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THE INTERNATIONAL 14 APRIL 2018 £3.20 CATHOLIC WEEKLY THE www.thetablet.co.uk | Est. 1840 TABLET

The way of Francis Laurence Freeman welcomes the ’s spiritual masterpiece

Marianne Elliott remembers Belfast on the brink of the Troubles • Janet Soskice argues that 15 beauty can open the way to truth • Julia Langdon wonders if the Commonwealth still matters Joanna Moorhead meets John Studzinski • Christopher Lamb meets

PLUS CHRISTOPHER HOWSE • RICHARD HOLLOWAY • MARK LAWSON • LUCY LETHBRIDGE 9 770039 883233 02_Tablet14Apr18 Leaders.qxp_Tablet features spread 4/10/18 6:56 PM Page 2

THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY THE TABLET FOUNDED IN 1840

GAUDETE oliness has something of a bad name. It occupied by those who have been most hostile to his ET EXSULTATE popularly means one of two things: either papacy. Francis is coruscating and relentless in his being so unworldly as to be hardly on the criticism of rigidity, legalism, clericalism, conservatism A DEFINING planet at all, or to have assumed an air of and traditionalism. They result, he says, in “a self- spiritualH superiority that disdains lesser mortals more centred and elitist complacency, bereft of true love…” DOCUMENT subject to the temptations of the flesh. In his These tendencies either turn Catholicism into little audacious new has more than a set of doctrinal rules that only an elite embarked upon a very personal definition of holiness properly understands and obeys; or they promote the that breaks through these blockages and turns these idea that salvation is to be gained by an act of will, to preconceptions upside down. be had if only people would work hard enough at it. Most Catholics would shy away from imagining These two strands often appear together. They are holiness either as applying to themselves or as a distractions from holiness, yet somehow they have serious aim in life, and are probably not comfortable become lodged in the popular imagination as accurate with being thought of as “religious”. Yet the call to descriptions. On the contrary, Francis insists, holiness holiness is universal, and the practice of it should be as does not imply never making mistakes or never falling natural and familiar as any good habit. The parent short; it is living in the humble awareness that we are who cares lovingly for a child, the carpenter who deftly always in need of the mercy of . repairs a damaged wardrobe, the owner of a business Just as striking is Francis’ extension of the pro-life who behaves honourably and conscientiously towards position beyond a narrow focus to every situation their staff and their customers, indeed anyone who where human lives are threatened or diminished – aspires to become the person God means them to be, “the poor, the destitute, the abandoned and the is engaged in becoming more holy by virtue of it. underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly Holiness is not remote from everyday life. It is the very exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human stuff daily life is made of. Anyone can be a . trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of is a remarkable document, and rejection…” He insists that the Catholic attitude to could be regarded as this Pope’s spiritual masterpiece. A migrants is not secondary to the Catholic attitude to thousand sermons could be preached on it, and the unborn, but part of a seamless whole. Working for everyone in the congregation would instantly sense that social justice is a work of holiness. the Pope is talking to them personally. But he does not This inspiring document should not be shirk controversy. He identifies two skewed brands of misunderstood as simply Francis’ response to his Catholicism, which he calls Pelagianism and critics. Like all good spiritual writing, there are lines on Gnosticism, which block the flow of grace and kill every page that will make all readers uncomfortable. holiness dead even while claiming to be its defenders. But Pope Francis clearly regards his not only as These two ancient mindsets also happen to be apt comforting the afflicted, but also as afflicting the descriptions of the ultra-conservative positions comfortable. At which he undoubtedly will succeed.

MARTIN ove is the greatest of all the supernatural squads. He persisted with his campaign for justice for LUTHER KING virtues. But it needs more than a little help the poor and his denunciation of government brutality from its junior friend, courage. The fiftieth and corruption – until the death squads came for him LOVE anniversary of the assassination of Martin too. He is due for canonisation this autumn as one LutherL King in Memphis, Tennessee, has come and martyred for “hatred of the faith”, whereby the Vatican gone. King spoke with astonishing bravery of loving has recognised that work for social justice was a AND those who oppose us. He saw love as a vital part of religious obligation, a core duty of any faithful creating communities that work for everyone and not Christian. The same logic must surely apply to Bobby COURAGE just for the few. His assassin was an avowed racist, and Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Should they not King had lived with death threats most of his life. If also be counted among the in heaven? anyone had courage, he did. The speeches of Martin Luther King were explicitly King’s murder was followed not only by a wave of religious, far more so than his admirer Nelson race riots but also the assassination of Robert F. Mandela. But Mandela also displayed a rare kind of Kennedy. He had also lived bravely under death courage – fortitude over a hideously long spell in threats. Death at the hands of a lone madmen with a prison – and his Christian roots surely helped him grudge and a gun was an all too common part of the endure it. King, meanwhile, stood in the long American scene. tradition of black Baptist preachers who raided the Courage can sometimes seem at odds with love Old Testament for resonant phrases and images. He itself. The daily temptation to avoid the risk by scaling turned them into political tools. back the public activity that attracts such dangerous “I have a dream,” he announced, “that one day every attention has to be tremendous. Giving way would valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall spare those they loved and who loved them back the be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and trauma and heartache an assassination would bring. the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory Yet King and Kennedy pressed on. of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it As did the Blessed Oscar Romero, of together.” Dreaming such dreams, and working to San Salvador, who knew that at least six of his make them happen, takes boundless courage. It serves had been murdered by government-backed death as a fitting epitaph for all of them.

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PHOTO: THE OLD BOGSIDE, COURTESY MUSEUM OF FREE DERRY

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, 12 staunch ally to Pope Francis and champion of Oscar Romero

Derry/Londonderry before 6 the civil rights marches of the late 1960s and the Troubles

COLUMNS CONTENTS A R T S / PAG E 1 7 14 APRIL 2018 //VOL 272 NO. 9246 Philanthropy John Studzinski JOANNA MOORHEAD FEATURES Radio 4 / Rejoice and be glad Meeting the Pope Francis’ new apostolic exhortation is a radical call to holiness, and defines Man I Killed the spiritual underpinnings of this papacy / BY LAURENCE FREEMAN Christopher D.J. TAYLOR Howse’s 5 / ‘Go against the flow’ Television Notebook Extracts from the Pope’s apostolic exhortation Jesus’ Female ‘It seems important Gaudete et Exsultate, which was released on Monday Disciples: The that one can New Evidence declare one’s name 6 / Before the Troubles LUCY LETHBRIDGE solemnly and Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Could the expect to be 30 years of violence that preceded it have been averted? / BY MARIANNE ELLIOTT Theatre believed’ / 11 Pressure 8 / More than in the eye of the beholder MARK LAWSON A leading philosopher of religion argues that in being attracted to and in creating beautiful things we may be drawing closer to finding truth / BY JANET SOSKICE B O O K S / PAG E 2 0 10 / Family at the crossroads Christopher On Monday the Commonwealth heads of government meet in . Faced Howse with Brexit and an ageing monarch, what is their role? / BY JULIA LANGDON Faith Finding a Voice 12 / The Tablet Interview: Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia CARDINAL One of Francis’ most energetic allies in the Vatican on his hopes of widening the debate on family matters within the Church / BY CHRISTOPHER LAMB Timothy Connor The British Mosque: An Architectural and NEWS Social History REGULARS 23 / The Church in the World / News briefing SHAHED SALEEM From the Archive 14 24 / Francis emphasises the holiness of everyday life Richard Holloway Puzzles 14 Natural Causes: Letters 15 26 / View from Life, Death and the The Living Spirit 16 27 / News from Britain and Ireland / News briefing Illusion of Control From the BARBARA Vineyard 30 28 / Safeguarding specialist sent to Ampleforth EHRENREICH 30 Glimpses of Eden COVER PHOTO: CNS/REUTERS, ALESSANDRO BIANCHI

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FEATURES / Gaudete et Exsultate

PHOTO: CNS, PAUL HARING

Rejoice and be glad Pope Francis’ new apostolic exhortation is a radical call to holiness in today’s world. A Benedictine monk explores a document that defines the spiritual underpinnings of this papacy / By LAURENCE FREEMAN

HE POPE’S idea of holiness embeds example of a woman who goes shopping, Gnosticism and Pelagianism are two heretical a prophetic anger against the dull extricates herself from a gossipy conversation, viruses that still flourish in the Church. He mediocrity of consumerist individu- comes home exhausted but gives her attention sees Gnosticism in a disembodied, absolutised alism but, no less, against to a needy child and then ends her day in religious intellectualism; it is a feature of the intellectualisedT religiosity. In the five short, quiet prayer. Holiness is not about being a clericalism that he often criticises. And well-crafted chapters of his new exhortation special sort of person or living apart from the Pelagianism persists as a self-satisfied blind- Francis speaks from a Catholic pulpit but his world but about being a good next-door neigh- ness to the ever pre-emptive role of grace. It audience is the whole of humanity in its con- bour, finding a more perfect way of doing is essential to his incarnational understanding temporary crisis of faith. He exposes the what we are already doing, and doing the of holiness that Francis intuitively elevates degradation of humanity produced by empty ordinary in an extraordinary way. Holiness uniqueness above conformity. lifestyles, conspicuous consumption and the needs times of quiet, solitude and silence but This is a passionate and prophetic under- refusal to see God in the poor and marginal. “it is not healthy to love silence while fleeing standing of holiness. Francis is angry, as Francis is driven by an incarnational spiritu- interaction with others”. prophets should be, at fake holiness; but he ality, the defining motif of his papacy, captured moves quickly from anger to affirmation. His in his phrase: “Reality is greater than ideas”. HOLINESS IS a practical life-long process programme of holiness applies to everyone. His third apostolic exhortation – after grounded in the mysticism of incarnation. It avoids both a complacent elitism and the and – Community is both the laboratory and the dull mediocrity that it saddens him to see our Gaudete et Exsultate (“Rejoice and Be Glad”) flower of a way of life that runs through every culture creating. The loneliness of the human is not a theological treatise about holiness but moment of every day. Prayer is precious condition is aggravated by consumerist indi- a faith-filled pitch for promoting the desire because it nourishes a daily commitment to vidualism. Holiness is the cure. for holiness. To explain why this desire should love and that special benefit of deep prayer Scripture excites him. Francis urges us to bring true happiness, in contrast to the iso- that St Ignatius identified as discernment, go back directly to the words of Jesus, which lating superficialities of consumerism, Francis the intelligence of the heart. unsettle us by demanding a change of lifestyle. reminds us that holiness is not about individual This is a holiness of small gestures but also In his commentary on the Beatitudes, he sees moral perfection or the approval of others. of clear, Christo-centric mysticism. In his “Blessed are the poor in spirit” as an invitation “Not everything a saint says is completely faith- on the environment, Laudato Si’, to peer into our hearts to find out exactly ful to the Gospel,” he reminds us. We need to Francis combines the mysticism of creation where we find our true security. He sees meek- contemplate the totality of a saint’s life. with a challenging social and economic com- ness as a counter-cultural virtue that saves The first saints he mentions by name are mentary. In Gaudete et Exsultate he hits hard us from being exhausted by constantly trying women and he writes of a “feminine ” of at the enemies of holiness who, like Jesus, he to dominate and control; in a memorable holiness. He illustrates the theme of an incar- identifies not as obvious external enemies but insight, he says that: “our deepest desires are national, experiential holiness with the as much closer to home. He points out that fulfilled by meekness”.

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forgiven. All of us have been looked upon with ‘Go against the flow’ divine compassion. (82) It is not easy to “make” this evangelical peace, Extracts from the Pope’s apostolic exhortation which excludes no one but embraces even those who are a bit odd, troublesome or difficult, Gaudete et Exsultate, which was released on Monday demanding, different, beaten down by life or simply uninterested. It is hard work; it calls for great openness of mind and heart. (89) 1 The call to holiness understand this, because they judge others I like to contemplate the holiness present in the based on their ability to understand the Jesus himself warns us that the path he patience of God’s people: in those parents who complexity of certain doctrines. (37) proposes goes against the flow, even raise their children with immense love, in those making us challenge society by the way we live men and women who work hard to support A healthy and humble use of reason in order to and, as a result, becoming a nuisance. (90) their families, in the sick, in elderly Religious who reflect on the theological and moral teaching of never lose their smile. In their daily perseverance the Gospel is one thing. It is another to reduce Holiness, then, is not about swooning in mystic I see the holiness of the Church militant. Very Jesus’ teaching to a cold and harsh logic that rapture. (96) often it is a holiness found in our next-door seeks to dominate everything. (39) neighbours, those who, living in our midst, Our defence of the innocent unborn … needs to reflect God’s presence. We might call them “the When somebody has an answer for every be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the middle class of holiness”. (7) question, it is a sign that they are not on the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred right road. (41) and demands love for each person, regardless of The “genius of woman” is seen in feminine styles his or her stage of development. Equally sacred, of holiness, which are an essential means of God is mysteriously present in the life of every however, are the lives of the poor, those already reflecting God’s holiness in this world. (12) person, in a way that he himself chooses, and we born, the destitute, the abandoned and the cannot exclude this by our presumed certainties. underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and This holiness to which the Lord calls you will Even when someone’s life appears completely elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the grow through small gestures. (16) wrecked, even when we see it devastated by victims of human trafficking, new forms of vices or addictions, God is present there. (42) slavery, and every form of rejection. (101) It is not healthy to love silence while fleeing interaction with others, to want peace and quiet So often we say that God dwells in us, but it is 4. Signs of holiness in today’s world while avoiding activity, to seek prayer while better to say that we dwell in him, that he Far from being timid, morose, acerbic or disdaining service. (26) enables us to dwell in his light and love. (51) melancholy, or putting on a dreary face, the saints are joyful and full of good humour. (122) This does not mean ignoring the need for The life of the Church can become a museum moments of quiet, solitude and silence before piece or the possession of a select few. This can Growth in holiness is a journey in community, God. Quite the contrary … How can we fail to occur when some groups of Christians give side by side with others. (141) realize the need to stop this rat race and to excessive importance to certain rules, customs recover the personal space needed to carry on a or ways of acting. The Gospel then tends to be Are there moments when you place yourself heartfelt dialogue with God? (29) reduced and constricted, deprived of its quietly in the Lord’s presence, when you calmly simplicity, allure and savour. (58) spend time with him, when you bask in his gaze? Do not be afraid of holiness. It will take away Do you let his fire inflame your heart? Unless you none of your energy, vitality or joy. On the 3. In the light of the Master let him warm you more and more with his love contrary, you will become what the Father had in In the Beatitudes, we find a portrait of the and tenderness, you will not catch fire. (151) mind when he created you, and you will be Master, which we are called to reflect in our daily faithful to your deepest self. (32) lives. The word “happy” or “blessed” thus 5. Spiritual combat, vigilance and discernment becomes a synonym for “holy”. It expresses the We should not think of the devil as a myth, a 2. Two subtle enemies of holiness fact that those faithful to God and his word, by representation, a symbol, a figure of speech or A person’s perfection is measured not by the their self-giving, gain true happiness. (63/64) an idea. This mistake would lead us to let down information or knowledge they possess, but by our guard, to grow careless and end up more the depth of their charity. “Gnostics” do not We need to think of ourselves as an army of the vulnerable. (161)

Francis circles his themes, coming back to We also see Francis the Jesuit in this doc- mystery of “small everyday things” in a pro- them with new examples. Holiness, he writes, ument: discernment, daily examen, gramme of incarnate holiness that rejects dull is not “swooning in mystic rapture”. Rather, it contemplation in action. He sees the union mediocrity and religious elitism. He has is exemplified in our response when we meet of Martha and Mary in the life of every saint. refreshed the Church’s call to holiness as the a person sleeping outdoors on a cold night. The Many remark how regular the Pope is in his goal of all human life. refugee crisis is a higher priority in the practical Divine Office and personal prayer. This doubt- “Do not be afraid of holiness,” Francis programme of holiness in today’s world than less explains the importance he attributes exhorts us. bioethical issues. But he warns against here to the times of daily prayer. In this we Christianity becoming “a sort of NGO stripped see Francis’ instinctive respect for tradition Laurence Freeman OSB is a monk of of luminous mysticism”. Finding Christ within operating in a radical way, refreshing the Lendinara, a monastery of the Olivetan ourselves allows us to welcome him in everyone. Christian way of holiness for the alienated Congregation. He is director of the World The unceasing prayer of the heart practised generation of our culture. Community for Christian Meditation. by the writer of the Russian spiritual classic In 1943 Simone Weil predicted a “new holi- The Way of the Pilgrim does not separate him ness demanded by the present moment, a Gaudete et Exsultate is published from what is going on around him. “We simply fresh spring and invention”. In Gaudete et by the Catholic Truth Society at cannot do without the silence of prolonged Exsultate Pope Francis eloquently promotes £4.95. It is available online at prayer,” this very active Pope reminds us. this “new holiness” by seeing the inclusive www.tinyurl.com/tablet-texts

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FEATURES / Civil rights in Northern Ireland

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. Could the 30 years of violence that preceded it have been averted? / By MARIANNE ELLIOTT Before the Troubles

T WAS December 2000. My book, The to 1969 – nearly 50,000 houses, two-thirds Catholics of Ulster, was being launched of those built by local councils. I grew up on at Dublin Castle. An elderly couple one of these in North Belfast and have told arrived among the guests, the wife in a the story in a recent book, Hearthlands. North wheelchair.I “Thank you for inviting us,” the Belfast had been the most mixed estate in the man said, “we never get invited to things city. The experience has made me an avid and within days of the Derry events, 3,000 nowadays.” exponent of shared housing in Northern students and many staff marched in protest I felt humbled. For this was Conn and Ireland, with the greatest potential for tackling to Belfast City Hall. It was a peaceful and legal Patricia McCluskey, founders of the Campaign the sectarian polarisation of the present. march and we set off singing “We Shall for Social Justice (CSJ) in 1964, which would It was housing issues which lay behind the Overcome”. But a short distance from the uni- develop into the Northern Ireland Civil Rights CSJ, starting out with Patricia McCluskey’s versity, we were rerouted by police to avoid a Association (Nicra) in 1967. The McCluskeys campaign to secure public housing for needy counter-demonstration by followers of Ian were typical of the civil rights leaders, mod- Catholics in the Dungannon area, where Paisley –and then brought to a standstill within erate in their demands and behaviour, upset Unionist-controlled councils had a reputation sight of our destination by the same Paisleyites. by generations of Unionists who considered for discrimination against Catholics. The McCluskeys had told John Hume that all Catholics rebels. They were critical also sit-down protests were the most effective. of the negative whinging of traditional IT WAS ON the housing issue that the emer - And that is what we did that day, for three nationalism, whose ambivalence about the ging civil rights campaign first attracted hours, lashed by autumn rains. Thwarted by state seemed to endorse Unionist accusations widespread media attention – with Nationalist the Paisleyite and police cordon, a section of of “disloyalty”. MP Austin Currie’s squatting in a council the students set up People’s Democracy (PD) The McCluskeys, along with the later civil house in Caledon, County Tyrone, in June that evening. I remember its early meetings rights leaders, most notably John Hume, were 1968. It also produced the first civil rights and found Bernadette Devlin an inspiring not traditional nationalists. They quite rea- march in Dungannon that August. People student leader. But, with the majority of the sonably asked for equal rights for Catholics were marching for civil rights all over the students, I did not support the decision, taken within the state, gathering statistics, wooing world; it seemed normal to do so for my gen- by a small group within PD, to march from journalists and keeping English MPs informed. eration. But marching was never a neutral Belfast to Derry on 1 January 1969 – though For although England was the sovereign activity in Northern Ireland and the hard- I do recall being conflicted about my stance. power, it had abdicated many of its rights, line Unionist Minister for Home Affairs, Bill The main reason was that reforms were with a policy of non-interference in Northern Craig – later to be dismissed by moderate starting to come through and my family, like Ireland, even when seriously concerned about Unionist Premier Terence O’Neill – routinely most moderate nationalists, thought that the local Unionist Government’s banned civil rights marches while Terence O’Neill was doing his best against discriminatory policies. permitting counter Loyalist ones. vicious denunciation from members of his But things were changing and It was a civil rights march in own Government and Paisleyite protesters, had been changing since the Derry, on 5 October 1968, that who stalked his public appearances. arrival of the welfare state, first brought international media imposed on Northern Ireland in attention to focus on Northern THE DEMANDS OF the civil rights movement 1948. Successive Unionist Ireland. The police overreacted, had been modest: “one man one vote” in local Governments disliked anything batoning, beating and water- elections; an end to gerrymandering of elec- smacking of socialism, but did, cannoning unarmed demonstra- toral boundaries and to discrimination in largely, implement the reforms. tors, and the image flashed employment; houses to be allocated on the Even so, there were always around the world of blood pouring basis of need; and repeal of the Special Powers issues around housing, for where from the head of the then Act. Moderate Protestants, including church people lived decided voting Republican Labour MP Gerry leaders, supported a lot of this and have patterns. Not all local councils were guilty of Fitt. Colour television had recently arrived in reflected that if the key demand of “one man discrimination in housing allocations, but Northern Ireland, just in time to further one vote” had been granted earlier, the those west of the Bann (Fermanagh, Tyrone, dramatise the evolving pre-Troubles. Troubles might not have happened. Derry/Londonderry) most certainly were. Although my home would have been broadly O’Neill tried to be conciliatory. But he wasn’t The Unionist Government had actually done nationalist, it was North Belfast Labour MPs, bringing his party with him and several key something about this, by setting up the such as Fitt and Paddy Devlin, who were our people resigned when he set up the Cameron Housing Trust in 1945 and defending it heroes. (They went on, with Hume, Currie and Commission to investigate the events of 1968. against hard-line complaints that it was giving others, to found the Social Democratic and There was considerable Catholic support for houses to Catholics. Labour Party in 1970.) I had recently gone up him and I recall my entire family being glued It was to build mixed-religion housing to Queen’s University Belfast to study history to the television for his “Ulster at the estates all over Northern Ireland from 1945 and French. The autumn term had just started, Crossroads” speech on 9 December 1968 and

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by Loyalists, and at Burntollet Bridge, as they working-class Protestants going to university, neared Derry, they were subjected to a bloody and when the heavy industries in which they attack. The police did little to protect them. had been sure of employment were in free- Nicra had suspended its campaign in support fall – seemed like “popery” closing in. Ian of O’Neill’s reforms and had not approved of Paisley gave voice to this. The Protestant back- the march, but the attack changed attitudes. lash came earlier, and partly produced the Thousands turned out in Derry to greet the Catholic restiveness, which ultimately did call marchers. The attack seemed to prove what the IRA back. Now both seemed to be behav- PD’s socialist wing had argued: that the ing in the way the sectarian stereotypes had Northern Ireland state was unreformable and always said they would. that Paisley rather than O’Neill was the real face of unionism. NORTHERN IRELAND’S first opinion poll in In this fiftieth anniversary of the events of 1967 showed 70 per cent of Catholics willing 1968, there are still some Unionist voices that to accept a continued British link – testimony claim the civil rights movement was a Trojan to the real change which had occurred in trad- horse for the IRA. It was not. Northern nation- itional nationalism. Was the rump of the student alists had historically been non-militant and movement politically naive in pushing through Civil rights demonstrators in Derry in the most recent IRA campaign had been called the Burntollet march, as its historian, Paul November 1968. Inset: a poster for the march off in 1962 for lack of support. Its members Arthur, has suggested? They had not recognised that many regard as the start of the Troubles had already drifted into socialist politics. Nor just how radical O’Neill’s reforms were, nor was moderate unionism as bankrupt as how much trouble he was in with his party. It claimed, even if the constructive unionism of is fair to add, however, that it is only in hindsight signing the Belfast Telegraph’s petition of O’Neill and the main Unionist outlet, the that we can understand the role the disinte- support. He had already granted the civil Belfast Telegraph, was too often pusillanimous gration of traditional unionism had in the rights’ demands, under pressure from in the face of Orange influence. outbreak of the Troubles. The demands of the Downing Street. Might the Troubles have My generation, which had grown up in the civil rights movement were reasonable and been averted had he been given more time? 1950s and 1960s, had experienced a Northern should have been granted a lot earlier. This, of course, assumes that fellow Unionists Ireland that had largely been at peace with would have given him more time – and in the itself for a generation, and the welfare state Marianne Elliott is the former director of the following months there was little sign of that. was delivering on a non-partisan basis. But Institute of Irish Studies, University of Certainly the tiny group, 30 in all, that set old sectarian stereotypes endured. The civil Liverpool. Her most recent book is off to march from Belfast to Derry did not rights marches – particularly by students on Hearthlands: A memoir of the White City think so. All along the route they were harassed state grants, when there was no tradition of housing estate in Belfast (Blackstaff Press).

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FEATURES / Truth and beauty

DETAIL FROM THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST, 1450, PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA, (c.1415-92). NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON/BRIDGEMAN appeared” to us to be beautiful. The art critic Peter Fuller tells us that Ruskin begged the scholars of flowers to “have nothing to do with ‘the obscene processes and prurient appari- tions’ of the secular biologists”. Ruskin knew that “the advance of one way of looking at nature had meant the loss of another. Behind his prudery lay another and deeper fear – that of the loss of enchantment of the world.” Nietzsche praised the Greeks for stopping at surfaces. “Those Greeks were superficial,” he says in The Gay Science, “out of profundity.” Are we, however, content to be superficial out of superficiality? Have we indeed taken super- ficiality to new depths? If I appear to my Instagram followers to be happy and success- ful, is that all there is to happiness and success? If we are content not just with appearances, but with the appearance of appearances, are we swindling ourselves out of the older insight that we are made to seek the truth and to behold beauty? If, as Nietzsche thought, transcendence must be left behind, then what is its residue? The glory of the Superman, as Nietzsche hoped? Or, as Bentley Hart suggests, might it just be banality? Given our culture’s devotion to acquisition, celebrity, distraction and therapy, Bentley Hart says, it is hard not to think that our vision has narrowed to the ‘STILLNESS AND SEEMING ETERNAL CALM’: smaller preoccupations and desires of indi- Piero della Francesca’s Baptism of Christ vidual selves. Ironically, this would represent Nietzsche’s greatest fear – the loss of any tran- scendent imagination that could incite mighty A leading philosopher of religion argues that in being attracted works of cultural imagination. If the aspiring ape ceases to think of himself as a fallen angel, to and in creating beautiful things we may be drawing closer to he will inevitably resign himself to seeking no more than an ape’s contentment. finding truth / By JANET SOSKICE But not all religiously informed aesthetics depends on the argument from design that underwrote Ruskin’s early writings. Gerard Manley Hopkins was a poet not of appear- More than in the eye ances but of “appearing”: of epiphanies of individual things – a coal falling gashed and glowing into the grate, the mossy rim of a well, the flash of a dragonfly’s wings, stones of the beholder seen through clear water. Surely this is so with both beauty and truth?

THE BEST REPLY to Nietzsche’s dismissal of S TRUTH IN shorter supply than it used academy. Nietzsche rejoiced that the death truth as a mere human construct and tissue to be? How can it be recognised and of “God”, hastened, as he thought, by of illusion, which he had, in the end, to extend where can it reliably be found? And if Darwinian science, meant the end of “truth”. to the claims of science, is the success of sci- truth is difficult to find, is beauty any Both God and “truth” were, to his mind, crip- ence, which assumes the world is a given, easier?I In classical Christian teaching, God pling and superfluous mirages. Nietzsche disclosed to us through generations of arduous is not only beautiful but beauty itself, not nevertheless wanted, somewhat inconsistently, and patient attention. And science frequently only truthful but truth itself, not only good to retain a belief in beauty, at least as a con- proceeds by means of metaphor and human but goodness itself. What can this mean in solation to make human existence bearable. constructs. It is, or was, metaphor, based on a hectic world where “truth” is contested, Nietzsche’s great contemporary, John Ruskin a hydraulic model, to say that electricity has “goodness” sounds priggish, and “beauty” is (inset, opposite), was not so confident beauty a “flow” and a “current” but we don’t say this discussed mainly in terms of revolutionary could be retained. Ruskin at first believed that language is “only metaphorically” true and new beauty products? the certainties of the Evangelical faith of his put a live wire in our mouth. Even art students seem reluctant to speak childhood were in perfect consort with the But how does beauty appear? Elaine Scarry, of beauty today for fear of appearing gauche new findings of the scientists – at this time in On Beauty and Being Just, observes that and naive. Do we, in the age of Instagram, the geologists. God had delivered “sermons while beauty has been banished in the lan- hear the adage “beauty is only skin deep” in stone”. But, after Darwin, the water lily, guage of the humanities for the last few not as a warning but as a stipulation – beauty with its exquisite cup, could no longer be seen decades, it is “openly at play in those fields is only appearance and appearance is all as devised for godly instruction but was that aspire to have ‘truth’ as their object – there is? exposed as a sexual organ in a new and math, physics, astrophysics, chemistry, bio- Truth has been under assault for some time, unlovely drama of survival and propagation. chemistry – where every day in laboratories if not in the White House then at least in the The finely structured lily pads “merely and seminar rooms participants speak of

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problems that are ‘nice’, theories that are unites, or perhaps it is better to say, aligns nal calm, are there but so too is the sense of ‘pretty’, solutions that are elegant and simple”. beauty and truth. The world in its beauty movement, uncertainty as Beauty goes on in its durable way – we talk appears to us – never neat or unmediated, lifts one foot to pour the water on the head of a beautiful goal in football, a beautiful shot but unsolicited – as a gift of something that of Jesus. Those who know the story know that in tennis or a beautiful soufflé. There is some- is there but we have not seen before. Beauty Jesus will go from this scene to the temptation thing there of accuracy, of fittingness, of can be not the end but the beginning of an in the wilderness. Jesus’ bare, open chest is appropriateness to an end. In matters of apprenticeship in seeing more. Beauty is some- vulnerable. The pink cloak, calmly held by an beauty, as in matters of truth, we can find times said to be the radiance of the true and angel, is a pastel anticipation of the purple ourselves corrected. the good. It is what attracts us. But isn’t it garment in which Jesus will be cloaked when exaggerated, romantic, to think most people he is mocked by the soldiers as King of the ALTHOUGH BEAUTY has the reputation of will seek beauty? Not at all, according to Jews. It is the same cloth that Piero puts in being “merely” subjective we have all had Aquinas – we seek beauty in the same way a companion painting, clothing the resur- experiences of being inducted into beauty. we will seek the good. rected Christ when he emerges from the tomb. When you walk through the deadness of a According to Aquinas, we seek what The Incarnation is a profound endorsement winter garden with a gardener, they can see makes us happy. We seek what is good for of the fundamental good of material reality that this will be a foxglove, and that us in the same way the sunflower turns to and of being human, bodily, corporeal. Ruskin unpromising stump will in June be a peony. the sun – with the qualification that human was horrified to think the mollusc might be The whole summer garden seems to lie beings, as reasoning creatures, can mistake the ancestor to man. Jones, by contrast, before them on a desolate February day. We our good. We may think it is better to bet delighted in his belief that we are the “ani- can be schooled in sight and apprenticed in all our wages on a horse than to pay the rent. mal-who-is-the-artist”, always firmly anchored disclosure – of a winter garden, a flock of Nonetheless we desire the good – which in in our fleshly, bodily existence. birds, a cluster of cells, or of the beauty of a the end is God, the source of our being and In one of his letters he recalls an incident mathematical puzzle. life. Leading the good life is about following during the war when he peered through a The experience of beauty can startle us as your heart’s desire. And so our search for crack in the wall of a damaged farm building something that comes unbidden. Beauty the true is combined with our search for the and saw some huddled figures kneeling in ignites the desire for truth; it amounts to good and the beautiful. the hay, the back of a vested , a makeshift something of a disclosure, Scarry says, of that Of course the world contains sorrows and altar with candles, the white altar cloth and “which is”. We could say that we have to love cruelties. David Jones, who had his art school vestments glowing. It was, to use the archaic first in order to attend to something as it studies interrupted by his time in the language favoured by Jones, a confecting is. Aquinas said: “Loving draws us trenches, makes this barbed obser- (which means the making of something by to things more than knowing vation: “Were we trying to putting together), here the confecting of the does.” It is around this matter discover what it meant to say sacrament – a human and a divine moment of “appearing” that science ‘nature is beautiful’ we’d be transforming not just the bread and wine but not only points to beauty but best advised to consider the the kneeling men. brings us to a moment where patterns made by germ cells we may consider what it of a formidable disease than FOR DAVID JONES – printmaker, calligra- means to say that God is not by considering the female pher, painter, carver, poet – art is always only beautiful but beauty torso, the green hills, or the “confecting” – the intentional alignment of itself, not only truthful but dog rose.” one thing or shape with another, whether of truth itself, not only good but Jones may have in mind the ink or pigment or stone. This he understood goodness itself. The scholastic “sermons in stone” approach to in the deepest sense as a sacramental activity theologians called certain terms – beauty that informed the young – a making sacred. This was to continue the one, good, true, beauty – “transcendentals”, Ruskin. An artist who above all thought of work of Christ, and to understand himself because they considered them to be aspects himself as a craftsman, I think Jones knew as a member of the body of Christ. The gra- of all that truly is, or, as they would say, of there was a theological deficiency in the tuitous creativity of the artist, Jones believed, “being” itself. suggestion that God somehow customises is the rational response to the givenness of The idea that God is “being” itself may the created order by hiding in it uplifting the unfathomably beautiful world that sur- seem a remote one, or just a residue of tales of beauty, coded messages of which rounds us. Platonism in Christianity. That lineage is human beings, somehow suspended As with our confecting of beauty, so too certainly there. But this basic conception between God and the animals, are the with truth. Truth, like goodness and beauty, was fundamentally transformed by Jews intended beneficiaries. is not something we possess “neat”, as though and Christians and Muslims in their teaching we could jump out of the human condition. on Creation. Not the story that the world THERE IS a paramount difference between “Truth”, like “beauty”, is both a given and a was made in six days, but the central teach- the Christian understanding of God as the work in progress. Jones believed we are all ing of Creation ex nihilo. In this, God is not source of all, and that of the antique philoso- artists of a sort – capable of representing (or somehow continuous with or correlative to phers where the good is an impersonal re-presenting) things under a different form. the natural order, as is the case for instance fecundity from which everything emanates. This is as true of the ochre sketch of a stag in in Aristotle, but rather God is the creator The word through whom all things were a cave painting as of the icon that represents of all that is – even space and time. made became flesh and dwelt amongst us. the saint under the form of wood and oil and It follows that if God is the creator of all In John’s gospel, Christ is the creative word pigment. It is true of someone who bakes a that is, including space and time, the who becomes incarnate and human like us birthday cake. We are created to be artists, moment of creation is not “a long time ago”, in every way but sin, in a world of harsh individually and collectively, making things but now. There was no “time” before the realities. It is this balance between the glory lovely. This “artistry” does not make us angels, world was created, when there was no space of the creative word made flesh and the but truly, beautifully ourselves. or matter (as even the astrophysicist today sometime painful actualities of fleshly exis- can agree). God as creator of time and space tence that saves good Christian art from Janet Soskice is professor of philosophical is equally present to all time and space. God being a “motherhood and apple pie” cele- theology and a fellow of Jesus College at is thus nearer to me, as Augustine would bration of beauty. the University of Cambridge. Adapted from say, than my own breath, creating and hold- Think only of Piero della Francesca’s the 2018 Charles Gore Lecture, given as ing me in being. Baptism of Christ in the National Gallery. part of the Westminster Abbey Institute’s It also follows that everything is gift. This Order and balance, stillness and seeming eter- Spring Programme.

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features / The Commonwealth

On Monday the heads of government of an organisation that grew out of the British empire and now encompasses one third of the world’s population meet in London. Faced with Brexit, and an ageing monarch, what is their role in the future? / By JULIA LANGDON Family at the crossroads

HE LEADERS’ summit to be held in Friday at Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace London this coming week might be and Windsor Castle by the Queen. They are – the most significant of its kind in the though they might not all like to admit it – long history of the Commonwealth. coming to London to see the Queen. But they ThisT remnant of empire has looked increas- are also coming because the Commonwealth ingly irrelevant and adrift in recent years, short is at a crossroads. Its leaders have some big on leadership, direction and political purpose, decisions to make about its future, what its yet for the first time in decades the biennial purpose will be, who is going to run it, and Commonwealth Heads of Government what, if any, should be the role of the British Meeting (CHOGM) is a matter of intense royal family when the time comes for the interest to many member countries – and to Queen to step down as head of the the British government in particular. The Commonwealth. unpredictable outcome of the summit is also What makes this CHOGM particularly creating a stir among the inhabitants of interesting is that it is being staged in London Buckingham Palace and Clarence House. at a time when the UK is in the throes of the The majority of the heads of state and prime immense constitutional and political ministers of the 52 member countries, besides upheaval that is Brexit. It is little surprise the United Kingdom, are expected to roll up then, given the uncertainty about the UK’s for the sessions to be hosted on Thursday and future international status, not to mention the complete absence of any serious formu- lation of a future international trade policy – a matter of open despair among civil ser- vants – that the British government is taking gle for an end to apartheid in South Africa a very close interest in developments. dominated the deliberations of CHOGM for Both the Cabinet Office and the Foreign & many years; more recently, it has been unable Commonwealth Office (FCO) have been much to find meaningful common ground on, say, more strategically involved in the run-up to human rights abuses or political corruption. this summit than previous meetings: partly Meanwhile, newer regional groupings – such because of the perceived incompetence of the as the African Union – have become more Commonwealth’s own secretariat, but also strategically significant. because this time the stakes are considered Heads of government have being ducking to be substantially higher. out of CHOGM meetings, and when Australia The gradual decline in the significance and Canada made significant cuts in their and authority of the Commonwealth has funding the knock-on effect on the propor- meant that up until recently tionate British contribution Britain could increasingly naturally had a deleterious afford to ignore it – and did. If Prince Harry is impact on the operation of the What the member states will Commonwealth Secretariat at not be prepared to contem- appointed to a Marlborough House in St plate is Britain, having shaken ceremonial post … James’s. Inevitably, some up the structure of its future that may give Charles member states are wondering trade with the rest of Europe, what the point of the now turning to the some reflected Commonwealth is. Commonwealth in the arro- street cred It had been hoped that the gant expectation that it will fill election of a capable and in the resulting gaps. charismatic high-profile figure Wise heads in the government and the FCO as secretary general might repair the chaotic are aware of this, of course, and are looking organisation of the secretariat and generally for diplomatic ways of addressing the difficulty. restore some pride and lift the spirits. In 2016 The British are careful not to give the impres- Baroness Scotland, attorney general in the sion that they are running the Commonwealth, last Labour government, stood as the candi- or even using it for British advantage. What date from Dominica, where she was born, Britain could try to do, however, is to use other and was elected; since then, she has been countries as shields for its own designs. There dogged by allegations of financial extrava- are rumours that India is being fitted up for gance, cronyism and political impropriety. such a role. Discreet discussion has been under way to In the past the Commonwealth could rally identify a successor who might revive the around issues of common concern. The strug- Commonwealth’s credibility. The names that

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CHRISTOPHER HOWSE’S NOTEBOOK

are being discussed include those of the former Australian foreign minister, Alexander It seems important that one can Downer, until recently high commissioner to London, and the current prime minister of Malta, Muscat. declare one’s name solemnly The Queen holds her role as head of the Commonwealth dear. She has called the and expect to be believed organisation “a precious flame” but she knows that the flame is flickering and could easily be blown out. “If people no longer trust or understand each other, the talking will soon SOMETHING struck me the living that brings such life to the stop too,” she has warned its members in about the new book by long dead. recent years. “She gets it,” one former member Antonia Fraser that I of her staff told me. “She understands it is a don’t think I will be I SHALL SKIRT the salvias and delicate flower, that it is much more than breaking any embargo by marigolds in front of the Hinsley Room ‘Britain Incorporated’. She has an understand- revealing. The King and the Catholics, next to Westminster Cathedral in May to ing and a sensitivity about the issues.” about the decades leading to Catholic vote in the local elections. I hate the Emancipation in 1829, comes out in May. suggestion of “proving” one’s identity at a THE POSITION of head of the Common wealth It promises to be entertaining, but it was polling station. I shall tell them my name is itself one of the most sensitive issues. The the acknowledgements that first and can supply my number on the role is not hereditary. The Queen took it over impressed me. Acknowledgements are register, which is not hard to remember, from her father when she was crowned in generally under-read, except by those being No 7. 1953, just four years after it came into exis- hoping to appear in them. Yet they can Let people be fiercely punished if they tence; it does not necessarily follow that Prince reveal even more socially than the names meddle with elections, but it seems Charles will succeed her. He might have been of those attending memorial services. important that one can declare one’s dashing around the Commonwealth in the Lady Antonia is no snob, and name solemnly and expect to be believed. last decade, but however well polished his CV, aristocracy does not intimidate her. That is how life works. the appointment is not in his mother’s gift. Indeed in the book she calls one figure’s There are two factors that may be of some ancestors “extremely minor gentry”, I WAS LOOKING for a nightshirt. You help to him as the leaders discuss whether which puts them in their place. But those may laugh, but I was converted to they want or need to retain this royal role. whose help she acknowledges are not, by nightshirts a few years ago when I had The first is that the meeting is in London, and large, from ancient landed recusant my appendix out and wanted to avoid where there will be a certain degree of def- families who loom so large part in the elasticated waistbands. Enough of that – erence to the British crown. The second is story. They are more like guests who, but a nightshirt it must be. that his son, Prince Harry, is expected to be thrown into the same room, would make The emporia listed by Mr Google appointed in the course of the summit to a a memorable party. included Marks and Spencer. They had ceremonial post as some sort of ambassador Alphabetically they begin with few in stock with enough X’s in X-Large for youth among the member nations. That Jonathan Aitken, and before we reach to fit me, and I sent off for a couple with may give Charles some reflected street cred, Hugo Vickers (a genuine expert on buttons down the front. On arrival, they something he looks otherwise to be seriously royalty), eminences in this range of resembled the housecoats that I lacking. However much it may stick in the active volcanoes include Allan Mallinson remember from my childhood a woman royal throat, his younger son, who is about (who took a break from theological next door wearing, along with curlers. to marry a mixed-race, American-born college that turned into a 35-year Army They ran out not far down, leaving a divorced actress, has a lifestyle with a greater career), John Martin Robinson (the draughty ventral void. Not a pretty sight. resonance in the real world. peppery defender of good architecture, Then I remembered, from the olden who must have helped in the obscurely days of pyjamas, a stripy pair made by IT IS A LONG time since the Commonwealth, chequered field of heraldry) and Ruth Derek Rose. This was for a bed swap I did originally pieced together from what were Scurr (who inhabited the writings of the for my newspaper with the author Kathy once the pink bits of the atlas, sheltered under seventeenth-century antiquary John Lette. It wasn’t my idea. In fact I never the umbrella of Britain’s post-colonial foreign Aubrey so thoroughly that she wrote, as really understood the concept, but I got policy. It is now an independent common- it were, his own autobiography). the better of the deal, as she was writer in wealth of nations, with 2.4 billion citizens, There is Mark Bostridge (who won an residence at the Savoy. The stripy pyjamas almost one third of the population of the award named after Lady Antonia’s came out well in the photo-shoot. world. It includes among its members – 140 mother Elizabeth Longford for his How much, though, would you pay for a million of them Catholic – some of the largest, biography of Florence Nightingale) and Derek Rose nightshirt featuring “cartoon- richest, smallest and poorest nation states on Sir Roy Strong, who might sometimes esque lions and leopards chasing gazelles” the planet. appear slightly ridiculous were he not so which “impart a bit of humour into your It calls itself the Commonwealth “family” deeply learned in things Elizabethan. The night-time attire”? The price is £135. So, and while there are now member states, such biographer of Keynes, Richard warming to the online nightshirt market, I as Mozambique and Rwanda, which have no Davenport-Hines is at the party too, and tried a traditional flannel design from direct historic connection to Britain’s imperial who doesn’t he know about? His 170 lives Peter Christian: two for £50. But then I past, there is much which binds it, and it still in the Dictionary of National washed them. They shrank from tent-like has the potential to be an effective tool of soft Biography include Lord Lucan, Peter to tubular. power in the modern world. If the decisions Rachman and Lady Caroline Blackwood Is it like searching for taken this coming week fail to show that such (“On her deathbed Anna Haycraft blotting-paper, beeswax a thing might be possible, it is hard to see brought some holy water from Lourdes candles or stove- anything preventing the Commonwealth from which was accidentally splashed on her blacking? Am I on a continuing its slide into obscurity. bed-sheets. ‘I might have caught my fool’s errand? death,’ Blackwood muttered.”) Julia Langdon is The Tablet’s lobby Lady Antonia Fraser writes history Christopher Howse is an assistant editor correspondent. through characters. It’s her interest in of The Daily Telegraph.

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features / The tablet Interview

PHOTO: CNS/REUTERS, TONY GENTILE that being “pro-life” means more than merely re-stating the Church’s opposition to abortion ARCHBISHOP VINCENZO PAGLIA and contraception. When we meet at the institute, which is housed in the Lateran University, Romero is top of the agenda. Paglia is buoyed by the news that the martyred former Archbishop of San Salvador is finally going to be declared a saint. As I sit down, he plucks at the pectoral cross he is wearing; it was once Romero’s, he tells me. The confirmation of the canonisation is a vindication for Paglia, who for years has led the cause in spite of opposition in some powerful quarters in the Vatican. Doubts were raised about whether the archbishop was killed out “of hatred for the faith”, the necessary requirement for someone to be declared a martyr; it was suggested he was targeted only because of his outspoken protests against the authoritarian regime in . “The opposition was purely political, and about ecclesiastical politics,” Paglia explains. “There were the of the country; there were the cardinals of the Roman – many personalities against Romero’s stance in the defence of his people. The opposers believed that Romero was an exponent of a left-wing church, of a [type of] liberation theology – something totally false. However, I can under- stand them in so far as the fact that Romero had also been used by a certain political left- wing as a sort of flag.”

BUT, PAGLIA EXPLAINS, “God writes straight with crooked lines” and the “incredible” and “illogical” opposition melted away with the first Latin American pope, who unblocked the cause soon after his election. He also points out that during his 1983 visit to El Salvador John Paul II made a point of visiting Romero’s Life force tomb, stressing that “Romero is ours”. Paglia argues that Romero is a “martyr for the Second Vatican Council”, who paid the One of Francis’ most energetic allies in the Vatican ultimate price for living out the Gospel in service to the poorest in society. The commu- tells Christopher Lamb about his hopes of widening nity of Sant’Egidio has regarded Romero as the debate on family matters within the Church a saint for several years. His missal is included in their memorial to the martyrs of the 20th and 21st centuries in the church of San’ Bartolomeo on Rome’s Tiber Island. INCENZO PAGLIA is a busy man. Sant’Egidio 50 years ago. One of the most “I always kept my conviction that Romero Along with juggling two big Vatican dynamic of the new movements in the Church, was killed out of a hatred of a Church that jobs, he is the for the Sant’Egidio serves some of the most forgotten the Second Vatican Council envisioned,” he cause of the canonisation of Oscar groups on the edges of society, and has played explains. “A Church that gives itself com- RomeroV (as well, incidentally, as the cause a key peacebuilding role in several conflict pletely to help all men and women, starting for the of the Cuban priest, Félix areas. It strives to apply the Gospel to everyday with the poor. This is what he was a witness Varela). As we sit in his office, I realise that situations in a way that is almost a perfect to.” And, in keeping with the inclusive and the sound of church bells is not coming from embodiment of the message of Pope Francis. ecumenical spirit that infused the council, the nearby Basilica of St John Lateran; it is It was Benedict XVI who appointed Paglia he adds that Romero will be a saint for all the ringtone of his smartphone. There is a to his first major Vatican post, in 2012, as Christians and for a globalised world; a fig- constant bustle of people putting their heads president of the Pontifical Council for the ure who expresses what it means to have round the door, hoping to catch him. The Family, which was merged into the new laity, faith today. diminutive, Tigger-like archbishop revels in family and life dicastery under the reforms The archbishop expects the Pope to canon- the mild chaos of juggling these balls; he’s of Pope Francis. In August 2016 Francis ise Romero, along with Pope Paul VI, in energetic and friendly, but, underneath, there beefed up Paglia’s position, appointing him October, during the synod of bishops. He is steely determination. both president of the Pontifical Academy for regards both figures – Romero as prophet Archbishop Paglia, who turns 73 next Life and chancellor of the new John Paul II and Paul VI as reformer – as guiding lights Saturday, was born in Frosinone, a town 50 Pontifical Theological Institute for Marriage for the contemporary Church. He reminds miles south east of Rome. He was ordained and Family Sciences. Its remit is to help me that Romero met Paul VI in Rome soon a priest of the and, as a stu- implement Francis’ family life document, after the murder in 1977 of his friend, the dent, was a co-founder of the community of Amoris Laetitia, and to remind the world Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande, who is now also

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on the way to sainthood. The murder had to the Academy of Life, which he has already While the institute carries the Polish Pope’s been the decisive moment for Romero, turning revamped with the introduction of new mem- name, it is focussed on implementing Amoris him from a cautious and hesitant leader into bers, including non-Catholics. As a result he Laetitia. Critics say this breaks with tradition a courageous and radical critic of the brutal has faced criticism, particularly from those by opening a pathway for some divorced and Salvadorean government. who want the academy to be narrowly remarried Catholics to receive Communion. “In the meeting they had, Romero showed focussed on abortion and contraception, and “I think that Amoris Laetitia has to be read Paul VI pictures of the priest’s killing,” Paglia to become an antagonist in the culture wars. in its totality,” Paglia says. “To merely focus explains. “Paul VI saw them, he blessed them, But Paglia insists that “today, we know that on a footnote means that you haven’t under- and told Romero, ‘You are the archbishop, if we want to be really pro-life we have to be stood anything.” you are responsible for your people. Guide completely pro-life: pro entire life.” It was them until the end.’ And, I know through wit- right, he says, that in its early years the acad- PAGLIA ARGUES that it was John Paul II nesses and close collaborators of Romero, emy’s focus was on abortion. But now, he goes who took the initial step towards bringing that these words gave him an incomparable on, “Our theme is not the search of the enemy, divorced and remarried Catholics in from strength and energy.” it’s the opposite. Our aim is finding allies to the cold. And when it comes to them receiv- then think together about new horizons that ing Communion it might not be a straight PAUL VI is remembered for shepherding the make humanity as a whole truly human.” “No”, but neither is it a “Yes” in all circum- Second Vatican Council through to comple- Our interview took place just before Francis stances. Speaking of Catholic couples who tion, for overdue reforms to the Curia, and issued Gaudete et Exsultate, his apostolic find themselves in difficult circumstances, for his commitment to collegial governance exhortation on holiness, in which he is pas- he says: “Do we want them to always stay of the Church through the synod of bishops. sionate in his defence of the unborn while in the basement or the attic? We have to As his words to Romero show, he urged local urging Catholics not to forget that the lives work on this. But the true revolution, the bishops to be leaders of their flocks; Basil of migrants and the poor are “equally sacred”. real force of Amoris Laetitia, is the call for Hume recalled how vital Pope Paul’s personal The point could equally well have been made the Church to be itself a family. To assume words of encouragement had been when he by the archbishop. a new ecclesial form: an ecclesia familia dei was feeling anxious about taking up the reins We are almost at the end of our interview, [a Church of the Family], not a functional as Archbishop of Westminster. and I haven’t yet asked him about his role as and institutional Church.” But Paul VI’s legacy also includes Humanae chancellor of the John Paul II Institute on Vincenzo Paglia is a man primarily moti- Vitae, which reaffirmed the Church’s ban on Marriage and Family. As with the academy, vated by his heart, while his head helps him artificial contraception; his canonisation will Paglia is trying to broaden the vision of the navigate the chicaneries of curial bureaucracy. take place almost exactly 50 years since it was institute, to move it away from just re-stating It’s hard not to be reminded of the way Pope released. Paglia believes it is now time for the Church doctrine and to ensure that the Gospel, Francis operates. And it is not surprising that document to be “re-read” in the context of as he puts it, can “incarnate itself in the pas- this energetic archbishop has become one of contemporary issues such as surrogacy, genetic toral lives of families”. Francis’ key allies in the . modification and the ability of scientists to create new life in laboratories. Paul VI’s encyclical insisted on the dual role of sex as both bringing a couple closer together – its “unitive” aspect – and making it open to new life, the procreative. “[He] intuited, in a clear way, that to divide sexuality from generating [new life] would lead to a serious problem. Because in this division, conjugal love would become closed in on itself. It risked losing its responsibly of generating [life],” Paglia explains. Yet Paglia wants to move the debate about Humanae Vitae away from a narrow dis- cussion about whether or not the use of contraception might be morally permissable for married couples planning a family. “We have to widen the horizon,” he says. “I believe that Paul VI identified a way. Of course, he spoke about contraception, but I believe that today this has become sec- ondary. There are larger horizons that we have to strive towards.”

SENIOR CARDINALS and both Benedict XVI and Francis have said there are circumstances in which the use of contraceptives is morally licit – namely, when they are used to prevent the spread of disease. Paglia is concerned to find a new “alliance” or “union” between men and women “if we want to avoid surrogacy, the creation of life in laboratories, or to genet- ically modify life”. A new understanding of the union between man and woman, he argues, will help bring a deeper understanding of human relations, tackle inequality and bring a “humanisation” of technology. This ambitious vision is what he is bringing

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FROM THE ARCHIVE

50 years ago 100 years ago THE TABLET • 13 APRIL 1968 THE TABLET • 13 APRIL 1918

he hope must be that this who had given himself wholly mid the many small hamlets of Ulster, from Tsenseless act of hatred may to the service of his people, has Adisappointments many of which three and four do what reason itself has failed so touched the hearts of associated with the present sons are gone … to France to to do. [Martin Luther King] ordinary Americans, suddenly position in Ireland, it is fight for a great Catholic had never been afraid of death. made to realise the cost of pleasant to be able to draw country because there was a Only the other day he had dedication to the cause of attention to the new note of common bond of freedom spoken of the “promised land” justice. The grief of those kindliness which has … crept between them. We said to and that he perhaps would not gathered in memorial services into Sir Edward Carson’s them, ‘Recollect you are going be there to share in the joy of at civic centres and in public references to his to a Catholic country, and take entering in. And his death has churches throughout the Catholic countrymen… He care of every word you say to stirred the American land could be dissipated in used words which let us hope our Allies.’ What did they do? conscience in a way that merely lamenting the that even the Orangemen are The first Sunday … they nothing else could have done. meaninglessness of such a not always as black as they are attended Catholic worship in a Only another assassination, death. But, too, it could be a painted: “… They have left . And these are and that too of a young man new beginning. behind them sad homes in the the bigoted Orangemen.”

PUZZLES

PRIZE CROSSWORD 1 1 2 3 4 4 5 6 7 12 Arch-holder confuses the eye with twisted knots (8) No. 603 | Alanus 7 8 15 Biblical hair-cutter fell ill with bad head (7) 16 Imitate mendicant holding bird with limb disorder (3-3) 8 9 ` Across 17 Slang name heard for St Augustine’s mother (6) 1 I’m back with Mother and we are where the risen Christ revealed 18 Have life to the very ends of company (4) Himself (6) 10 11 20 Inviting Leviticus scholar to source of warmth (5)

5 Pope’s favourite sporting cats? (5) 12 13 22 Spot a Saint patron to domestic servants (4) 8 Evidently he’s about first Middle-East capital (5) 9 Circuit return with army redeployed in biblical city (7) 13 14 15 16 10 Platform said to be in need of reconstruction (4) 16 17 17 18

11 Me being free of speech defect can present architectural 19 20 21 triangle (8) 22 13 Manipulate the woman going in opposite directions (5) 14 Flat key closing work for revised duet by Chopin perhaps (5) 23 24 19 Sin left out of seasonal confession? (8) 25

21 From one to tackle Expressionism Paul revealed (4) 25 26 Please send your answers to: 23 Spilt oil over rug I made for Redemptorists’ founder (7) Crossword Competition 14 April 24 One to kill Queen of the Hebrides (5) Down The Tablet, 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 0GY. 25 Delight of children about Brideshead church land (5) 2 See 8 Down Please include your full name, telephone number and email address, 26 Father your traditional address follows a lot of indifference (6) 3 Spots insomniac nervously exposed (4) and a mailing address. Three books – on Jesus, Christian Art and 4 One given to drink gets life-giving food at last (6) Catholicism – from the OUP’s Very Short Introduction series 5 Fortune-tellers with items for pilgrims? (8) will go to the sender of the first correct entry drawn at random 6 Perhaps dismayed at heart to simply exist (5) on Friday 27 April. Win three bo ooks on 7 Turned back as holding some of ancient Greek city (6) l The answers to this week’s puzzles and the crossword winner’s Jesus, Christi an Art 8 & 2 Down: Radio with me twice coming over and that is initially name will appear in the 5 May issue. helpful to recall (4-7) Solution to the 24 March crossword No. 600 and Catholi icism Across: 1 Zigzag; 5 Papua; 8 Ephod; 9 Agrippa; 10 Alma; 11 Calcutta; 13 Freud; 14 Henge; 19 Longinus; 21 Jehu; 23 Martial; 24 Odour; 25 Imams; 26 Dactyl. Down: 2 Ithamar; 3 Zeds; 4 Graham; 5 Pericles; SUDOKU | Tough 6 Pipit; 7 Ararat; 8 Elam; 12 Turibius; 15 Gregory; 16 Alumni; 17 Euclid; 18 Ruhr; 20 Norma; 22 Zoic. Winner: Fr John Thackray, Ipswich, Suffolk.

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

www.oup.ccom Solution to the 24 March 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.

God’s problem TOPIC OF THE WEEK l While Fr Gerald O’Collins is to be commended for reminding your readers that No anti-Semitism in this Labour Party Tertullian’s joy in beholding the torment of the damned is not a AS AN ACTIVE Catholic, local councillor the energy appears to be largely fuelled by consummation devoutly to be and political education officer for our local hatred – a phenomenon equally visible on wished (Letters, 7 April), Labour Party, I have some difficulty in the extreme right of politics. Christians ought to consider recognising the trends described in Dawn Clearly anti-Semitism is unacceptable, that the problem of hell is not a Foster’s analysis of anti-Semitism within but is it not the politics of hatred which human problem. the Labour Party (‘Labour’s credibility really needs to be outlawed? It is God’s problem. While problem’, 7 April). Here in our branch PAUL KING theologians disagree on many attendance has increased from five to 25 OXFORD things, that God is love is not a members at meetings in the past year. divisive issue. That God’s love With members representing a range of THE TIMING of the attack on Jeremy endures for ever has a Bible full faiths as well as none, we are much more Corbyn relating to anti-Semitism in the of evidence and a world full of focused on addressing the effects of the drive Labour party is curious. It comes hot on the witnesses. for austerity which is slowly eroding the heels of Czech spy allegations and then We squabble over free will. social fabric of this country. Whatever our criticism of Corbyn for acting like a grown- Surely if we are free, we are views or allegiances, we strive to discuss the up politician and asking for evidence in free to go to hell? But God common good in an atmosphere of tolerance relation to the alleged Russian attacks in does not have free will. God’s and mutual respect, far distant from the Salisbury. These events come in the run-up will is determined by God’s cabals and plots described in the media. to local elections on 3 May, when Labour is nature. If there is any truth in BEN BANO expected to do well and the Tories badly. the old adage actio sequitur DEAL, KENT Could these events be connected? esse (“What I am determines In the case of the anti-Semitism claim what I do”), then God can only IN HER ARTICLE on anti-Semitism in the there is a problem in the Labour Party. “do” love. Pope Francis has Labour Party, Dawn Foster cites as one Corbyn acknowledges this. The matter been trying this five years to element “the new intake [of] far-left needs to be dealt with better than it has instil that commonplace into activists whose… attitudes tip into racial been thus far. But why is this important dense heads. stereotyping and worse”. While Labour issue being misused in a character Since all are sinners, all are moderates have been principally motivated assassination attempt on Corbyn? saved. When St Paul wrote by a positive concern for social justice PAUL DONOVAN that sentence (Romans 11:32), rather than class war, at the extreme end LONDON E11 moved by his audacity and the wonder of it, he broke into song: Oh, the depth of the riches, and wisdom, and knowledge of God! issue could be solved by Britain through the Ireland/Northern surely the time has come for How unsearchable are his remaining in the Customs Ireland border. you to accept with grace the judgments, how inscrutable his Union (CU) and the Single “Soft” Brexit is a trap. The real decision and make it work. If ways! Market (SM). This is not so; issue is: why leave at all? you continue to act like the For who has known the mind of there would remain at least STEPHEN MCCARTHY Japanese soldier who years God? three situations that would SCHRASSIG, LUXEMBOURG after still thought that he was at If God is love, if God’s love is require border controls. war, you will become an object steadfast, and endures for ever, First, there is a huge two-way l Your leading article ignores of derision. then we are constrained to hold flow of agricultural products most of the essential elements GORDON WRATTEN to the imagination of Francis across the border. With Britain of the decision of over 17 million EAST MOLESEY, SURREY Thompson and see the Hound out of the Common voters to leave the EU. of Heaven in pursuit of every Agricultural Policy these flows I and many others wished to Catholics in top jobs errant soul until all are brought would have to be checked. regain our stolen constitutional safely home. Second, goods currently move heritage, built up over l Christopher Lamb’s article on 1REV. PROF.2 JOSEPH O’HANLON smoothly across internal EU centuries. We wished to regain Cardinal Keith O’Brien (‘The NOTTINGHAM borders not only because of the control over our borders, cardinal who fell from grace’, 24 CU and the SM, but also money, laws and fishing March) states that his father left Soft Brexit won’t work because there is an intra-EU grounds. When we leave we will Northern Ireland because he agreement on how VAT should eventually join over 160 nations “wanted a job in the civil service l Congratulations on pointing be charged across national of the world who trade into the and this was impossible in his out that it will be the poor who boundaries. If Britain is out of EU without being in either the home country, because he was will suffer most under Brexit, as this agreement then VAT Single Market or Customs Catholic”. well as pointing to the centrality documents would need to be Union or being subject to a Lord Trimble’s statement in of the Irish border issue (‘Why checked. Third, if the Common stifling regulatory regime. his Nobel Peace Prize leave at all?’, 24 March). Travel Area is to be maintained I realise that the Catholic acceptance speech that However, you subscribe to the then EU citizens could enter Church doesn’t have a Northern Ireland had once common opinion that the latter the UK without restriction democratic background, but CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

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LETTERS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 eyes, regarded sex as tough egg), ‘He’s the Poet article (‘In and out of been a cold house for Catholics unmentionable and inherently Laureate of our country and a communion’, 7 April) on the expresses a certain truth; but at bad, except perhaps within MUCH better poet than I am.’ controversy arising from no point in Northern Ireland marriage, and organised our Alistair fixed his eyes on Ted’s Amoris Laetitia with that much under the rule of its first series society on the unshakable shoes and allowed his gaze to used and misused sentence of unionist administrations assumption that women were travel up the six-feet something from J.H. Newman – “and to be (1921 to 1972 ) was the second-class human beings. On of Ted’s considerable frame. perfect is to have changed temperature ever turned down those foundations were built And said in a growly voice: ‘No often” – frequently quoted to to zero. Catholics were some very shaky structures that he isn’t.’ Collapse of poets.” bring that great and holy underrepresented in public life are still crumbling around us. PIERS PLOWRIGHT churchman on side to justify but it is demonstrably untrue Lustful looks and sexy films LONDON NW3 innovation and revolt. that Catholics could not hold may be bad, but the abuse, Elsewhere in his Essay on the such positions. discrimination and exploitation Benefactor named Development of Christian A few examples must suffice. laid bare by #MeToo is a Doctrine he writes: “A religion Two Catholics, A.N. Bonaparte hundred times worse. l I found Catherine Pepinster’s may have many changes, but Wyse and Patrick Shea, were If justice for women must account of the closure of the when we speak of its permanent secretaries. Sir await metaphysical consensus church at Conwy (‘Stations development, we consider it to be Denis Henry was Northern we’ll be waiting a while. under threat of closure’, 24 fulfilling not belying its destiny”. Ireland’s first lord chief justice. BOB TURNER March) extraordinarily sad. It is It should also be remembered In the RUC John M. Regan was NEWCASTLE UPON TYNE not only a devastating blow to that this work was written when the county inspector in Tyrone parishioners but also to all the Newman was still an Anglican, and later Down; Jamie Poetic justice people of Conwy, for whom it is prior to his reception into the Flanagan (later a chief a part of their heritage. But I Church, and did not receive constable during the worst l What a joy to read Cathy confess also to a personal Nihil Obstat or Imprimatur for years of the Troubles) was the Galvin’s article on Charles interest in the story. reasons given in the postscript youngest district inspector in Causley (‘Crossed Lines’, 31 The Italian artist Rinvolucri to the advertisement to the first the force during World War II. March). One of my happiest and Captain Goring rightly (1845) edition. C.D.C. ARMSTRONG memories is of interviewing receive honourable mention in PETER GERRARD BELFAST him in Launceston around this article, but the person NENAGH, CO. TIPPERARY, IRELAND 1974. We had tea in a big responsible for the building of Shaky virtues kitchen full of potted plants. the church is simply referred to Too much reverence? More than 20 years later he as a “woman benefactor from l Carmody Grey (7 April) wrote me a lovely letter: Liverpool”. Her name was, in l In your report on the pre- thinks that the #MeToo “It’s a strenuous business fact, Emma Houlgrave, and she synod on youth (News from campaign is an example of “a being 80. The local Civic gave most of her fortune to the Britain and Ireland, 7 April), a moral sensibility gone very Society put on a tea party for building of this church. She was short extract from the pre- badly awry”, and seems to yearn me, and the Cornish flag was my grandmother’s aunt. synod’s agreed document rang for a golden age when virtue flown for the day from the HILARY HORN an alarm bell: “It refers to the was based on firm metaphysical Castle Keep. I was very anxious TURVEY, BEDFORDSHIRE lure of ‘reverential traditional foundations. But were the Good that the three very nice children liturgies’.” If liturgy, traditional Old Days quite as virtuous, and next door should meet Ted and Newman’s change or contemporary, is not were those foundations quite as Carol Hughes, who very kindly reverential, what is it? firm as they seemed? Back in turned up. ‘This is Ted Hughes,’ l It is regrettable that Louis ANTHONY BROPHY the day we kept custody of our I said to the youngest (5 and a Roy OP concludes his excellent WATERFORD, IRELAND

THE LIVING SPIRIT AND LITURGICAL CALENDAR

You were created to praise God God yields the fruit of and the sky and ✦ CALENDAR ✦ eternally. Aren’t the incalculable righteousness in this the sea: for the sun’s benefits of your Creator enough to life, and of happiness in daily benediction and Sunday 15 April: lead you to continual thanksgiving the next. for the bright Third Sunday of Easter (Year B) Monday 16 April: in return, and to seek to repay the If prosperity charms you splendour of the moon Easter feria debt of his endless love? into blessing God, but and stars, and for the Tuesday 17 April: Remember that out of nothing – adversity keeps you from birds’ joyful singing: for health Easter feria rather, out of clay – you were blessing him, then you aren’t and strength: for our friends Wednesday 18 April: raised by his bounty to so high a praising God with your whole and the friends of this house Easter feria Thursday 19 April: whom we remember before You: dignity from the very beginning of heart. You may be praising him, St Alphege, and Martyr your existence. but you aren’t loving him, for our prayer and communion Friday 20 April: Look at the purpose of your because in your praise you’re together and for Your presence in Easter feria creation! Look at the task set actually seeking some good other our midst. Be with us still, O Lord. Saturday 21 April: before you as God’s servant! You than God himself. Reveal to us Your love and mercy Easter feria or St Anselm, were created for the glory of ST ANSELM in the days to come, and bring us Bishop and Doctor Sunday 22 April: your Creator. Why? So that, FROM A YEAR WITH THE SAINTS, EDITED BY all together at last in Your Fourth Sunday of Easter diligent in his praises, you might PAUL THIGPEN (SAINT BENEDICT PRESS, 2013) heavenly kingdom, for Jesus always move closer to him by the Christ’s sake, Amen. For the Extraordinary Form calendar merit of righteousness in this life, We thank You, O heavenly Father, EVELYN UNDERHILL go to www.lms.org.uk and might live happily in the for all the blessings You have FROM EVELYN UNDERHILL’S PRAYER BOOK, world to come. For the praise of given: for the glory of the earth ED. ROBYN WRIGLEY-CARR (SPCK, 2018)

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ARTS • COMING SOON • THE SILVER CAESARS: A RENAISSANCE MYSTERY, Waddesdon Manor (opens 18 April) • THE YOUNG KARL MARX, directed by Raoul Peck (in cinemas 4 May) HALF BREED, Bristol Old Vic (26–27 April) • LONDON FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHURCH MUSIC, Loss and Lamentation, St Pancras Church (19 May)

PHOTO: BRYAN BEDDER/GETTY IMAGES FOR CONCORDIA SUMMIT

empathetic: Papal knight John Studzinski believes in sharing his God-given talents

For the love of humanity Banker John ‘Studs’ Studzinski’s philanthropy is renowned in the fight against homelessness and modern slavery, as well as in the promotion of the arts. But he also enjoys the finer things life can offer

JOANNA MOORHEAD

hen Jesus said it was easier his own account, is that he did things in cufflinks. He likes jewellery, he says, including for a camel to go through the reverse: raised a Catholic in a Polish family my earrings (£3.99 from Debenhams, and eye of a needle than for a rich in Massachusetts in the 1960s – his father indeed I am extremely fond of them and con- man to enter the kingdom of was an accountant – the earliest value he was sider them one of my finest purchases). Heaven,W he may not have had a man like John given was the urge to share. “My mother used Beforehand I’d worried I’d find him austere Studzinski at the front of his mind. That, at to say my grandfather was so generous he’d and remote, but in person he’s warm and not any rate, must be Studzinski’s hope; and unlike give you the shirt off his back. I heard that only interesting, but interested: and in fact most of the ultra-wealthy, “Studs”, as he is when I was about four years old, and it left the number one characteristic that’s made known, is surely in with a fighting chance of a strong imprint.” He was helping in a soup him such a phenomenal success in the finan- making it through the pearly gates. Indeed, kitchen before he was 10, and in his teens he cial world, he says, is empathy. “If you’re after an hour with him over tea, I’m inclined set up a toll-free helpline for teenage victims empathetic, you’ll be successful in business.” to believe he sees his wealth less as a bar to of sexually transmitted diseases. “I’ve always Trust is fundamental, he says: “I’ve always holiness, and more as something approaching been a philanthropist. I was raised with the focused on getting to know people for the a vocation. The odd thing is: he’s convincing. view that to whom much has been given, long haul, not just for the next deal.” The newest evidence for that is an event much is expected. And when I say that I’m These days he’s as busy sharing his wealth taking place next Sunday evening, when James not talking about money, I’m talking about with others as he is making more of it through MacMillan’s Stabat Mater will be live- the three Ts: time, talent and treasures. Those his private equity firm, Blackstone. His phi- streamed from the Sistine Chapel – the first were what I was given in my childhood.” lanthropy is legendary: he helped found the time the Vatican has been involved in an event Today he’s one of the world’s wealthiest Passage day centre, he works with homeless- of this kind, and all thanks to Studzinski’s bankers and divides his time between London ness charity Emmaus UK, he’s a member of arts-supporting Genesis Foundation. and , with other homes in upstate the Vatican’s Santa Marta group to combat Most philanthropists (think Bill Gates, and . As befits an arts afi- human trafficking, and he’s co-founder of Warren Buffett, Mark Zuckerberg) focused cionado, style matters to him: at our meeting Arise, his own foundation to stop modern on getting rich first, and giving their money he’s wearing a soft grey suit shot through with slavery. “What you have to remember,” he says, away second. What makes Studs different, by stripes of baby blue, and beautiful jewelled CONTINUED ON page 18

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ARTS

DIGITAL artemisia gentileschi in 60 seconds Tim Marlow, artistic director of the Royal Academy, introduces one ARTS of the very few women who carved out a career in the seventeenth-century art world www.tinyurl.com/tablet-arts

PHOTO: PA, LEWIS WHYLD CONTINUED FROM page 17 radio “is that slavery is worse today than it was in the time before Wilberforce.” He believes he’s awe-inspiring radio in a good position to help bridge the divides An unrelenting search for closure between the different sorts of organisations needed to combat trafficking – governments, D.J. TAYLOR businesses, and NGOs. “I’m in a position to help develop a collaborative solution,” he says. meeting the man i Killed He’s also prolific in his support of arts organ- BBC RADIO 4 isations. Genesis, which was set up in 2001, helps and supports artists in the fields of n neW year’s Eve in 2015 music, theatre and the visual arts, and as well Jonathan Izard was staying in a as being a staunch patron of James north Norfolk holiday cottage. MacMillan, he’s supported the classical ensem- Driving back along the pitch-dark ble The Sixteen. Indeed, in a life peppered A148,o he was suddenly confronted with the with a huge range of interests and ambitions, motorist’s worst nightmare – a face looming the creation of sacred music seems to occupy up from nowhere into his windscreen. In the a particularly special place. “I’m very interested honoured: Studzinski receiving his CBE split second that followed, car and pedestrian in it, because I don’t think enough people collided head on. Rawson, a disabled appreciate its importance,” he says. He enjoys pect this is a rather typical Studs tale) “cardinal 74-year-old who had stepped out into the the music at his own parish, the London to cardinal … I’d been working with the home- road on his crutches, died a few days later Oratory in Knightsbridge, and was much less in New York, where I’d been living, and in hospital. cheered by the news of record attendances the cardinal there, Cardinal O’Connor, got in Fifteen months later an audibly distressed on Easter Sunday. “I think there’s a strong touch with Cardinal Hume to say, ‘He’s been Izard could be found on the doorstep of the drive in people towards God; people today very effective in New York, and now he’s coming sheltered housing complex in Holt where are looking for nourishment,” he says. to London and I think he could help you.’” Rawson had spent the last year of his life. His Hume asked him over, the two became friends, aim: to learn something about the man whose he certainly has a strong drive towards and would meet on Thursdays for tea at 4 p.m. life he had accidentally ended. Rawson, fondly God: his life sounds almost monk-like, It was the early 1980s when Studzinski recalled by his friends and the people who although he chides me he doesn’t want to be moved to London, and he was already on a looked after him, was revealed as a polyglot portrayed as a religious eccentric, and to be stellar path with Morgan Stanley, which he’d Cambridge graduate who had spent his life fair his devotion to his faith is tempered by joined in New York after finishing an MBA teaching languages and returned to Norfolk a healthy love of the good life: in 2016, for at the University of Chicago. So what drew to look after his ailing mother. his sixtieth birthday, he hosted a three-day him into banking, other than the overwhelm- If Marie, the manager of the housing com- Venetian extravaganza at which A-list party- ing desire to make lots of money that he could plex, offered photographs and consolation, goers dressed up as gypsies and Hollywood later share with others? It was, he says, then no-nonsense fellow resident Angela stars, and were entertained “serendipitous … I’d applied weighed in with a brisk “You’ll never get over by opera singer Joyce to medical school, and then I that”. All the same, having established a picture DiDonato, who he’d flown in had a job in consulting to help of Rawson in his mind, Izard was able to leave specially for the event. But health-care systems, and I Holt with the conviction that “this is not a there’s a private chapel in his went to a reception where death. This is a life.” The rest of Meeting The home in Chelsea, where he Morgan Stanley was recruit- Man I Killed (10 April) covered his efforts to prays daily; when he’s travel- ing. I realised these were achieve if not closure (acknowledged to be ling he attends early morning i was raised interesting people doing inter- impossible) but some kind of equilibrium. weekday Mass, and regularly with the view esting things, and I knew To this end, sit-downs with Rawson’s reads the Old as well as the that to whom straight away I wanted to join friends were followed by interviews with New Testament. them … it was a gut instinct.” other instruments of accidental road-death. His mother, he says, was much has Studs seems to operate a The Green Party’s co-leader Jonathan Bartley extremely devout. “She prayed been given, great deal on gut instinct, had run over a pedestrian while still in his several times a day; we went and clearly rather success- teens. Maryann Gray had seen her life irrev- to Mass not just on Sundays much is expected fully. He baulks at the ocably changed 40 years ago in rural Ohio but on other days of the week as well. Church, suggestion that he’s a Renaissance man, but when an eight-year-old boy darted out in and faith, and service to others were funda- says, tellingly, that he’s “fascinated by char- front of her car. mental to my childhood; being Catholic was acters in history that have multiple layers Their response to this trauma was to search part of the fabric of who we were.” Unusually, … I’m interested in the impact of one on the for penance: Bartley by pursuing missionary there was no teenage rebellion; instead, he other”. He’d like to think of himself as a man work; Gray by resolving that her experience says, in adolescence he looked around at other with many layers; and he’d like, I think, to disqualified her from having children herself. faiths to see what they had to offer, before see his faith as the bolt of lightning that pen- However much you tried to persuade yourself deciding that they could complement rather etrates all those layers, changing and uniting that the bad things that happened to good than replace Catholicism (cf. the Benedictine them at the same time. people were not their fault it was still “a daily yogi, Griffiths, whose work he later read, battle”, she insisted. Bartley, too, had “no and loved). Stabat Mater from the Sistine Chapel will be answers” to the questions Izard put to him. By the time he was reading Griffiths, streamed live at 5 p.m. BST on Sunday 22 This was an awful programme in the original Studzinski had got to know one of the great April and be available for a month at sense of the word, that is “awe-inspiring”; one influences on his life, Cardinal Basil Hume. www.classicfm.com. More details of the Genesis of the most extraordinary pieces of radio this How did they meet? It was, he says (and I sus- Foundation at www.genesisfoundation.org.uk listener has heard in years.

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ARTS

PHOTO: PAMELA RAITH television to the ruins of the city of Tiberius; probably the home of Joanna, mentioned in St Luke The women the as wife of Chuza, steward of Herod Antipas. gospels forgot Luke tells us that with other women, she Resurrecting the role of some of “provided for Him from their substance”. Professor Helen wondered if the “Jesus Christ’s closest followers movement could have progressed as it did” if wealthy Joanna, and women like her, LUCY LETHBRIDGE hadn’t been bankrolling it. Then it was scrabbling down into the Jesus’ Female disciples: the new evidence extraordinary Beit Lehi, the desert cave of CHANNEL 4 Salome (mother of James and John). It was Salome’s tomb but there is also a very early nce upon a time, all that was Christian chapel where in ancient Greek required of distinguished scholars graffiti we learn that Salome was viewed as fronting television documentaries a “healer”. was that they look gravely over Professor Joan has a theory that the earliest theiro spectacles and whisper at the viewer disciples were sent out in pairs, man and from the world’s great libraries. No longer: woman, making it easier to overcome cultural nowadays they must stride athletically through obstacles to anointing and baptising women. large landscapes and busy airports, dispensing Finally, they went to Naples where in the cat- knowledge without getting out of breath. acombs there is a fresco from the late fifth to There was quite a lot of this in the com- early sixth century showing a woman, Cerula, pletely fascinating Jesus’ Female Disciples (8 flanked by open gospels, each surrounded by April) in which the presenters – matily referred flames – symbolic of the authority of a bishop. to in the voice-over as Helen and Joan – “bib- gripping: Helen Bond and Joan Taylor in This suggests surely that women were priests lical experts”, but also known as Professors Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre – even though by this time they were increas- Helen Bond and Joan Taylor – navigated cat- ingly represented as veiled, supplicant or at acombs, crawled into caves and chatted of Magdala – but which one? Probably the edge of the main New Testament events. nonchalantly about early Christianity while Magdala Nunayya, “tower of the fishes” in Who was to blame for this gradual relega- powering through the desert in a rented car. Aramaic. Professor Joan thought it more tion? Of course, it was a man. Professors Helen The material, however, was so gripping that likely that her name was actually a nickname and Joan laid it at the door of the Emperor the callous viewer soon forgot the presenters’ of the kind given by Jesus to many of the Constantine, battling to unify a sprawling often obvious awkwardness and thrilled to male disciples (Peter, “the rock”, and James empire with a show of masculine strength. their explorations of women in the first years and John, “sons of thunder”) and she was The last frame showed them in the Capitoline of Christianity. “the tower”. Suddenly, we were asked to Museums, gazing in wry wonderment at the They started with , so imagine a wholly different image of Mary, emperor’s vast marble head, one of the remain- familiar and yet so little known about. Her not the penitent whore but a “towering” fig- ing fragments of a once vast colossus. What name suggests that she hailed from the town ure of discipleship. From there they took off a symbol for today.

PHOTO: ROBERT DAY theatre this is the first telling of an extraordinary story men, a significant number of whom he knows in its broad truth, although we may wonder will die next day. set fair for war whether a United States Air Force weather Although the public stakes are high, we How a Met man got it right for D-Day expert always took the contrary view to Stagg know the outcome, so Haig injects some pri- quite as neatly as he does here. vate tension: Stagg’s wife is in labour, and MARK LAWSON On one enjoyable level, the play is a mete- previously prone to perilous pregnancies. orological procedural, with the audience Although the writing is too subtle to spell this pressure soon hanging on details of fronts in out, we spot that Stagg, in the matter of PARK THEATRE, LONDON the Azores and upper-air pres- obstetrics, takes the very view to sures. However, the decision which he most objects in weather tories about extreme weather to revive a play first seen forecasting: that precedent is events – such as the disaster movies in 2014 seems clearly always predictive. In scenes Twister and The Perfect Storm – are a linked to the recent suc- where Stagg rages at the fail- recognised fictional subgenre. But cess of Second World ure of the weather to behave whiles Pressure, the third play by the actor- War crisis movies such as desired, Haig gives him- writer David Haig, takes the form of a gripping as Dunkirk, Darkest self quiet echoes of Prospero thriller about a storm, it is of an unusually Hour, and Churchill (in and Lear, which he plays serious kind. The disaster involved would be which Stagg was a beautifully. the possible loss of the Second World War. minor character). At a time when many the- Haig himself (pictured) plays Dr James Like those films, atres are – officially or un- Stagg (1900-1975), a Scot seconded from the Pressure depicts the terrify- officially – signing up to guar- Met Office to serve General Eisenhower as ingly lonely poker game of antees of 50-50 gender-balanced part of a secret team in Portsmouth charged power. If the characters had got it casting, it’s also worth noting that this with choosing a weather window to make wrong, this play might be in German, and a tremendous production, due to the historical the D-Day invasion as relatively safe as war comedy. Eisenhower has a fine speech, event depicted, features nine men and two can be. wrenchingly delivered by Malcolm Sinclair, women. We need to take care that the gen- This situation was heavily fictionalised in about going to a Berkshire barracks on the erally commendable goal of equality does not Giles Foden’s novel Turbulence (2009), but eve of D-Day to raise the morale of US air- prevent quality work being staged.

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BOOKS •OUR REVIEWERS• CHRISTOPHER HOWSE is an assistant editor of The Daily Telegraph • TIMOTHY CONNOR is an architectural historian RICHARD HOLLOWAY’s latest book is Waiting for the Last Bus: Reflections on Life and Death • CHRIS NANCOLLAS is the author of Exhibitionism: The Biography Teaching the faith A personal exploration of the things of God makes profitable and pleasurable reading CHRISTOPHER HOWSE PHOTO: MAZUR/CATHOLICNEWS.ORG.UK

Faith Finding a Voice CARDINAL VINCENT NICHOLS MEANING OF LIFE: (BLOOMSBURY CONTINUUM, 352 PP, £12.99) Vincent Nichols leading an Easter TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £11.70 • TEL 01420 592974 Sunday Mass

T IS NOT easy to make a picture of the unknowable, but Vincent Nichols feels Ithe attempt important enough, in this book exploring God’s presence, to devote two of its six photographs to the bare hills of the Judaean Desert. “God the Silent Desert” (a phrase he takes from Meister Eckhart) is the ultimate mystery towards which point all the symbols offered to us, including those provided by the Church. To start on the journey indicated, it makes sense, he suggests, to take a “leap in the dark” by worshipping God as transcendence. This is partly because it means that “we cannot on the Second Vatican Council by Benedict: the forerunner John the Baptist, the proto - pin down or control a transcendent God”. the mistake is to think it “a power struggle martyr Stephen and an ascetic . Here Thus we “free ourselves of a most fundamental between different trends in the Church”. too, contemplating the Child Jesus, the ox error: that of idolatry”. We get beyond “the We are reminded too that Benedict, even (and from an ear visible behind him, his external pointers to God in the material world, before his papal election, was a champion of companion ass as well) is taken to proclaim in a particular form of liturgy or music, or Christian environmental responsibility. “that the Incarnation is a redemptive act for even a particular way of devotion”. Cardinal Nichols mentions a point from the the whole universe”. This prescription sounds alarming. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (for the Since on the predella Pietro Orioli paints invisibility, ineffability, unknowability of God, compilation of which Cardinal Ratzinger had smaller scenes of the Agony in the Garden, beyond all names and forms, is apparent, so been responsible): “Christ is Lord of the the arrest of Jesus, the Crucifixion, the I at least feel. What I would like to seek is the cosmos and of history. In him human history deposition (with his Mother, “the first and fatherly presence of God, which we know of and indeed all Creation are ‘set forth’ and best of all the disciples”, sorrowing over the from Revelation given through the Incarnation. transcendently fulfilled.” body of her dead Son), and the Resurrection, Fortunately, as it turns out, Cardinal Nichols’ The point is picked up in comments on the whole masterpiece illustrates in summary starting point brings the reader to consider Pope Francis’ Laudato si’. “The Creation has a catechetical course. “the possibility that all Creation may have been groaning in travail together until now,” This must be profitable and pleasurable some ultimate meaning, that life may, after says St Paul in a phrase referred to in that reading for any well-disposed Christian. It all, be worthwhile”. Creation, as redeemed, is encyclical. It suffers the pain consequent on possesses a certain dynamic impetus, as when a theme that runs through this partly auto- human sinfulness but also groans in childbirth we are told that with his death “Jesus will biographical collection of essays and addresses. for “God’s future glorious age”. strike the rock of suffering with the rod of his It is autobiographical, not in the sense of set- Cross. Then we shall know that death is split ting out facts about the man who became THE AUTHOR’S voice comes over most open and destroyed”, bringing “the possibility Archbishop of Westminster in 2009, but by humanely in a central section that considers of the radical transformation of humanity way of reflecting his insights, so far as occa- an altarpiece of the Nativity by Pietro Orioli, and the whole created world” (once more). sions presented themselves. which is in the National Gallery, London. It In all this, the author occasionally refers to Since life marches on, the perspectives are preserves the reredos, predella and structural his own mother. It was she who could hear asymmetrical. I mean that, for example, one frame from a small chapel in the province of him cry out in “the terrors of the night” and short section considers the pontificate of Siena, made between about 1485 and 1495. come to him “restoring the life-giving Benedict XVI at the time of his startling All parts are painted with gospel scenes and normality of love”. This is the other side of resignation as Pope, the next looks at the with saints, as may be seen in a colour that initial arid emptiness of the Silent Desert. promise provided by the election of Pope photograph. God the Father presides over Vincent Nichols’ parents, he tells us, were Francis. Francis is seen as someone “given to them from the upper part of the arched panel. both teachers. (His father, rather sweetly, us as a great gift”. I can’t help feeling that if The main scene is of the Child Jesus lying typed out on an old typewriter his son’s MA more Catholics had adopted such an attitude, in the hay, with Mary kneeling in prayer. thesis on St .) “If I had not been the harm done by corrosive party spirit would Joseph, though kneeling in adoration, looks ordained a priest,” he says, “I would have been have been much diminished. Something similar up at St Nicholas proffering a ball of gold. a teacher.” As Faith Finding a Voice suggests, is picked out by the cardinal from reflections The other attendant saints in that scene are it was not either or.

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BOOKS

PHOTO: PA/EMPICS, MATT CROSSICK examines an impressive group of newly-built Multiform minarets mosques, before analysing such landmark TIMOTHY CONNOR buildings as the Regent’s Park mosque and the Ismaili Centre. Finally he discusses current mosques some of which achieve real monu- The British Mosque: An Architectural mentality besides offering a full range of social and Social History services. The ongoing, complex dialogue SHAHED SALEEM between the desire for overt statements of (HISTORIC ENGLAND, 340 PP, £60) identity, conceived by reference to the rich multiplicity of Islamic architectural traditions, TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £54 • TEL 01420 592974 and more European concerns for modern architectural expression is a principal theme of the book. HAHED SALEEM is a practising archi- Mosque-building frequently encountered tect, whose own works feature, briefly, local opposition. Saleem uses submissions Sin this scholarly, vividly illustrated and LISTED: Regent’s Park mosque, London accompanying planning applications as an incisive analysis of British mosques, an archi- incisive indication of local problems. Just as tectural form that, despite roots going back building that had been a Huguenot church, residents may have felt the convergence of a century and a half, has had a major impact Wesleyan Methodist chapel and synagogue traffic for Friday prayers and particularly the on British townscapes only very recently. before its transformation in 1976 as a mosque, erection of a minaret to be threats to their The influx of Muslim immigrants, princi- now completed by a brilliant steel reinvention known environment, so the immigrant pally after the Second World War, created a of a minaret. populations wanted to complete their building relatively sudden need for extensive religious Saleem has three interlocking histories to with a minaret as the essential manifestation buildings; there are now about 1,300 mosques explain: the settling of immigrants originating of their reasserted identity. in Britain. The majority are conversions of principally from different parts the former The book is profusely illustrated; sometimes existing buildings. The ingenious and exter- Empire within particular towns, often in the plans are reproduced on so small a scale that nally almost invisible way in which the poorest areas; the distinct Islamic traditions a magnifying glass is essential, but it is good mosque in Howard Street, Bradford, that they brought with them; and the gradual to have them at all. There is a short and expanded from one to two houses in a terrace, emergence of diverse architectural responses extremely clear glossary of Islamic terms, and then to a third, is an early and absorbing to their new environments. He begins with maps showing the distribution of Muslims example of conversion of a domestic building. the earliest British mosques, some established and mosques within Birmingham, Saleem cleverly juxtaposes this with the by European converts to Islam. After consid- Manchester and London, set against levels mosque in London’s Brick Lane, a Georgian ering different converted buildings, Saleem of deprivation. An absorbing and timely book.

THE TABLET EVENTS Peter Stanford in conversation with Sarah Dunant and Christopher Jamison OSB

Thursday 10 Mayy 55.15pm-7.45pm15pm at an exclusive venue in the City of London

Join us for an evening with Peter Stanford in conversation with Ticketing (ticket price includes a complimentary copy Christopher Jamison OSB and author Sarah Dunant, where of What We Talk About When We Talk About Faith RRP they will discuss Peter’s new book – What We Talk About When £14.99) We Talk About Faith – a collection of the best of his interviews Tablet subscriber tickets before  April: £35 (£40 thereafter) ^P[OOV\ZLOVSKUHTLZHUKSLZZMHTPSPHYÄN\YLZI\[HSSWLVWSL Standard tickets before  April: £40 (£45 thereafter) of achievement with resonant stories to tell. Bookings There will also be an opportunity to meet The Tablet’s new Call 020 8748 8484 or visit The Tablet website editor, Brendan Walsh. www.thetablet.co.uk for more information. Afterwards there will be an audience Q&A, followed by a This is a fundraising event for The Tablet Trust wine reception and book signings. Find us on

With grateful thanks to our hosts

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BOOKS

PHOTO: PA, FIONA HANSON a 100-year-old woman had just had her first mammogram, causing the audience to break into a “loud cheer”. And she describes people already in the grip of one terminal disease being subjected to screening for another. As modern medicine mounts this expensive rearguard action against ageing, it is not just the colossal waste of resources that bothers her; it is the devastation of the precious time that is left to the elderly. That is why she herself has given up on all these intrusive interven- tions, the better to enjoy what time she has left. She writes: “Not only do I reject the tor- ment of a medicalised death, but I refuse to accept a medicalised life, and my determina- CELEBRATION: tion only deepens with age. As the time that British senior citizen remains to me shrinks, each month and day Ellen Watson enjoys becomes too precious to spend in windowless her 110th birthday waiting rooms and under the cold scrutiny of machines. Being old enough to die is an achievement, not a defeat, and the freedom it brings is worth celebrating.” It is not just Californian businessmen who The intriguing thing about Barbara Go gentle are angry at death and determined to postpone Ehrenreich’s challenging book is that it is a RICHARD HOLLOWAY it indefinitely; ordinary medical practitioners new version of an old genre: the Ars moriendi seem to have been captured by the same rage. or “Art of Dying”. As more of us live to a great Rather than waiting to treat problems if or age and watch how the medical profession is Natural Causes: Life, Death and when they arise, doctors now go actively gun- poised to take control of our last days and the Illusion of Control ning for them, and mass screening is their dictate how they will be spent, we are getting BARBARA EHRENREICH weapon of choice. Screening has become a ready to rebel. We’ll be grateful for any pal- (GRANTA, 256 PP, £16.99) major element in the practice of preventive liation of unnecessary pain they can minister medicine today. Ehrenreich has doubts about to us at the end, but we don’t want them ruin- TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £15.30 • TEL 01420 592974 its efficacy as well as its ethics, but it is its ing our final scene with their fussy extension to the elderly that really concerns interventions. Death doesn’t anger us. We her. She quotes a study that shows that almost always knew it would come. We want to meet UMANS HAVE always been subject to half the men over 66 being tested for prostate it with grace. And some of us even want to powerful illusions and science has cancer are unlikely to live long enough to get take our final bow with a bit of a flourish. Husually been their greatest debunker. the disease anyway. She gives an account of Dying, after all, will be our last moment on The fascinating thing about this powerfully a medical meeting where it was reported that the stage. argued book is that it shows how it is science that has generated one of the greatest illusions of our day: that death will soon be under our control. A trained scientist with a PhD in Close of play cricket establishment, while state-educated cellular immunology, Barbara Ehrenreich Arlott was firmly on the side of the players. wants to banish that illusion – because it is CHRIS NANCOLLAS Although never friends – they were too dis- making us miserable – and replace it with a similar for that – they shared two joyful realism about the human condition that characteristics. The first was a deep and sees death not as an enemy to be fought but Arlott, Swanton and almost mystical love of cricket, especially the as a friend to be accepted with wit and grace. The Soul of English Cricket “soul” of the game, that spirit of intense yet But not everyone is as relaxed about death STEPHEN FAY AND DAVID KYNASTON respectful competition which prevailed as she is. She quotes a Silicon Valley billionaire (BLOOMSBURY, 400 PP, £20) between the wars. The second was their ability as saying, “Death makes me very angry” – to describe the game beautifully – Swanton’s which is why he is spending hundreds of TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £18 • TEL 01420 592974 Olympian authority contrasting with Arlott’s millions on anti-ageing research. He is hoping gift for language and eye for the telling detail. to achieve what another anti-death entrepre- They are both quoted liberally in the book, neur calls “longevity escape velocity” and keep RICKET, for most of its existence, has reminding us, sometimes painfully, of what permanently ahead of the Grim Reaper. been inextricably bound to the English we have lost. Cclass system. As recently as the 1960s, Their careers spanned a time of huge teams consisted of “gentlemen” (well-bred change in the professional game. Amateurs amateurs) and “players” (working-class were abolished, one-day cricket was intro- THE TABLET BOOKSHOP professionals). This division was reflected in duced, and the Australian Kerry Packer Postage and Packing for books up to 1kg* the legendary Test Match Special launched his assault on the cricket establish- UK £.5 (4 books or more: add £5) EUROPE £. per book commentary box, where the patrician tones ment. Nothing was ever going to be the same REST OF THE WORLD £. per book of E.W. (Jim) Swanton were counterpointed again, and both Swanton and Arlott recog- *P&P for oversized books will be charged at cost by the rich Hampshire burr of John Arlott. nised they were seeing out the end of an era. We accept Visa, MasterCard and Switch Cheques payable to Redemptorist Publications By combining biographies of both men in a Perhaps surprisingly, it is Swanton who Call: 01420 592 974 Fax: 01420 888 05 single volume, Stephen Kay and David best coped with the change, while Arlott Email: [email protected] Post: The Tablet Bookshop, Alphonsus House Kynaston provide a vivid portrait of cricket increasingly sought solace in his extensive Chawton, Hampshire GU34 3HQ in the post-war years. wine collection. Redemptorist Publications will endeavour to sell you the book at the price Swanton was a public school-educated High Cricket has long attracted fine writing, and advertised. However, occasionally on publication the published price is altered,in which case we will notify you prior to debiting your card. Church Tory who became the voice of the this book is a worthy addition to the canon.

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NEWS BRIEFING THE CHURCH IN THE WORLD

set for 7-9 January 2019 after rule that the Bible cannot be for ransom. Initially, the being pushed back from its sold publicly or online in China kidnappers asked for “the original starting date of 4 April. but this has been allowed to absurd sum of $500,000” The Lyon criminal court set “a slide over the years. [£352,000], Bishop Théophile date sufficiently far off” to Kaboy Ruboneka of Goma told arrange for Cardinal Luis Catholic bishops in Canada Fides News Agency. “Now they Ladaria Ferrer, prefect of the have discussed the possibility of are asking for $50,000, but Congregation for the Doctrine ordaining married men to the where can we find such a sum?” of the Faith (CDF), to attend the priesthood. During a conference proceedings alongside the city’s dedicated to the future of the Cardinal Archbishop Philippe Catholic Church in Quebec, Barbarin and the other French Auxiliary Bishop Marc Pelchat clerics accused of shielding the said consolidating parishes was self-confessed abuser Fr not a solution to the lack of Bernard Preynat. The trial was priests. He said that ordaining Tributes marking the fiftieth rescheduled because the married men of a “certain age, anniversary of the assassination summons and legal dossier had whose ecclesiastical of Martin Luther King on not been translated into Spanish commitment is tested” was an 4 April 1968 emphasised the and Italian and sent to the important consideration. civil rights leader’s advocacy of Spanish-born Archbishop non-violent resistance in the Ladaria at the Vatican in time. Four members of a Christian fight against racism. Fr Preynat has been accused of family have been killed in a The US Conference of abusing boy scouts between militant attack in southern Catholic Bishops’ 1986 and 1991. Barbarin, who Pakistan. Pervaiz Masih, Tariq Administrative Committee left him in contact with children Masih, Imran Masih and Priest arrested issued a statement saying: “This until 2015, has denied Firdous Bibi were shot near Vatican police have arrested a anniversary gives us an wrongdoing but admitted his their relative’s home in Quetta priest who previously worked at important moment to draw reaction was “belated”. Victims’ on 2 April after gathering there the ’s US Embassy, on inspiration from the way in lawyers allege Ladaria advised to celebrate Easter. A 10-year- charges related to the which Dr King remained Barbarin by letter to discipline old girl was also injured in the possession and distribution of undeterred in his principle of Preynat, but to avoid public attack. “It was a targeted attack child pornography. non-violent resistance, even in scandal. At the time, Ladaria and an act of terrorism,” police After months of investigation, the face of years of ridicule, was secretary of the CDF, the officer Moazzam Jah Ansari the Vatican announced on threats and violence for the department that handles said. Islamic State militants 9 April that Mgr Carlo Alberto cause of justice.” clerical sexual abuse cases. claimed responsibility for the Capella (above) was taken into The bishops recalled that Dr attack in a statement carried by custody that morning by the King came to Memphis – where their Aamaq News Agency, Vatican gendarmes at the he was shot while talking with according to agency reports. In request of the Vatican City friends on the balcony of the December of last year, a suicide State’s promoter of justice, who Lorraine Motel – to support bomb and gun attack targeting a serves as chief prosecutor. underpaid and exploited Sunday service at a church in Mgr Capella was recalled African-American sanitation Quetta killed at least nine people from the US in September 2017 workers, and arrived on a plane and wounded more than 56. after US authorities told the that was under a bomb threat. Vatican about a possible “He felt God had called him to A Catholic priest was found shot violation of child pornography solidarity with his brothers and dead hours after he said Mass in laws by one of its diplomats. sisters in need. In his final Democratic Republic of speech on the night before he Congo, the latest in a series of Rosaries a winner at Games died, Dr King openly referenced incidents in North Kivu Catholic chaplains have been the many threats against him, province. “Fr Etienne active in the Commonwealth and made clear he would love a Sengiyumva was killed on Games athletes’ village on long life. But more important to Internet sales ban on Bible 8 April by the Mai Mai Nyatura Queensland’s Gold Coast, him, he said, was his desire China’s Communist [militia] in Kyahemba where he which is part of the Archdiocese simply to do the will of God.” Government, deep in talks with had just celebrated a Mass of Brisbane. Volunteer chaplain the Vatican on a possible deal on including a baptism and a Helen Day said a Good Friday Trial date for abuse-case clergy the appointment of bishops, wedding,” Fr Gonzague liturgy was held in the village The trial of a Vatican prefect, a issued a ban on internet sales of Nzabanita, head of the Goma and that rosary beads were French cardinal, two bishops the Bible on Holy Saturday. A Diocese, told Agence France- proving a popular item, and a priest on charges of notice published on the Chinese Presse. North and South Kivu particularly among athletes allegedly not reporting a equivalent of Twitter, Weibo, provinces are in the grip of a from African nations. Day, a sexually abusive priest has been banned online bookstores, such wave of violence among militia member of the Coolangatta- as Tabao and Dangdang, China’s groups, who often extort money Tugun parish, joined chaplains equivalents of Amazon, from from civilians or fight each other and representatives from 16 For daily news updates selling Bibles. People searching for control of mineral resources. faith organisations providing for Bibles on these sites were Last week, the Bishop of Goma services and pastoral care at the on the top stories, visit greeted with the message: urged the faithful to pray for a Gold Coast athletes’ village. www.thetablet.co.uk “Sorry! No products in this priest who was kidnapped on category available.” There is a Easter Sunday and is being held Compiled by James Roberts.

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NEWS •QUOTE OF THE WEEK• We need to change this way of doing things. We believe that we can rebuild the Church to announce the mission of Christ Quebec Auxiliary Bishop Marc Pelchat urges a conference of bishops to consider of ‘proven’ married men (see page 23)

ROME / New apostolic exhortation ‘shows where Church is going’ Pope explains. “I like to contem- plate the holiness in the patience of God’s people: in those parents Francis emphasises the who raise their children with immense love, in men and women who work hard to support their holiness of everyday life families, in the sick, in elderly Reli- gious who never lose their smile.” To be holy, the Pope writes, it is important to avoid two contem- plight of migrants as a “secondary The document was presented porary versions of old heresies: CHRISTOPHER LAMB / in Rome issue” compared to “grave bio - to reporters at the Vatican on Pelagianism, a belief that God’s POPE FRANCIS says the path to ethical issues”, saying they have 9 April by Archbishop Angelo grace is attained through our own holiness consists in daily acts of adopted an attitude akin to a De Donatis, the of effort, and Gnosticism, where charity, joy and a sense of humour “politician looking the Diocese of special knowledge makes people while warning Catholics against for votes”. The Rome, Gianni “judge others based on their ability ideologies that suggest God’s grace attitude of a Valente, a journalist to understand certain doctrines”. is controlled by doctrine. Christian, the Pope for La Stampa and Some Christians, he says, are In a new apostolic exhortation – explains, is “to Paola Bignardi, of guilty of “the worship of human Gaudete et Exsultate, “Rejoice and stand in the shoes the lay ministry will and their own abilities”. This be Glad” – released on Monday, of those brothers Catholic Action. leads to “obsession with the law, Francis called on Catholics to and sisters of ours Archbishop De absorption with social and polit- follow Jesus’ Beatitudes by serving who risk their lives Donatis told the ical advantages, a punctilious the marginalised, the poor and to offer a future to packed press hall concern for the Church’s liturgy, migrants, and at the same time their children”. that Francis had doctrine and prestige ... an exces- offered an unequivocal defence of At almost 40 written the docu- sive concern with programmes of the child in the womb. pages long, the ment “to show self-help and personal fulfilment”. “Our defence of the innocent exhortation urges where the Church Francis urges people to reject unborn needs to be clear, firm and each Catholic not is going”. hedonism and consumerism, and passionate, for at stake is the to try and copy the saints but to Francis says sanctity is dis covered to develop a prayer life. But he dignity of a human life, which is discover their own path to holi- through daily life, which he says it is not “healthy to love silence always sacred and demands love ness, safe in the knowledge that describes as the “middle class of while fleeing interaction with for each person, regardless of his those who have gone before them holiness”. “Holiness ... is not about others” or to seek out prayer while or her stage of development,” he are carrying them forward. swooning in mystic rapture,” the “disdaining service”. writes. “Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the n Christians are becoming caught holiness, Gaudete et Exsultate, the violence,” Francis writes. “Even in abandoned and the under - up in online “verbal violence” while Pope argues that people are Catholic media, limits can be privileged, the vulnerable infirm defamation, slander and an looking to “compensate for their overstepped, defamation and and elderly exposed to covert abandonment of ethical standards own discontent by lashing out at slander can become commonplace, euthanasia, the victims of human are becoming commonplace in others” on social media and in turn and all ethical standards and trafficking, new forms of slavery, parts of the Catholic media, are breaching one of the 10 respect for the good name of others and every form of rejection.” according to Pope Francis, writes commandments to not bear false abandoned.” He goes on: “Here we In the exhortation, Francis Christopher Lamb. witness. “Christians too can be see how the unguarded tongue, set criticises those who describe the Writing in his new document on caught up in networks of verbal on fire by hell, sets all things ablaze.”

Burke outlines when Pope ‘can be disobeyed’

AT A CONFERENCE in Rome last “The Pope must respect the Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, who died the dubia. The conference’s final Saturday called to address per- deposit of faith,” Burke said. “He in September last year, was one declaration said a ratified and con- ceived “confusion” in the Church, has the authority to express the of four “dubia” cardinals, includ- summated marriage between two Cardinal Raymond Burke, one of Creed in a more adequate way but ing Cardinal Burke, who wrote to baptised persons can be dissolved the most prominent critics of the he can not act contrary to faith. the Pope asking for answers to five only by death, and if Christians current papacy, attempted to He must respect every one of the questions that requested clarifi- in a valid marriage join with some- define the limits of papal power, sacraments; he cannot suppress cation of parts of Francis’ apostolic one else while their spouse is alive, writes James Roberts. or add anything that goes against exhortation on the family, Amoris “they commit the grave sin of adul- The authority of the Roman the substance of the sacraments.” laetitia. Another signatory, tery”. It said there are “absolute Pontiff, Burke emphasised, is not The conference on the theme Cardinal Joachim Meisner, died moral commandments” to be “magical” but comes from the “Catholic Church: Where are you in July last year, while the fourth, followed “without exception”, and Pope’s “obedience to the Lord” and heading?” was organised by an Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, no “subjective judgement of there are even times where a “Pope Italian association called “The attended the Rome conference. conscience” can make an intrin- must, as a duty, be disobeyed”. Friends of Cardinal Caffarra”. Pope Francis has not replied to sically evil act good and licit.

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GERMANY Bishops’ dispute over Communion deepens

and 26.6 per cent Protestant). Cardinal Woelki, Archbishop Conference’s website, Cardinal CHRISTA PONGRATZ.LIPPITT Led by Cardinal Rainer Maria Ludwig Schick of Bamberg, Marx emphatically defended the A SPLIT HAS opened among the Woelki of Cologne, and without Bishop of conference’s decision and rejected German bishops over the question consulting conference president Regensburg, Bishop Stefan Oster the seven bishops’ arguments. of Communion for couples, one Cardinal Marx beforehand, seven of Passau, Bishop Gregor Maria “Of course a bishops’ conference of whom is Catholic and the other German bishops have now asked Hanke of Eichstätt, Bishop (and even a diocesan bishop) can not. Seven bishops have written the Vatican for clarification. Konrad Zdarsa of Augsburg and formulate criteria which allow to the Congregation for the In their three-page letter to the Bishop Wolfgang Ipolt of Görlitz, Christians who are not in full com- Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Vatican, the seven bishops explain was sent to the CDF prefect, munion with the Catholic Church requesting clarification on a ruling that in their view the bishops’ Archbishop to receive the Eucharist. This has made by the conference president. conference had overstepped its and to the president of the repeatedly been clearly stated and After their spring plenary in competencies with its decision to Pontifical Council for Promoting existing rules in other parts of the February, the German bishops allow those in interchurch mar- Christian Unity, Cardinal Church referred to,” Cardinal voted in favour of allowing couples riages to receive the Eucharist in . Marx said in his reply. in interchurch marriages to individual cases and that the deci- In a letter addressed to the “The plenary came to its deci- receive the Catholic Eucharist sion is therefore against canon law. seven bishops published on sion against the background of together in individual cases and The letter, which is signed by 4 April on the German Bishops’ theological and ecumenical texts published a “pastoral handout” to on the subject and regulatory help priests see if they were deal- options proved by canon law and ing with an exception to canon so regards it as clear that the deci- law. The vote passed by a two- sion is consistent with the thirds majority. Universal Church, especially since Conference president Cardinal Pope Francis’ encouragement to recalled at the take further steps regarding ecu- time that in this was a menism and pastoral work. The pressing issue as the percentage [bishops’ conference] handout of mixed marriages was “naturally” carefully puts this wish of the very high (58.3 per cent of the Pope’s into practice with the aim German population are Christian, Cardinals Reinhard Marx, Rainer Maria Woelki and Kurt Koch of further clarifying the matter for of whom 28.6 per cent are Catholic priests and for married couples.”

FRANCE The French bishops invited feeling that the link between the president to a church-run Church and state has been dialogue centre in Paris for the damaged and it’s up to us to Macron gives positive view unprecedented session at a repair it,” Mr Macron told the time they are lobbying against audience of about 400. “I of Church-state links the legalisation of euthanasia, would say that a Church that surrogate motherhood and pretends not to be interested in other proposed changes in a temporal questions is not PRESIDENT Emmanuel hierarchy and its guests, he reform of France’s bioethics law fulfilling its vocation, and a Macron has given France’s sketched out a view of France’s later this year. The bishops president of France who Catholic Church a ringing official secularism, or laïcité, opened the evening with pretends to not be interested in endorsement as an important that was more balanced than testimonies by homeless and the Church and Catholics is not element in the country’s the antagonistic Church-state disabled people. Archbishop doing his duty,” he said. Mr religious, intellectual and social policies of his predecessor Georges Pontier, head of the Macron, who was baptised a life, urging it to take an active François Hollande and less bishops’ conference, reminded Catholic aged 12 at his own part in its secular political political than the Christian Mr Macron of the Church’s request, said politicians “have system, writes Tom Heneghan. identity approach practised opposition to several bioethics profoundly misunderstood Addressing the Catholic before him by Nicolas Sarkozy. reforms. “We share a vague French Catholics”.

n LOURDES: Groups that organ- working conditions in the light About 200 of the group are in national association of diocesan ise pilgrimages to Lourdes are of European competition. Trains very poor health and need special pilgrimage directors, told La worried that a rail strike set for must be reserved long in advance care. “For many pilgrims, this is Croix daily: “Pilgrimages are two days a week until late June and are better equipped to trans- the only trip they will take all year. organised in advance. We have to will seriously affect their travel port travellers with special needs. Unfortunately, some will no coordinate with patients accord- plans for ailing patients to the Alain Baty, a physician organ- longer be with us next year,” he ing to the care they receive and Marian shrine in south-west ising a pilgrimage in late April for said in an appeal to the strikers. their nursing homes. This strike France, writes Tom Heneghan. 800 people from Mayenne He called his appeal “a pious wish, affects much more than a simple French railworkers are striking department in north-western a prayer … there’s little chance trip. We think a strike action against government plans to France, said a train he reserved a the unions will listen”. Fr Jacky- should take account of the weak- reform their pension plans and year ago had been cancelled. Marie Lhermitte, head of the est and most fragile citizens.”

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VIEW FROM SYRIA ‘Nothing ROME can justify’ chemical attack Christopher Lamb

WONDER what Jesus would have “genuine doctrinal authority”. In the case of POPE FRANCIS condemned the use of made of it?” Those were the words the Communion issue, a two-thirds majority chemical weapons after a deadly attack of Tony Blair in a 1996 letter to of German bishops have ruled in favour of a killed dozens of people in Syria, writes Cardinal Basil Hume after the for- change to the Church’s discipline – although James Roberts. “There is no good and mer“I Archbishop of Westminster had asked according to John Paul II’s document, bad war, and nothing, nothing can justify Mr Blair, then an Anglican and Leader of the Apostolos Suos, declarations by bishops’ con- the use of such instruments of Opposition, to stop receiving Communion ferences need to be approved unanimously extermination against defenceless people when attending Mass with his family. to have magisterial authority. At the last meet- and populations,” the Pope said last More than two decades later the restrictions ing between the Pope and his council of Sunday before concluding Divine Mercy on Communion for members of other cardinals, the status of bishops’ conferences Sunday Mass in St Peter’s Square. Christian denominations married to Catholics and a “re-reading” of Apostolos Suos was dis- The Syrian American Medical Society remain a point of puzzlement and tension. cussed in light of the need for “healthy Foundation reported that more than 40 Seven German bishops are asking the Vatican’s decentralisation”. Watch this space. people were killed in the 7 April attack on doctrinal body for a clarification on the matter the besieged rebel town of Douma, north (see Church in the World), after a majority of HIS POPE’S documents might be of the capital, Damascus, while hundreds their colleagues voted to open up the possi- described as slow burners. Take of civilians, “the majority women and bility for some spouses in interchurch Amoris Laetitia, the most hotly children”, were brought to local medical marriages to receive the Eucharist. debated of his writings. When it was centres “with symptoms indicative of Their request brings two even bigger issues released,T the initial reaction was one of uncer- exposure to a chemical agent”. The into focus. The first is the future role of the tainty whether Francis had succeeded in Syrian government denied involvement. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith getting what he had wanted: a clear green The US State Department denounced (CDF), now led by Archbishop Luis Ladaria, light allowing divorced and remarried couples “the regime’s history of using chemical appointed to the role last summer and, like to receive Communion. But in the following weapons against its own people”. Pope Francis, a Jesuit. months, the cautious opening contained in For most of Francis’ papacy the once feared the document has been interpreted by more congregation has almost stopped investigating and more bishops as allowing the remarried theologians suspected of drifting into heresy back to the sacraments in some circumstances. and has generally taken a far less prominent The impact of Amoris is also much wider: GAUDETE ET position than under the last two pontificates. it gives local Churches the tools to address a EXSULTATE This is due partly to this Pope’s focus on whole range of complex pastoral questions evangelisation rather than debating theolog- around marriage and family. This might be ON THE CALL TO HOLINESS ical niceties and partly to the uneasy working the case too for the Pope’s apostolic exhortation IN TODAY’S WORLD relationship he had with Cardinal Gerhard on holiness, which was released on Monday. e new Apostolic Exhortation om Müller, the former doctrinal prefect dismissed It contains a rich offering of practical guidance last summer after five years in post. Now that on how to live out a Christian faith in the POPE FN S he has his own man at the helm the congre- twenty-first century. One characteristic of gation is being brought more into the loop, Francis’ texts is that they draw on wisdom GET IT including, for example, playing an active part from the Church on the ground; past and FROM in preparing the apostolic exhortation on holi- present, and regularly cite material from bish- THE ness issued this week. The German bishops’ ops’ conferences. This bottom-up approach appeal is a significant test case for the CDF. explains in part why the texts make an impact, CTS Church teaching, as set out in the rather than gather dust on library shelves. TODAY Ecumenical Directory of 1967 and 1970, allows for non-Catholic Christians to receive AKING AN impact means run- Communion in certain, tightly prescribed cir- ning into opposition, something £4.95 cumstances, though in 2015 Francis advised this Pope knows all about. Much a Lutheran spouse of a Catholic to undertake of it centres on resistance to her own discernment over whether or not to AmorisM Laetitia, and while the critics may be Code: receive Communion when they attended Mass small in number they are not going away. Last Do941 together. Might the Pope be willing to approve Saturday, several of them gathered in a hotel Excludes some loosening of the guidelines? a couple of miles from the Vatican. The P&P. But another possibility is that the Vatican keynote speaker was Cardinal Raymond will simply tell the German bishops to decide Burke, a leading light on the Church’s tradi- BULK DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE the matter themselves. That brings us to the tionalist wing, who gave a long reflection on www.ctsbooks.org/gaudete-et-exsultate second major question, that of decentralisation the limits to papal authority. The irony of Call us on: 020 7640 0042 and the authority of bishops’ conferences. course is that traditional Catholics, who for Email: [email protected] Francis made it clear in Amoris Laetitia, his so long made unflinching loyalty to the mag- family life document, that “not all discussions isterium a defining characteristic of being a of doctrinal, moral or pastoral issues” need member of the Roman Church, are now the to be settled by Rome, while in Evangelii ones dissenting from the Pope. While they Gaudium, the manifesto for his papacy, he try to square that circle, more progressive called for bishops’ conferences to be given Catholics will say: “Welcome to the club!”

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its lights and its darkness”. He think that it’s hopeful that lay Easter pilgrimage around said that there was no need to and clerical leaders from so Europe, visiting five countries. talk about them more because many different Churches and “We are hoping to learn more in his last will and testament he from other faiths have come about the place of Catholic had written: “I ask forgiveness together on this issue.” organisations in Europe post- of all I have offended in this life. Brexit – and how we can I thank God for the many graces Members of the Irish support good work around areas and blessings he has given me, Parliament’s Public Accounts such as human rights and especially the Sacrament of Committee have called for the environmental justice,” said one .” remaining properties promised participant, Julia Corcoran. Cardinal O’Brien resigned in by 18 religious congregations The group first went to Calais, February 2013 following under the redress scheme for to see the work being done there allegations of sexual victims of institutional abuse to with migrants.

misconduct. He was buried last be handed over to the state PHOTO: LAMBETH PALACE Canon Paul Swarbrick (above) Friday at Mount Vernon before Pope Francis visits was installed as the seventh Cemetery in Edinburgh in the Ireland in August. Catholic Bishop of Lancaster grave of his mother and father. Following the publication of at a service in the city on the Ryan report in 2009, the Monday, succeeding Bishop The chief executive officer of religious congregations said Michael Campbell. Bishop Caritas social action network they would contribute €352.6 Swarbrick, who trained for the (CSAN), Phil McCarthy, was million (£307m) towards abuse priesthood at Ushaw, has served one of the signatories to a letter costs. The total cost of the Lancaster Diocese for more signed by 60 Church of England compensating thousands of than 35 years, mostly as a parish bishops, the Board of Deputies former residents for the abuse priest. He admitted to “being in of British Jews and the Muslim suffered as children was €1.5 a state of surprise and shock” at Council of Britain, calling for billion (£1.3bn). his appointment. the two-child limit on state Last week, the committee benefits to be scrapped. criticised the delay in bringing Cardinal Vincent Nichols Parents can claim child tax about the transfers, saying it Composer honoured focused on mercy in his homily credits or universal credit for was “not acceptable”. However, The Catholic liturgical last week at Cardinal Keith only their first two children a spokesperson for the composer, Bernadette Farrell O’Brien’s Requiem Mass in unless there are special Association of Missionaries and (above with the Archbishop of Newcastle. He said: “In the life circumstances. Anyone who had Religious of Ireland (Amri) said Canterbury, Justin Welby), was of Cardinal O’Brien, as well as a third child after April last year “the individual congregations one of the 30 recipients of this his failings, there was has been affected by the policy. have made every possible effort year’s Lambeth Awards. Farrell goodness, courage and many In the letter to The Times, the to complete the transfer of received the Thomas Cranmer acts of simple kindness. Not signatories warned: “The policy properties to the state in Award for Worship “for her least was his determination to is expected to tip an estimated accordance with their earlier outstanding contribution to serve the poor of the world. But extra 200,000 children into commitments”. music in Christian worship”. when we come to stand before poverty … There are likely to be Lambeth Palace said: “Her God we do so best when we mothers who will face an Brexit pilgrimage accessible and sincere hymns come empty-handed.” invidious choice between Ahead of Brexit, 22 members of are among the best in Cardinal Nichols added that poverty and terminating an the Westminster Diocese contemporary hymn-writing.” the life of the late cardinal had unplanned pregnancy.” Justice and Peace Commission been laid bare and “we all know McCarthy told The Tablet: “I have taken part in a 10-day Compiled by Bernadette Kehoe

EDITORIAL DISPLAY, RECRUITMENT Editor: Brendan Walsh CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING Deputy Editor: Lorna Donlon & INSERTS Lisa Ottway Editorial Consultant: Clifford Longley www.thetablet.co.uk Email: [email protected] Assistant Editor (Foreign News): 1 King Street Cloisters, Tel: +44 (0)1903 412996 James Roberts Clifton Walk, London W6 0GY Mob: +44 (0)7958 046147 Production Editor: David Harding Tel: +44 (0)20 8748 8484 Chief Subeditor: Iain Millar Fax: +44 (0)20 8748 1550 SUBSCRIPTIONS Email: [email protected] www.thetablet.co.uk/subscribe Multimedia Editor: Ruth Gledhill Tel: +44 (0)1293 312259 Home News Editor: Bernadette Kehoe THE TABLET TRUST: CHARITY NO. 271537 Email: [email protected] News Reporters: Rose Gamble, DIRECTORS Megan Cornwell COMMERCIAL, MARKETING Rome Correspondent: Christopher Lamb Mike Craven, Chairman; & ADVERTISING Ed Anderson KSG, Ben Andradi, Arts Editor: Joanna Moorhead Chief Executive Officer: Amanda Davison-Young Jimmy Burns, Richard Collyer-Hamlin, Literary Editor: Maggie Fergusson Marketing Manager: Ian Farrar Amanda Davison-Young, Religious Books Editor: Alban McCoy Email: [email protected] Cathy Galvin, Katherine Jeffrey, Letters Editor: Guy Keleny Tel: +44 (0)20 8222 7358 Paul Vallely CMG, Brendan Walsh.

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PERSON IN Sr Loreto Houlihan, who has spent 70 years teaching in India and is the subject of a new film, THE NEWS Sister India: “[I have been] blessed with strong faith, good sleep and no regrets.”

inquiry / School calls Charity Commission’s appointment a ‘precautionary measure’ thrive, reaching their full poten- tial, in a safe environment and protected from harm.” safeguarding specialist sent The statement continued: “Emma’s appointment is a pre- cautionary measure. The Charity to oversee ampleforth abbey Commission believes that this appointment is necessary to ensure that previous and current safeguarding concerns are iden- bErnadETTE kEhoE come into contact with charities, tified, addressed and importantly are protected from harm. We are that the charities’ plans for the a nEwcasTlE-based solicitor, not satisfied that the trustees of future are sufficiently robust to Emma Moody, is now temporar- these charities have made enough achieve long-term change. ily in charge of key pupil welfare progress in improving the safe- “It has tasked Emma with at one of Britain’s leading guarding environment for pupils investigating its concerns and Catholic schools, Ampleforth in the schools connected to the reporting her findings and rec- College, after it was stripped of charities.” ommendations. its responsibility for safeguarding The appointment, which was “The appointment of the by the Charity Commission as a announced on 3 April, comes Interim Manager should have no result of “continued concerns”. after the commission reviewed impact on day to day religious Ms Moody, a specialist in char- the progress made by the trustees and educational activities of the ity law and education, will have in implementing recommenda- charities or the provision of edu- all the powers and duties of a tions made in March 2017 by an cation to students at the schools.” trustee, to the exclusion of the Emma Moody independent review. In November last year, the trustees, in respect of a number Responding to the commis- Independent Inquiry into Child of safeguarding-related matters spokesperson said, there are sion’s appointment, a statement Sexual Abuse (IICSA) heard that at both Ampleforth Abbey and plans in place to periodically on Ampleforth Abbey’s website multiple allegations of sexual the St Laurence Education Trust, update parents and it was impos- said: “Emma and her team are abuse had been made against 40 which runs the college and sible to give a timescale, as “it in place to support and guide the monks and teachers at the North Ampleforth’s prep school. depends on what we find: new trustees and to provide strategic Yorkshire boarding school and A spokesperson for the Charity information can come to light”. leadership on matters relating to abbey. Commission told The Tablet that In a statement, head of inves- safeguarding, ensuring the char- The claims spanned the past the “interim manager” will have tigations and enforcement at the ities have the proper framework 60 years. Since 1996, three monks specific tasks and once they’re Charity Commission, Harvey they require to deliver their mis- and two lay teachers have been completed, the inquiry will be Grenville, said: “It is of para- sions safely and appropriately convicted of sex crimes against closed and a report issued. mount importance that and importantly that all our ben- pupils who attended the schools During the process, the beneficiaries, and others who eficiaries are able to flourish and between 1960 and 2010.

the phrase is that England has Marian statue to tour ahead been “set apart” for Mary. The title is believed to originate in the time of St Edward the of re-dedication of England (c.1003-1066); the first recording of the description can be found in a fourteenth-century ThE sTaTuE of Our Lady of the Metropolitan Cathedral in painting of King Richard II hold- Walsingham (pictured) is being Liverpool. The two-year Dowry ing a parchment carrying the taken on a tour of all the English tour is being jointly organised by words: “This is your dowry, O Catholic cathedrals from June, as the Shrine of Our Lady at pious .” part of the preparation for the re- Walsingham and the Guild of The of Walsingham dedication of England as the Our Lady of Ransom, with the Shrine, Mgr John Armitage, told “Dowry of Mary” in 2020, writes support of the Catholic bishops. The Tablet: “The re-dedication in Bernadette Kehoe. The tour will conclude in 2020, unlike the dedication of Cardinal Vincent Nichols called Westminster Cathedral in 2020. King Richard II in 1381, will not the re-dedication “a moment of England was dedicated as the be the gift of the country of great promise … for the Church Dowry of Mary by Cardinal England, but the personal gift of in this country and our mission”. Bernard Griffin in 1948 and the the faith of the people of England The statue, which is housed in organisers say the tour will invite to the Mother of God, to seek her the Slipper Chapel at the people to rediscover what the help in building a strong spiritual National Shrine of Our Lady at ancient title of England as ‘Dos foundation for the New the years to come, that our people Walsingham, will be taken to the Mariae’, Mary’s Dowry, means Evangelisation. may work together to face the cathedrals for a triduum of prayer today and for future generations. “We call upon Our Lady to challenges of our times, as we starting on 21 June this year at The historical understanding of guide and protect our country in work to build a Common Good.”

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norThErn irEland / Martin and Clarke say we must draw support today from deal’s principles church leaders reaffirm Good Friday accord

because the principles and structure of the sarah Mac donald Good Friday Agreement have failed us, or, ThE caTholic and Anglican Primates of rather is it that we have together failed to All Ireland have made an impassioned defence make the most of those supportive principles of the Good Friday Agreement on the twen- which it offered?” tieth anniversary of the signing of the historic They paid tribute to the efforts of the inter- peace deal. national community who not only invested In a joint statement, Armagh’s Archbishop significantly in the process which led to the Eamon Martin and Archbishop Richard agreement, but who “have remained alongside Clarke said the peace the accord brought to us as our partners for peace”. On Tuesday, for- Northern Ireland “took a great effort to Bill Clinton (left) and George Mitchell mer US president Bill Clinton and retired achieve” and they warned that “it will equally senator George Mitchell, the diplomat who take risk, and leadership at all levels, to main- heart-breaking pain and trauma of death or brokered the Good Friday deal, were both in tain”. The peace deal’s explicit rejection of the serious injury”. Northern Ireland to mark the anniversary. use or threat of violence, together with its Their shared prayer was that the anniver- They received the freedom of Belfast in a spe- emphasis on the principles of “partnership, sary of the Belfast Agreement would help to cial ceremony at Ulster Hall. The peace deal equality and mutual respect” as the “basis of rekindle a spirit of opportunity, healing and effectively brought an end to the Troubles, relationships” within these islands, has con- hope for lasting peace which, they said, “is which had resulted in the deaths of 3,532 – tinuing potential to transform society and life now needed more than ever”. the majority of whom were civilians. for all, the two church leaders stated. Referring to the current political impasse However, the former Taoiseach, Bertie “Nothing remotely its equal has been out- in Northern Ireland – in January 2017, the Ahern, who worked closely with his British lined then or since,” they said. power-sharing government in Stormont col- counterpart Tony Blair to bring about peace Archbishops Martin and Clarke also lapsed over a row between the Democratic in Northern Ireland, has warned that hard- expressed gratitude “for the generation of Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin and line Brexiteers represent a bigger threat to young people who are growing up without remains suspended – the two archbishops stability in Northern Ireland than a return of the sounds of bomb or bullet on a daily basis; said: “It is worth asking ourselves: is it paramilitary violence. for the livelihoods and businesses which have not been destroyed; for the families and neigh- bourhoods who have been spared the

‘rough sleeper’ initiative welcomed by charity for homeless

ThE hoMElEssnEss charity, Depaul UK, has welcomed the government’s announce- ment that it is setting up a new rough sleeping team, but has told The Tablet more investment is needed in emergency and long-term accom- modation for young people. Interim chief executive Ian Brady, former deputy director of the government’s Rough Sleepers Unit, said it showed the government was taking its commitment to end rough sleeping seriously, but added: “We believe the new team needs to prioritise increasing the supply of accommodation, including emer- gency beds, particularly [for] young people. “It is encouraging that the government is looking at working with housing associations to provide more move-on accommodation.” Mr Brady welcomed new legislation, the Homelessness Reduction Act, which came into force last week and imposes legal duties on English councils to take steps to relieve homelessness. “Official statistics show rough sleeping has increased in every region of England [but] in many places, there’s no or very little accommodation young people sleep- ing rough could afford to move into,” he said.

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FROM THE VINEYARD Dram busters N. O’PHILE

NDIA IS THE world’s biggest unadulterated substance. (For cask- consumer of whisky. A staggering strength whiskies, as strong as anything 1.6 billion bottles were drunk there up to and beyond 84 per cent proof, it is in 2017, compared with a relatively not advisable to take more than the miserlyI 468 million bottles in the United tiniest of sips, as it’s likely to numb your States. That means that Indians consume taste buds.) nearly half of all the whisky produced Adding water or ice not only lowers the throughout the world. ABV (alcohol by volume) – for a single India, of course, has a population of 1.2 measure, a teaspoon of water will lower a billion: but its vast appetite for whisky is 40 per cent ABV beverage to 30 per cent not accounted for by population size – but it takes away from the whisky’s alone. China, for instance, has about 100 Indians consume depth and colour. On the other hand, million more mouths to feed, but the even with the finest whisky, “cutting” it Chinese thirst for whisky still only nearly half of with a drop of water releases flavours that amounts to about 19 million bottles. all the whisky would otherwise remain hidden. Great Britain is in humble fifth position Blended whisky, on the other hand, in the overall consumption list but, given produced throughout positively benefits from water and ice, our comparatively minuscule population, the world making it the perfect long aperitif, as long we are still drinking above our size. as larger ice cubes are used: with less The scales shift, of course, when it surface area, they melt more slowly, comes to per capita consumption. While so are technically rum. The most popular chilling but not diluting (beyond India falls to ninth and the US to third version of the real McCoy sold in India is desirability) your drink. place, the first place goes to France and Officer’s Choice, a blended brand. Almost All the supermarkets now offer their then, again surprisingly, Uruguay. And 30 million cases are sold each year: that’s own branded single malts alongside the scales shift even more surprisingly 10 million more than the ubiquitous blends. With regard to whisky, when one asks which country drinks Johnnie Walker, making it not just the individual taste is more dominant than more whisky than any other spirit? That best-selling whisky but the best-selling in wine drinking. For instance, Aldi’s accolade goes to Angola, where whisky spirit of any kind throughout the world. much-lauded Glen Marnoch (no such consumption accounts for 90 per cent of Its website boasts that it has the capacity place exists, by the way), a Speyside, all spirits sold. By comparison, whisky to “awaken the hidden Officer” within all disappointed my palate. They all hover sales represent only 50 per cent of all of us. around the £20 mark but for my spirits consumed in India. Despite its age and pedigree, whisky money, Highland, Speyside and Islays Of course, there’s whisky and there’s still provokes controversy about how it from Sainsbury’s and Waitrose all far “whisky” (as well as whiskey). In India, should be drunk: neat or with water, soda outstrip the others. for instance, the cheapest brands are not or ice? When you taste a new whisky, it whisky at all, though marketed as such. should definitely be first sipped neat. N. O’Phile is The Tablet’s wine writer. Some are actually made from molasses, Your initial appreciation has to be of the He is also a senior Catholic priest.

Glimpses of Eden JONATHAN TULLOCH

WORK WAS mounting up, but I was field. Experiments conducted on desperate for fresh air. Seizing a spare half disorientating fieldfares during their spring hour, I headed outside. I wasn’t the only migration (catching them and releasing one on the move. The gentle chuckling them up to 100km away), show that they sound in the trees revealed a flock of are still highly successful in returning to fieldfares were travelling with me through their breeding grounds, if they are released the parish. My journey would only take half just before sunset. This is because they are an hour; theirs was the beginning of an thought to reboot their inner geomagnetic odyssey; having wintered here, these large compass at sunset, taking their bearings members of the thrush family were on their found nesting 3,500 miles away in Siberia. from the quality of the light. way to breed in Scandinavia, Finland and We know that migrating birds steer by As the fieldfares departed, I saw sand Russia. A number of fieldfares, ringed the stars, by the sun, by landmarks and martins fly by, recently arrived after their during a British winter, have even been their own reading of the Earth’s magnetic own 3,500-mile journey, from Sudan.

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