. A “drastic” deterioration in of his security. His flight came the atmosphere in the country after Mr Mugabe sacked him as had led to the army’s intervention, vice-president to enable, it was they acknowledged. a peaceful end to the crisis”. widely assumed, his wife, Grace, The “entire population” was JAMES ROBERTS and MARKO PHIRI / in Bulawayo The bishops’ measured state- to take over as vice-president and concerned about the process, they ment showed considerable be next in line for the presidency. noted, and what was happening ONE WEEK after Zimbabwe’s foresight, given the uncertainty Mr Mugabe is accused, as was not simply a power army moved to detain President surrounding a process charac- grounds for his impeach- struggle within the ruling Robert Mugabe under house terised not by the removal of the ment, of allowing his party. Any transition arrest, Emmerson Mnangagwa president per se, as in a coup, but wife to “usurp con - process must embrace (pictured), the former vice-pres- by persuading him to step down stitutional power”. Mrs “all Zimbabweans in ident and the man expected to against his will, by applying ever Mugabe was also be- their diversity and their succeed Mr Mugabe as head of a increasing pressure. lieved to be under house oneness”, the bishops transitional government, made The bishops did not name Mr arrest, but she has made added. Normality could his first public statement. Mnangagwa. However, his repu- no public appearances. only be restored through a Speaking on Tuesday from an tation as a one-time ally of Mr Mr Mnangagwa said the 93- “participatory process in a dem- undisclosed location, thought to Mugabe’s who more than once has year-old president should heed ocratic way”. In an appeal to avoid be in South Africa, he urged Mr been behind the ruthless crushing the “clarion call” of his people and bloodshed, they said: “All life is Mugabe to resign immediately. of opposition to the government step down. Tens of thousands of precious. Preservation of lives Meanwhile, on Sunday, is well established – and their con- people thronged Harare last must be paramount.” Zimbabwe’s Catholic bishops cerns about a Mnangagwa Saturday, demanding that he do In his talks with the generals at issued a statement that referred succession are evident. just that. In the second city of State House, Mr Mugabe has been to the “recent tense events” and Following his removal from the Bulawayo, in Ndebele-majority accompanied by his confidant, Fr encouraged “those central to these ruling Zanu-PF party leadership Matabeleland, there were also Fidelis Mukonori, who reportedly delicate processes, (particularly and the threat that impeachment demonstrations. However, Mr argued that the December Zanu the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and proceedings would start on Mnangagwa is not popular there, PF Congress would provide a dig- the political leadership) so that Tuesday, Mr Mugabe had been as he is regarded as the architect nified exit for Mr Mugabe – but they maintain the best interests expected to resign when he made of the gukurahunde massacres by the army does not seem to have of the nation as a priority and a television appearance on Sunday, the Fifth Brigade in the early taken this proposal seriously. continue to work tirelessly for flanked by members of the mili- 1980s that left 20,000 dead. (See pages 4-6.)

ROME Call to neighbourliness on World Day of Poor

POPE FRANCIS opened the doors homily. “They are our ‘passport to of the Vatican to the poor on paradise’. For us it is an evangelical Sunday, making them guests of duty to care for them.” The 80- honour at a Mass in St Peter’s year-old Latin American Pope has Basilica and then hosting a lunch made care for the marginalised a Pope Francis with for them, write Christopher Lamb key theme of his pontificate. some of his guests and Ellen Teague. Several thou- On Sunday, in the same Paul sand refugees, unemployed and VI hall where he made that homeless people were invited to appeal, Francis welcomed around ing the day was “another occasion of the bishops’ conference, urged mark the Church’s first World Day 1,200 people for a special lunch to remind us of our special option similar action. Caritas Philippines of the Poor, coming from Italy and where he mingled with guests and for the poor”. The cardinal, who director and Caceres Archbishop other parts of Europe. posed for photographs. was a close friend to Mother Rolando Tria Tirona said World “If in the eyes of the world they In Mumbai, India, Cardinal Teresa, asked all parishes in his Day of the Poor was a time when [the poor] have little value, they , Archbishop of diocese to initiate at least one pro- the faithful are called to “offer and are the ones who open to us the Bombay, also sat down to a meal gramme to alleviate poverty. empty ourselves for the sake of way to heaven,” Francis said in his with a group of poor people, say- Caritas Philippines, the aid arm our neighbour”.

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NEWS THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD

GERMANY AUSTRALIA Royal Church leaders regret collapse Commission of coalition negotiations itemises a ‘national tragedy’

CHRISTA PONGRATZ+LIPPITT The president of the Central sive negotiations, it was not pos- Australia’s Royal Commission Committee of German Catholics sible to begin coalition talks,” into Institutional Responses to AFTER CHANCELLOR Angela (Zdk), Thomas Sternberg, called Caritas Germany’s president, Peter Child Sexual Abuse is to have a Merkel’s attempts to form a gov- on the three coalition parties to Neher, told KNA. final public sitting in Sydney erning coalition collapsed this continue to look for a way to form The collapse reflected the polit- next month, before delivering week, German Church represen- a stable government. Another ical parties’ lack of responsibility its final report to the Governor- tatives expressed disappointment election would help the right-wing for the common good, the theolo- General, Sir Peter Cosgrove, on at the breakdown of the three- Alternative for Germany (AfD) gian and social ethicist Joachim 15 December, to thank the party coalition negotiations. On and weaken the centre, he warned. Wiemeyer told KNA. community for its support, Sunday evening, the FDP liberals Mrs Merkel’s bloc came first in The far-right AfD took a differ- writes Mark Brolly. pulled out of talks with Mrs September’s poll, but many voters ent view. “Merkel has failed, and The CEO of the Catholic Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU deserted the mainstream parties that is a good thing as it’s time she Church’s Truth, Justice and bloc and the Greens, meaning that and the AfD won 12.6 per cent of went,” leader Alexander Gauland Healing Council, Francis Mrs Merkel faces her biggest chal- the vote, entering parliament for said. The so-called Jamaica coali- Sullivan, told a national lenge in 12 years as chancellor. the first time with more than 90 tion – black for the CDU/CSU, meeting of Catholic secondary The president of the German seats. On Monday, Mrs Merkel green for the Greens and yellow school principals in Adelaide bishops’ conference, Cardinal said she would prefer new elec- for the FDP liberals, the colours that the final report — the , called for further tions to leading a minority of Jamaica’s flag – would have delivery of which will mark the renewed efforts to form a govern- government, and saw no meant going on as before, formal end of the Commission’s ment as soon as possible. “I hope reason to resign from her whereas now there was “a work, more than five years after and pray that the body politic in post despite the failed chance to think sensibly” then prime minister Julia Berlin are aware of their respon- negotiations. The Caritas about such questions as Gillard announced its creation sibility and will do everything they aid organisation also “allowing refugees to in November 2012 — was can to get a government oriented deplored the breakdown bring in their families, expected to comprise up to 17 to the common good off the in the negotiations. “It is asylum policies and volumes, three of them dealing ground at the earliest opportu- very disappoint- switching to new with the Catholic Church. nity”, he told the Protestant EPD ing that after energy sources”, However, it is not clear when press service on Monday. weeks of inten- he said. the report will be made public. That normally occurs only after tabling in parliament, but none n PAYING people a “Work is not just the German daily globalised economy. of Australia’s federal or state guaranteed basic income anything. It is the pillar of Süddeutsche Zeitung It was imperative to legislatures is due to sit between was not a solution to the society. Part of the basic organises each year. ensure that human beings 15 December and Christmas, problem posed by constitution of being Against this backdrop, continued to control the start of Australia’s summer increasing technological human is being able to the introduction of an computers and not vice holidays. So the report may not changes in the workplace, create something of value unconditional basic versa, he said. be made public until early 2018. Cardinal Reinhard Marx for oneself and one’s income therefore was a The idea of an Royal Commission Chair warned at Germany’s family,” the president of “danger for democracy”, unconditional basic Justice Peter McClellan told a major economic summit the German bishops’ the cardinal underlined. income has prominent Centre for Forensic Behavioural in Berlin, from 16-18 conference recalled in his Marx pointed to some supporters in the Green Science seminar in Melbourne November, writes Christa address to the SZ of the dangers of Party and The Left (“Die on 14 November that the Pongratz-Lippitt. Economic Summit, which digitalisation in the new Linke”) in Germany. “national tragedy” of sexual abuse of children had occurred in almost every type of institution where children had ROME / BELGIUM lived, or which they had attended, and “it is not a case of Pope rules out euthanasia as Belgian dispute drags on a few ‘rotten apples’”. “Society’s major institutions have seriously failed,” he said. POPE FRANCIS has reiterated the Association, meeting at the hospitals is compatible with “In many cases, those failings Church’s opposition to euthanasia, Vatican, withholding or withdraw- Catholic teaching. Superior have been exacerbated by a saying it is always wrong, as the ing futile treatment “is completely General Brother René Stockman manifestly inadequate response dispute dragged on between the different from euthanasia, which told that members to the abused person. The Brothers of Charity order and its is always wrong, as the intent is of hospital boards would discuss problems have been so Belgian province over the legalised to ... cause death”. In Rome, the the issue in Rome but gave no widespread, and the nature of ending of life in its hospitals there, head of the Brothers of Charity date. “The culture of death is wide- the abuse so heinous, that it is writes Tom Heneghan. order said he wanted clarity in the spread in Belgium,” he said. “We difficult to comprehend.” He “From an ethical standpoint,” dispute with its Belgian members have tried by all means to ban said more than 15,000 he said in a message to European who insist that the legal euthana- euthanasia in our institutions, but survivors or their relatives had members of the World Medical sia available in their 15 psychiatric outside pressure is very strong.” contacted the Commission.

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VIEW FROM RUSSIA Court orders ROME seizure of ‘sect’ children Christopher Lamb

URING the Cold War the United devoting themselves to the study of how RUSSIA’S Supreme Court has confirmed that States used table tennis as an Chinese culture could be compatible with children can be removed from their parents unlikely tool to help improve its Christianity. Now, it might be a Jesuit Pope if they involve them in banned social or reli- relations with communist China. who breaks new ground in Chinese relations. gious groups, in a move said by local media DThe has embarked on a more ele- to be aimed against the outlawed Jehovah’s vated version of “ping-pong diplomacy”. Two ALKING OF diplomacy, the Pope has Witnesses, writes Jonathan Luxmoore. art exhibitions will open in Beijing and the created a new Vatican department to The Kommersant daily said the ruling, Vatican Museums in March next year; 40 oversee the work of the papal diplo- confirmed in October, would “greatly items will be exchanged, with one show open- mats who serve around the world. extend” existing rules on the deprivation of ing in the Forbidden City and the other in the ThisT will take the form of a third section within parental rights, which was previously Vatican’s ethnological museums, a lesser the Secretariat of State, which will take on a possible only in cases of “direct threats to life known part of its cultural treasury but holding human resources role, including recruitment, or health”. The move was condemned by tens of thousands of priceless artefacts from career development and training, and working human rights groups and the US, British all over the world. conditions. The move is part of Francis’ wider and German governments, as well as by The Holy See is making available artwork reform of the Roman Curia and a sign of the Russia’s small Catholic Church. Russia’s from its vast collection of Chinese bronzes, importance he places on Holy See diplomacy. Catholic archbishop, Paolo Pezzi, said last ceramics and paintings, while China is offering It comes three months after the Vatican week he had faced “no disadvantages or items from various museums around the recalled a diplomat from Washington for sus- problems in everyday life” and Catholic- country, including work by the painter Zhang pected child-pornography violations. Orthodox ties “were developing positively”. Yan – who has already made a gift of two oil Led by Polish Archbishop Jan Romeo n Ukraine’s Catholic Church has welcomed paintings to Pope Francis. The exhibitions Pawlowski, the new department will work a vote by MPs to make 25 December a will have as their underlying theme humanity’s beside the other two sections at the secretariat: public holiday for the first time, in addition relationship with nature, in keeping with one with responsibility for general affairs – to the 7 January Orthodox Christmas. Francis’ Laudato Si’. led by Archbishop Giovanni Becciu – the other Behind the initiative is the Holy See’s hope in charge of relations with states, headed by that it can re-establish diplomatic relations Archbishop Paul Gallagher. The Holy See has with Beijing, severed by the communist country relations with 183 states and is second only in 1951. Speaking to journalists in the Vatican to the United States in the number of its diplo- this week, Zhu Jiancheng, secretary general matic missions. Ambassadors – nuncios – of the China Culture Industrial Investment and their staff regularly serve in danger zones, Fund, said he hoped the exhibitions would where they are sometimes one of the few promote the “normalisation of diplomatic rela- embassies still operating. Nuncios also help tions between China and the Vatican”. draw up shortlists for episcopal appointments. That is something this Pope, who has Following ordination, priest-diplomats are praised Chinese culture and as a young Jesuit recruited and sent to train at the prestigious dreamed of being a missionary in the far east, Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy in Rome, would dearly like to see happen. But progress after which they are sent on postings overseas is slow. At the heart of the difficulty is nego- or asked to work at the secretariat. tiating an agreement satisfactory to both sides over the control of the Church in China, and OPE FRANCIS threw open the doors in particular who would have the final author- of the Vatican last weekend to thou- ity in the appointment of bishops. On the one sands of refugees, homeless and the side there are the Catholics of the so-called unemployed. He said Mass for them “underground Church” – loyal to Rome but inP St Peter’s Basilica on Sunday, and then wel- in some cases alarmed by Francis’ conciliatory comed around 1,200 for a gourmet lunch in moves towards Beijing – and on the other the Paul VI synod hall. the state-approved Church. Some insist that His guests were treated to a meal created a deal with the current Chinese leadership is by Sergio Dussin, a chef who normally pre- impossible without surrendering control of pares meals for dignitaries at the Vatican. On the Church. The Pope is refusing to give up. the menu was gnocchi, fish with tomatoes In a recent article for the Jesuit publica- and olives, veal with vegetables, Venetian tion La Civiltà Cattolica, Fr Federico cheese and Venetian-style tiramisu. Lombardi, the former spokesman for the Holy These gestures have now become the new See, argues that Francis is seen favourably by normal. It follows the private tour around the the Chinese as the first non-European Pope Sistine Chapel Francis organised for a group in the modern era: he is not associated with of homeless people and his handing front row European colonialisation nor with confronta- seats at a special music concert in their honour tion with communist ideology. to people with no roof over their heads. Tomorrow Francis flies to Asia, becoming Whatever happens to his intended reforms the first Pope to visit Myanmar, which borders to the Curia, Francis has undertaken a “pas- China. Back in the sixteenth century it was toral conversion” of the papacy which is likely the Jesuits who were pioneers in the east, to set the blueprint for some time to come.

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NEWS BRIEFING FROM BRITAIN AND IRELAND

Transgender concerns we commit ourselves to engage Northern Ireland, warning the Congregation are The Bishops of England and with diocesan bishops and to attacks continue to have a major representative of wider failings Wales have expressed concerns develop a positive partnership impact on the wellbeing of within the Catholic Church as about the laws around for the future.” Yogi Sutton, children and young people and well as examining previous transgender pupils and it is an chair of Carj, added that Carj’s threaten to “trap them in never- reports into child protection, ongoing subject for their wider mission involves ending cycles of violence”. such as the Nolan review, and “reflection”, Westminster working with a variety of The appeal, to mark the the Catholic Church’s response Auxiliary Bishop, John vulnerable groups. United Nations Universal to that report.” Sherrington, said. Children’s Day, was issued by Speaking to journalists after Archbishop Eamon Martin of the Bishops’ Conference plenary Armagh and his Church of meeting last week in Leeds, Ireland counterpart, Bishop Sherrington said that Archbishop Richard Clarke, Catholic schools had to be very along with leaders of other aware of what the law is and he Churches in Ireland. emphasised the need for According to the Police pastoral accompaniment of Service of Northern Ireland children and young people in (PSNI) there were 94 so-called “this complex world” and the “punishment attacks” in the last necessity of protecting their year, usually by Loyalist or dignity. “So therefore we want to Republican groups on members develop anti-bullying strategies of their own community. including to avoid homophobic bullying or any transphobic Editor dies at 93 The Independent Inquiry into The Songs of Praise star Aled bullying,” he said. Fr Ronan Drury (pictured), the Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) Jones (pictured) will not He added: “I do have a editor of the pastoral monthly will begin its public hearings on appear on the BBC while it concern that Catholic teaching journal, The Furrow, has died Monday, as it investigates investigates allegations of understands the at the age of 93. Fr Drury was allegations of the sexual abuse inappropriate behaviour more complementarity of male and appointed to the post in 1977 and exploitation of children in than a decade ago. The singer female, and we have to reflect and continued in that role until the Catholic Church. The first and presenter has said he is further on the meaning of that.” this autumn. He died last week case study looks at the English “deeply sorry” for any upset at Dublin’s Mater Hospital and Benedictine Congregation, caused but strongly denied any The Catholic Association for Requiem Mass took place at St including some of its schools, in “inappropriate contact”. Mr Racial Justice (Carj) has lost its Mary’s Chapel, Maynooth, on a three-week hearing. Jones’ spokesman said: “While status as an official agency of Monday. Among the highlights A statement from IICSA he accepts that his behaviour the Bishops’ Conference of of Fr Drury’s editorship was a said: “The hearings will over a decade ago was England and Wales because of meditation on “The Poet as examine the relationship occasionally juvenile … he never a shift in priorities towards Christian” by Seamus Heaney, between Orders such as the intended to harass or distress.” migrants. At a recent Carj which appeared in the October Benedictines and the Catholic He added that while the matter annual general meeting, a 1978 issue. (Obituary next week) Church in England and Wales did not relate to any broadcast motion was passed stating: and consider how that work, Mr Jones had voluntarily “Regretfully, we accept the ‘Paramilitary attacks must end’ relationship impacts on child agreed not to appear on the bishops’ decision that Carj will Ireland’s church leaders have protection. It will also evaluate BBC while it was investigated. no longer be an agency of the called for an end to all whether any failings identified Bishops’ Conference. However, paramilitary attacks in within the English Benedictine Compiled by Bernadette Kehoe

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NEWS FROM BRITAIN AND IRELAND

PERSON IN Teresa Carvalho, co-ordinator of bishops’ youth survey: “Young people are asking for the Church THE NEWS to move towards a monumental change of attitude, orientation and practice.” (See page 29)

LITURGICAL TRANSLATION / Bishops declare that Magnum Principium is not retroactive ‘No going back’ to the 1998 Missal

PHOTO: RUTH GLEDHILL RUTH GLEDHILL

THE CURRENT translation of the Roman Missal will be retained for use, in spite of Pope Francis’ motu proprio, Magnum Principium, restoring responsi- bility for liturgical translations to local churches, the bishops of England and Wales have announced. The motu proprio amends canon 838 of the Code Bishop Nicholas Hudson (left), Archbishop Peter Smith and Fr Christopher Thomas at the press conference of Canon Law, giving to bishops the responsibility for liturgical England and Wales. This trans- as of now. This was not the case. had been a “significant” amount translations that the Second lation was ultimately rejected by He said that the Bishops’ of correspondence received about Vatican Council intended. Rome for being insufficiently true Conference had received a lot of the 1998 Missal translation, he After their plenary meeting in to the Latin original. letters asking what it was going said, but “unfortunately Magnum Leeds last week, the bishops said At a press conference, the to do about the current translation Principium does not allow us to that they were “grateful” for guid- Archbishop of Southwark, Peter in light of Magnum Principium. go back to that translation.” ance they have received from the Smith, vice-president of the Some people, he said, will be “quite However, John Wilkins, co- Congregation for Divine Worship Bishops’ Conference, said that the upset” that nothing can be done. author with Gerald O’Collins SJ that the motu proprio “concerns aim of Pope Francis from the start Fr Christopher Thomas, general of Lost in Translation: The future liturgical translations and of his papacy has been to devolve secretary of the Bishops’ English Language and the cannot be applied retroactively”. power back to the bishops’ con- Conference, said: “One of the most Catholic Mass, said that he was The bishops’ statement appears ferences from Rome. Magnum important things that needs to be “puzzled at the emergence of this to have put paid to hopes that the Principium was part of this clarified is that the work new principle” that “there can be highly praised 1998 translation process, but, the archbishop of Magnum Principium is not no retroactive application” of of the Roman Missal that had explained, a lot of people had suddenly a rupture in the work Magnum Principium: “The Pope been approved by 11 conferences “taken it amiss” to mean that the that has gone on before in terms says nothing about time directions of English-speaking bishops bishops could go ahead and of the translation of liturgical texts in his text. Rather, he wants proac- might be authorised for use in authorise their own translation but is complementary to it.” There tive engagement from bishops.”

Government urged to keep promise on Catholic schools

THE BISHOPS of England and ernments that Catholic families Catholic parent’s right to choose a community stands up and shows Wales have launched an urgent have the right to have their chil- Catholic education is under threat.” what a big issue this is, then the appeal to Catholics to pressurise dren educated in the way that The bishops have called on dioce- argument may be lost.” the Government to keep its pledge conforms to our faith. It was in san clergy to promote the petition The bishops have argued that to lift the 50 per cent cap on faith the manifesto that they were going at parish level. It has also emerged under canon law rules, Catholic admissions to new free schools, to remove this cap. We’ve said to that the Bishop of Brentwood, Alan schools are not allowed to turn amid growing concerns that the the Government we want you to Williams, met Ms Greening along away Catholic pupils on the Conservatives may renege on the stand by the manifesto promise.” with Catholic Conservative MP Sir grounds of their Catholicism, pledge, writes Bernadette Kehoe. The bishops have now urged Edward Leigh and the director of hence the need to lift the cap. The The Archbishop of Southwark, people to sign an online petition the Catholic Education Service decision now rests with the edu- Peter Smith, has called on the on the bishops’ conference website, (CES), Paul Barber, last month to cation secretary and does not Government to “stand by” the which calls on them to contact the discuss the issue. require a vote in parliament. Conservative manifesto promise education secretary, Justine The CES said that the bishops The prime minister, Theresa ahead of last June’s general elec- Greening, about the “unfair” wanted the Catholic community May, has expressed her support , tion. Speaking at a press conference admissions cap. Referring to what to find its voice quickly. “Every telling parliament earlier this year: after the bishops’ plenary meeting it says is the Government’s “critical time we ask the Government “We do believe it’s important to in Leeds last week, the archbishop decision” on the issue, it goes on what’s happening, they say ‘we enable more faith schools to be said the Government’s response to say that by “forcing Catholic will let you know in due course’. set up and faith schools to expand.” was keenly awaited. schools to turn away Catholic It’s what they’re not saying that’s The Department for Education “For 170 years there has been schoolchildren on the basis of their making us concerned … Our said the Government would an agreement with successive gov- faith, the very principle of a hunch is that unless the Catholic “respond in due course”.

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NEWS FROM BRITAIN AND IRELAND

SURVEY / Feedback ahead of next year’s Youth Synod reveals disenchantment with parish life SCOTLAND Outcry over Young people express their Holyrood decision alienation from the Church on abortion pill for use at home

BERNADETTE KEHOE the 40-plus questions put to them, who want to draw the Church SCOTLAND’S bishops have according to Ms Carvalho. “Except back into an era that they have condemned a decision by the Three thousand 16- to 29-year- for a few keen people, they would been told was far better than it is Holyrood parliament on olds have replied to a questionnaire not know why we were asking the today and a much larger, though abortion as “immoral” and “in sent out by the Bishops’ questions.” More optimistically, less evident group, who adhere to conflict with public opinion”, Conference of England and Wales she added that the young people the predominant narratives within writes Brian Morton. in preparation for the Synod of were keen to bring a greater out- society, wanting the Church to fol- Their statement follows an Bishops on youth next year. ward focus to the Church and low suit. The first group asks for announcement by the Scottish An “executive summary” which were concerned for the plight of clarity, the second for authenticity.” Government’s cabinet secretary has now been published shows the marginalised. The responses Young people, concludes the sum- for health, Shona Robison, that the popular appeal of large-scale will form part of a report for the mary, are asking the Church in Scottish women will be allowed events such as World Youth Day Vatican ahead of October’s Synod. England and Wales for a “monu- to take the abortion pill and the Flame youth event that The summary states that the mental change of attitude, Misoprostol at home, making attracts up to 10,000 young people responses reveal two distinct orientation and practice”. the country the only part of the to Wembley Arena in London. But groups: “a small but vocal group Respondents, said Ms Carvalho, UK where it is legally permitted there is “a gap of quantum are looking for “a wider variety of outside a clinical setting. proportions between these expe- high-quality and focused events A spokesman for the Church riences and the pastoral practice, that help them to see their lives in Scotland said: “Since or lack of it, experienced in many in the light of faith”. Conceding abortion is never the answer to a parishes”, according to Teresa that the most popular events for crisis or unwanted pregnancy, Carvalho, the bishops’ conference young people don’t take place in making abortion easier ignores co-ordinator. parishes, Ms Carvalho said there the disturbing reality that an She told The Tablet that if youth was a need now to help priests innocent human life is ended.” work is regarded as a lay aposto- reach out to young people; for The bishops have written to late, “there’s a long way to go”. example, ahead of National Youth Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Many of the young people who Sunday this weekend, a video has Sturgeon, calling for “renewed replied indicated they didn’t even been produced specifically to help discussions” and dialogue on have the knowledge of the Church priests make a greater effort in abortion, and drawing attention that was required to respond to this area of ministry. to the findings of a nationwide poll that suggests a majority of Scots do not support current abortion legislation. A ComRes beads in their hands, praying aloud. poll published in May found that Parish that lost its flock Nestled in the student area of seven out of 10 Scottish women central Manchester, Holy Name wish to see abortion time limits is now the chaplaincy for reduced, with an even greater records their memories Manchester’s students run by the proportion backing the idea of a Jesuits, who founded the church waiting period between initial 150 years ago. Fr Pearsall said the consultation and termination. A CHURCH in the heart of almost forgotten era. people living locally were deeply In the letter to Ms Sturgeon, Manchester has hired a project The parish priest, Fr William affected by the compulsory pur- copied to Ms Robison and the worker to document the history Pearsall SJ, said that most of the chase of their properties and minister for public health, Aileen of the parish from the viewpoint elderly former parishioners are “dispersed” to other areas. He Campbell, the Scottish bishops of the now elderly residents who now only connected to Holy Name hoped the project would docu- said: “The Church continues to lived there, before the local resi- through their memories. Michael ment the “tremendous role” Holy speak up for the intrinsic value of dential area was demolished in Kinnealy, 92, told The Tablet he Name played in Manchester and human life and the good of both the 1960s, writes Bernadette returns to the church three days serve to “recover a past that has the child and its mother.” Kehoe. Holy Name served mainly a week to help out because “it’s in been lost but not yet grieved for”. The new policy means that Irish immigrant families until the my blood”. His earliest memory Holy Name’s dimensions are on Misoprostol, which is one of two housing in the parish was cleared is of his First Holy Communion the scale of a cathedral. Yet still it drugs used for abortions, could and Manchester University took in 1932. He still recalls many fam- couldn’t accommodate all the be taken at home. In 2016 there over much of the land. ily occasions at the church and mourners at the funeral there in were 12,063 terminations in With a grant from the Heritage “happy days” when thousands 1895 of the founder of the Hallé Scotland, the majority of which Lottery Fund, the project, “Your worshipped there. orchestra, Sir Charles Hallé. Fr were carried out in the first nine Holy Name Story” wants to recon- Mr Kinnealy said the founda- Pearsall says today students in weeks of pregnancy. nect elderly people with their tion in faith that he received at university music departments The Scottish Government has cultural and religious heritage. A Holy Name helped him during make a superb contribution to the defended the decision, saying postgraduate student has been the most difficult moment of his liturgy. “Sir Charles would be that all women in Scotland, if employed to visit former parish- life – the Normandy landings, pleased to know his musical her- having an abortion, should be ioners, some now in care homes, when he and other conscripts of itage continues, with our able to access clinically safe and to record their memories of an 19 approached France with Rosary outstanding choirs,” he said. appropriate services.

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EXTRA TIME Fear and loathing in Loftus Road ADRIAN CHILES

N BOXING DAY 2012, I had a Now, more than two years on, I was terribly bad experience at paying a price. I thought I was going Queens Park Rangers. My to get a beating but a steward appeared team, West Brom, had won but and my tormentor and his mate (there’s thatO only made it worse. always a mate) moved away without QPR’s stadium is an intense, compact easing up their relentless barrage little place, so I hung around in my seat of abuse. waiting for the crowd to clear, feeling the I felt desolate. I too had a friend with quiet peace that I only ever feel in the me. He said I’d turned completely white. aftermath of a West Brom win. I was shaking. As we walked away I tried Suddenly I found myself staring at a to make sense of why it had been so finger-jabbing bloke calling me every The machine-gun fire horrifying. Obviously having a stranger name under the sun. Well, not every hurl abuse at you is awful but this was name, just the few worst ones you can of the two rudest somehow so much worse because he was possibly think of. At first I really couldn’t words in the English one of my own. compute what this abuse was about. If I’d got a mouthful from some QPR Wide-eyed, I stammered in language spat at me fan it wouldn’t have bothered me. And bewilderment: “Sorry mate. Sorry. What? over and over again actually if we’d lost I could probably have Are you OK?” taken it from the West Brom fan – bad The machine-gun fire of the two rudest mood, long journey home, etc., etc. But words in the English language spat at me might count in my favour that this must from a fellow West Brom fan after a win? over and over again. “I saw you, I saw be a rare occurrence as I actually How profound his hatred must have you,” he kept saying. “You wouldn’t give remembered it. It was a cold day. I’d been been! And he’d held on to that loathing the kid your autograph. You wouldn’t to the gents in the away end just before for the two years that had elapsed since have a photo. Who do you think you are?” kick-off and as I emerged a West Brom I’d run up those stairs ignoring the kid in Even that day I must have had two fan, for some reason, poured a whole pint Wigan. I just couldn’t find a way of dozen selfies with fans before and during of lager over my head. I believe this chap dealing with it. the game. was drunk. It was done without malice I I was having a lot of therapy at the “Wha?” I stammered. “I’ve done think, just a jape. time. When I told my head doctor the hundreds! When? Who?” But I was shocked, stunned, fed up, story he nodded sagely and said, “Ah yes, “The kid!” he yelled. “The kid, you angry, etc. I fled to my seat before there I can understand why that traumatised ****!” was any chance of further you.” And then he explained why. But I “Where?” unpleasantness. And as I ran up the stairs can’t remember what he said. I wanted to “Wigan!” he screamed. I ignored a lad holding his programme forget the whole business. The blurred noise came into focus. I out for me to sign. I pretended I hadn’t Thanks for reminding me. had refused to do an autograph two years seen him. I felt bad but I really had to get before at Wigan Athletic. I suppose it out of there. Adrian Chiles is a radio and TV presenter.

Glimpses of Eden JONATHAN TULLOCH

THIRTY YEARS ago I visited this city for trunks. Now, the trio were giants, taller far the first time. Eighteen years old and than the city walls. I went over to greet looking for the university, I lost my way. them like old friends. Though it’s Ending up at the wrong end of town, I sat November, their leaves had not fallen, and on a bench under a tree by the city walls the breeze teased a dappled play of light and watched the tourists go by. Yesterday, from their exhausted canopies. by chance, I found myself passing the same What is it about trees that entrances us, bench. Though in a hurry, I stopped. so that you might spend half a lifetime Instantly, I recalled the reach of ancient thinking about them, and still yearn to gaze stonework, and the great roof of the beech been saplings during my first visit here? at them? The greatest of all architectures, tree spreading overhead. Less familiar were Yes, about my own height, they’d just been what is a city without its trees? I stayed the three birches growing about 15 yards planted and the fresh soil had formed a under the beech, peering at the birches, away. Then I remembered. Hadn’t there vivid black against the white, slender until the evening shadows fell over York.

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