the catholic imaginationenzo bianchi born 1943, castel boglione, monferrato, italy. lay monk and...

The Catholic imagination

THETHE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY

1 DECEMBER 2018 £3.20www.thetablet.co.uk Est. 1840

TABLET

Fifty storytellers, scientists, philosophers, theologians,musicians, fi lmmakers and architectswho are shaping the modern world

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2 | THE TABLET | 1 DECEMBER 2018

T he failure to take the denial of religiousfreedom seriously is a black mark againstWestern secularism, which has repeatedlyfailed to adjust its priorities in the face of an

increasingly alarming reality. The groundbreakingreport by Aid to the Church in Need, ReligiousFreedom in the World 2018, identifies 38 countries –including India and China – where intolerance ofreligious minorities is severe enough to be describedas “persecution”. And the situation is steadilyworsening in at least half of them. Often the culprits are governments, or official

bodies acting on their behalf, responding to – andoften fomenting for their own purposes – a rise inextreme nationalism. They seek to exclude, and evento demonise, members of minority faith communitieson the grounds that they do not belong. Many suchcountries rely heavily on trade with the West, andoften also on development aid amounting to manybillions of dollars. Yet the West has been happy to turna blind eye. In an effort to challenge this indifference,an international campaign has been launched to markone day a year as Red Wednesday, red being the colourof martyrdom: this year, it was the Wednesday of theweek just gone. Rallies and processions wereaccompanied by the illumination in red of iconicpublic buildings and similar visible symbols, incountries ranging from Philippines to Italy, Britainand Ireland included.Western secularism has a blind spot which affects

the way public institutions act. Religion is dismissedas a matter of opinion, and therefore not regarded as

deserving of protection; the discrimination andpersecution the West cares most about, such as oversexuality or race, concern attributes which are deemedimmutable. Yet of all the standard components ofethnicity – such as race, language, culture andnational identity – it is religious belief that oftenmatters most to the individuals concerned, for it isthat which gives meaning to their lives. This failure may be what prompted the British

government’s cowardly reaction – largely attributed tothe prime minister in person – to the plight of AsiaBibi. A government official explained that she had notbeen offered political asylum in Britain on her releasefrom prison in Pakistan, because of a fear of provokingsocial unrest – presumably among British Muslims ofPakistani origin. There was no evidence for this, andeven if there was, the lack of principle behind such anapproach is breathtaking. Does Britain no longer stand for anything in the

world? Asia Bibi is a Pakistani Catholic who had beencondemned to death for blasphemy, until the SupremeCourt overturned her conviction as unsound. But thereshould not be such a law, nor should Britain befriendor assist any country that has one. It is sometimesspuriously argued that if the West put more of itsweight behind the defence of persecuted Christians inthe developing world, those Christians might bebranded as Western agents. But that is no more thanan excuse for inaction. Britain does not need excuses.It needs strong political conviction leading to action.For freedom of religion, including freedom ofconscience, lies at the root of all other freedoms.

THE TABLETTHE WESTIS FAILINGMINORITYFAITHFUL

RELIGIOUSFREEDOM

SECONDBREXIT

REFERENDUMTO BREAK

STALEMATE

EU WITHDRAWAL T he increasing focus on Facebook – the

subject of hearings this week before aninternational committee of inquiry inLondon – is beginning to overshadow the

debate on Brexit. Substantial funds were spent onpro-Brexit advertising through the Facebook platformprior to the 2016 referendum, some of which wasalleged to be unlawful and some of which may havebeen financed from or by Russia. To a degree this is water under the bridge, because

the government has now negotiated a withdrawalagreement which must stand or fall on its merits,regardless of how it arose. But one way ofguaranteeing for certain that the decision to leavethe EU is genuinely “the will of the people” is to askthe electorate to confirm its 2016 decision byanother referendum, and to do so with far more caretaken to avoid unlawful manipulation. A ban on allFacebook advertising by either side should be anessential condition. Even if the government refuses to countenance a

second referendum at this stage, parliament mightdemand one. With the withdrawal agreement headingtowards a “meaningful vote” in the House ofCommons in less than two weeks, there is anincreasing prospect of a constitutional gridlockdeveloping. It looks very likely that the deal thatTheresa May negotiated will be defeated. It looks noless likely that parliament will block the “no deal”

scenario, under which the United Kingdom wouldleave the EU with no alternative arrangements inplace at all. The EU has said the May deal is its finaloffer. The time limit under the Article 50 leavingprocess is due to expire on March 29. Hence eitherthis government or another one, or parliament itself,will have to find a different way forward while askingthe EU to agree an extension of the deadline. And theEU is unlikely to do so except to allow anotherreferendum.It need not have happened like this. Given declared

Labour policy of reluctant support for Brexit, MrsMay could have negotiated the withdrawal deal withcross-party consent. Even if the DemocraticUnionists – on whom she depends for her majority –did not like the outcome, Labour MPs would havemade up for the loss of their votes, as well ascompensated for any mutiny by the more extremebackbench Brexiteers. The second referendumpossibility would hardly have been mentioned,whereas now it is heading to the top of the list ofavailable options. And a parliamentary consensuswould mean that misgivings about the validity of thefirst referendum would have remained marginal,whatever Facebook’s exact role turns out to havebeen. The papers seized from an Americanbusinessman last week by the Serjeant-at-Arms ofthe House of Commons, on a Speaker’s Warrant, mayhold the key.

THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLYF O U N D E D I N 1 8 4 0

02_Tablet01Dec18 Leaders.qxp_Tablet features spread 11/27/18 7:13 PM

4 / Fifty minds that matterWho are the living Catholics doing the most to change the way we imagine

ourselves and see and understand the world? / BY TABLET STAFF

8 / Shakespeare’s secret historyHis poems included a daring allegory lamenting the dissolution of

the monasteries / BY CLARE ASQUITH

9 / Advent Meditation: And hope was made fleshIn the first of our reflections for Advent, we are reminded that our vision is only

possible because we sit on the shoulders of giants / BY THOMAS MCCARTHY OP

10 / The new face of Michael GoveCould the Pope’s ‘care for Creation’ encyclical be helping to stiffen the resolve of

the man charged by Theresa May with saving the planet? / BY JAMES ROBERTS

12 / The Tablet Interview: James O’BrienThe Ampleforth-educated, outspoken radio host talks about the clerical abusescandal – and explains why he is holding on to his faith / BY PETER STANFORD

CONTENTS1 DECEMBER 2018 // VOL 272 NO. 9279

Simon ScottPlummerGandhi: The Yearsthat Changed theWorld 1914-1948RAMACHANDRAGUHA

Penelope LivelyEternal BoyMATTHEW DENNISON

Timothy ConnorLiving with Buildings andWalking withGhostsIAIN SINCLAIR

Christopher BrayMiddle EnglandJONATHAN COE

MelanieMcDonagh’sNotebook‘Yes, boring people, Christianitydid itself co-opt the winter solstice, observed by pagans’ / 11

Peter Hennessy’sThe Lion andthe Unicorn‘A seasoned Westminster figuresensed “there may be a gnu”lurking in theCommons’ / 14

From the Archive 15Puzzles 15Letters 16The Living Spirit 17

C O L U M N S

R E G U L A R S

B O O K S / P A G E 2 1

Visual artsFemale artists in FlorenceJOANNA MOORHEAD

TheatreThe Watsons;Dealing with ClairMARK LAWSON

CinemaDisobedienceANTHONY QUINN

TelevisionDeath and NightingalesLUCY LETHBRIDGE

A R T S / P A G E 1 8

S P E C I A L F E A T U R E : T H E C A T H O L I C I M A G I N A T I O N

N E W S

24 / The Church in the World / News briefing25 / Francis plans centralised response to abuse

27 / View from Rome28 / News from Britain and Ireland / News briefing29 / Violence against faith minorities escalating

COVER PHOTO: ANGEL OF THE NORTH BY ANTONY GORMLEY; PIXABAY, LITTLERICH

1 DECEMBER 2018 | THE TABLET | 3

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F E A T U R E S

Are we starting our Christmascelebrations too early,wonders Melanie McDonagh

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features / The Catholic Imagination

Chimamanda Ngozi AdichieBorn 1977, Enugu, Nigeria.Writer.Adichie grew up in an Igbofamily in the university town ofNsukka, in Enugu State. Herfirst novel, Purple Hibiscus,begins with a nod to ChinuaAchebe: “Things began to fallapart at home when my brother,Jaja, did not go to Communionand Papa flung his heavy missalacross the room and broke thefigurines on the étagère.” When Adichie was young, she

wished she could be a priest.“The priest would sweep in inhis long soutane, and youcleared the way because Fatherwas coming. I wanted that! Iwanted the power. But it was abeautiful kind of power … I haddangerous ideas as a child.”

Margaret ArcherBorn 1943, Sheffield.Sociologist.At school, Archer horrified herteachers by choosing the LSEover Oxbridge. They needn’thave worried. Always showing astriking independence of mind,she became a leading light of thecritical realist tradition. She waselected as the first womanPresident of the InternationalSociological Association. In2014 she was named Presidentof the Pontifical Academy ofSocial Sciences. “Often I find theproblem of good-ness to bemore difficult than the problemof evil.”

Benedict XVIBorn 1927, Marktl, Bavaria,Germany. Priest and theologian.As Prefect of the Congregationfor the Doctrine of the Faith,Joseph Ratzinger was known asder Panzerkardinal. Buttheologians know another sideto him. He emerged as anacademic rockstar in the 1950s,and he is still publishing: acollection of new sermons came

out this year. He once lamented:“I know of people whoimmediately make dogma ofevery comment the Holy Fathermakes over breakfast.”

Enzo BianchiBorn 1943, Castel Boglione,Monferrato, Italy. Lay monkand writer.In 1965, Bianchi moved to anabandoned farmhouse in Bose,a small village in sight of theItalian Alps. In 1968, he wasjoined by three others, includinga pastor of the Swiss ReformedChurch, establishing anecumenical monasticcommunity. Bose has become an

important place of prayer, ofscholarship, of encounter and ofdialogue, and Bianchi, still priorof the community, althoughnever ordained himself, hasreinvigorated the possibilities ofthe religious life.

Mario Botta Born 1943, Mendrisio,Switzerland. Architect.Botta has been designingbuildings since he was 16. Hisoutput since then has included anumber of churches as well as asynagogue. “Architectural design,like every other form of human

expression, must come to termswith the hopes and needsunderscoring people’s lives.”

Rémi BragueBorn 1947, Paris. Historian ofreligion and philosophy.Professor emeritus of Medievaland Arabic Philosophy at theUniversity of Paris, Braguechallenges many of thepresuppositions invoked bythose engaged in dialoguebetween Jews, Christians andMuslims. Here’s Brague’ssuccinct formulation of the keydifferences: “The religion ofIsrael is a history that led to abook; Christianity is a historyrecounted in a book; Islam is abook that led to a history.”

Celia Deane-DrummondBorn 1956, Aldershot.Theologian. The inaugural director of theCenter for Theology, Science,and Human Flourishing at theUniversity of Notre Dame,Deane-Drummond is returningto the UK next year to be theinaugural director of theLaudato Si’ Institute (LSI),being established by the Jesuitsat Campion Hall, Oxford. Deane-Drummond is doing

vital work in bringing science

and theology into direct andmutually challengingconversation. Her current workon the relationship betweenhumans and animals isdisturbing and exciting inequal measure.

Eamon DuffyBorn 1947, Dundalk, Ireland.Historian.Duffy’s seminal The Stripping ofthe Altars (1992) made adevastating assault onperceptions of the CatholicChurch in the Reformation era.No one-hit wonder, Duffy is areliably sound and challengingvoice within and without theacademy. “If your theologycannot face the truth, then it’snot itself telling the truth.”

Eugene FamaBorn 1939, Boston,Massachusetts. Economist.Nobel Prize-winning economistEugene “Gene” Fama, the son ofa truck driver, is best known forhis groundbreaking “efficientmarkets hypothesis”. This holdsthat the prices of stocks andother assets rapidly adjust to allavailable information, whichmakes markets pretty hard tobeat and stock-picking a futile exercise.

For more features, news, analysis and comment, visit www.thetablet.co.uk

Fifty minds that matterWho do you think is the living Catholic doing the most to change the way we imagine ourselves andunderstand the world? Here is our selection of 50 men and women who are making waves andrecalibrating disciplines, and adding some Catholic salt to the contemporary cultural soup

n James AlisonBorn 1959, London. Priest andtheologian.InFaith Beyond Resentment:Fragments Catholic and GayAlisondescribes his family background as“conservative middle-class Englishevangelical Protestant”. Like hisfather, Michael Alison, ConservativeMP and Margaret Thatcher’sParliamentary Private Secretary, hewas educated at Eton and Oxford.

He became a Catholic at the ageof 18 and a Dominican four yearslater in 1981. He wrote hisdissertation under the supervisionof the Jesuit faculty in Belo

Horizonte, Brazil. He left theDominicans in 1995 but remains a priest.

Alison lives in Madrid, but travelsthe world as a speaker andretreat giver, returning, ashe has wryly observed, tothe mendicant vocationof an originalDominican, itinerantlypreaching and beggingfor money.

His theology flows fromtwo deep springs: Aquinas – whichAlison learned from his Dominicanteachers Herbert McCabe andFergus Kerr – and the French

anthropologist and literary theoristRené Girard. Alison is known for hisfirm but patient insistence ontruthfulness in matters gay as an

ordinary part of basicChristianity, and for his

pastoral outreach in thesame sphere.

He himself insists histheology is mainstream,

“moderatelyconservative”. Stanley

Hauerwas has called hiswork “frighteningly profound”; his

books, Rowan Williams says, “leaveyou with a feeling that perhaps it’stime you became a Christian”.

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1 DECEMBER 2018 | THE TABLET | 5For more features, news, analysis and comment, visit www.thetablet.co.uk

John FinnisBorn 1940, Adelaide, Australia.Legal philosopher.An atheist in his teens, Finniswas received into the CatholicChurch at St Aloysius Church in1962, at the end of his firstacademic term in Oxford.One of the world’s foremost

thinkers on the philosophy ofnatural law, Finnis, with the lateGermain Grisez, wrote an openletter to Pope Francis correctingdoctrinal errors that he believesAmoris Laetitia appears toencourage. Judge Neil Gorsuch,Donald Trump’s choice to fill avacancy on the US SupremeCourt, is a protégé.

Ephigenia W. GachiriBorn 1944 in Kiambu, Kenya.Religious sister and activist.A renowned educator andactivist, Gachiri has dedicatedher life to the fight against thepractice of female genitalmutilation. She joined theInstitute of the Blessed VirginMary in 1965.

Riccardo Giacconi Born 1931, Genoa, Italy.Physicist.Nobel Prize-winning astro-physicist, specialising in X-rayastronomy.

Fabrice HadjadjBorn 1971, Nanterre, France.Writer and philosopher.Born to Jewish parents ofTunisian heritage, in his teenshe was an atheist and anarchist,before converting toCatholicism. Currently teachesphilosophy and literature inToulon. He is married to theactress Siffreine Michel.

Antony GormleyBorn 1950, London. Sculptor.Gormley was the youngest ofseven children of a Germanmother and a devout CatholicIrish father, who chose hisinitials, “AMDG”. AtAmpleforth, he was taught for atime by the sculptor andengraver John Bunting, whointroduced him to the work ofEpstein, Moore and Eric Gill.His distinctive self-modelledsculptures – thought-provokingabout man’s presence on theEarth and search beyond it –carry Catholic sensibilities deepinto the public sphere.

Gustavo GutiérrezBorn 1928, Lima, Peru. Priest

and theologian.Known as the father ofliberation theology, Gutiérrezstudied medicine beforebecoming a priest. His seminalbook A Theology of Liberationmight never have beencondemned but did start whathe describes as “20 years ofdialogue” with theCongregation for the Doctrineof the Faith (CDF). The thaw inrelations with Rome beganwhen he co-authored a bookwith the German theologianGerhard Müller, later head ofthe CDF. On his ninetiethbirthday, earlier this year, PopeFrancis thanked him for hisservice “to the Church andhumanity and your preferentiallove for the poor”.

Anselm Grün Born 1945, Hollstadt, Germany.Priest and spiritual writer.Grün joined the Benedictinenovitiate directly from school.The author of around 300spirituality books, the formerCellarer of MünsterschwarzachAbbey is a much-loved publicfigure in Germany. “Wonder isthe beginning of all philosophy.I marvel, therefore I think.”

Tomáš HalíkBorn 1948, Prague,Czechoslovakia (now CzechRepublic). Priest andphilosopher.A close associate of the lateVáclav Havel, with animpressive publication recordand a clutch of prizes, MgrHalík is also simply a priest whoministers to Prague’s academiccommunity as parish priest of StSalvator’s in the Old Town. “Doubt isn’t the enemy of

faith but her sister. Uncheckeddoubt leads to militantsecularism, but unchecked faithleads to religiousfundamentalism.”

Elizabeth A. JohnsonBorn 1941, New York City.Religious sister and theologian.Like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin,Johnson’s theologyencompasses the whole ofCreation; like Teilhard, that hasearned her some scrutiny.Professor emerita at Fordham,her long and distinguishedresearch career reflects astrongly inclusive, inter -disciplinary and transnationaloutlook.“Since the reign of God is

especially attentive to the needyand outcast, then solidarity withthe poor encompasses the Earthand its distressed creatures.”

Emmanuel KatongoleBorn 1960 in the village ofMalube, Uganda. Priest andtheologian.His The Sacrifice of Africa: APolitical Theology for Africa isconsidered a masterpiece in re-imagining new ways of studyingAfrican history and the crisis ofthe state and religion asnarratives of reversal.

Claudia Lee Hae-inBorn 1945, in Yang-gu, Gang-won province, South Korea.Religious sister and poet.At the outbreak of the KoreanWar 1950, Claudia’s father wasabducted to North Korea whilethe remaining family membersfled to Busan, in South Korea.She became a member of theOlivetan Benedictine Sisters ofBusan in 1964 and publishedher first collection of poetry, TheLand of Dandelions, in 1976.She is one of Korea’s mostcelebrated living poets.

Amin MaaloufBorn 1949, Beirut, Lebanon.Writer.A former journalist, the Jesuit-educated Maalouf writessweeping but serious historicalnovels as well as narrative non-fiction. His Le rocher de Tanios won

the Prix Goncourt in 1993, andhe is the first Lebanesemember of the AcadémieFrançaise. “You can’t sayhistory teaches us this or that;it gives us more questions than

answers, and many answers toevery question.”

Alasdair MacIntyreBorn 1929, Glasgow.Philosopher.MacIntyre became a Catholic inhis fifties as the result of a criticalengagement with Aquinas. Anex-Marxist and former atheist,the controversial-in-the-best-sense neo-Thomist continues todraw from both Marx andAristotle in his moral andpolitical philosophy. “Someone who thinks that he

can speak about God withoutbeing drawn into speaking toand with him must havemisunderstood who and whatGod is.”

Laurenti MagesaBorn 1946, Tanzania. Priest andtheologian.In his compelling andinfluential What is Not Sacred?Magesa argues that traditionalAfrican religious cultureremains vibrant and visibletoday, and has much to offerChristianity.

Terrence MalickBorn 1943, Ottawa, Illinois.Film director and writer.The reclusive 75-year-old film-maker behind Badlands, TheThin Red Line and The Tree ofLife spent his boyhood mostly inWaco and Bartlesville,Oklahoma. His grandparentswere Assyrian Christians. “Malick seems to me to be

working through the centralquestions – faith and doubt,morality, the possibility ofeternity – in film after film,”

nPope FrancisBorn 1936, Buenos Aires, Argentina.Priest. Since the conclave of March 2013decided that Jorge Mario Bergogliowould not be returning to BuenosAires, this most provocative andenigmatic of popes has electrifiedthe Church and intrigued the world.

Francis – the top-downdecentraliser, the champion of theperipheries who draws the world’sattention to the personality at thecentre, the blunt speaker wholeaves exasperated criticsdemanding tidiness and clarity –has triggered a creative commotion.

But no one can doubt theexcitement and tension generatedby the defining documents of hispapacy: Evangelii Gaudium,Laudato Si’, Amoris Laetitia andGaudete et Exsultate. Perhaps hisenemies in the Church grasp the“revolution of tenderness”, as JeanVanier has characterised thispapacy, more than his friends: andthat is why they are determined todestroy him.

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writes Michael SymmonsRoberts. “And at their best hemakes films that feel – like thebest poems do too – exploratory,not just the outworking of anidea. To the Wondermade a bigimpact on me in recent years.Malick is a major artist workingon what still counts as the world’sbiggest stage – the movies.”

Mary John MananzanBorn 1937, Dagupan,Pangasinan, Philippines.Religious sister and theologian.A former student of Rahner,Mananzan is a formidableintellectual and politicalinfluence in her home countryand beyond. “If something youfind compatible becomesincompatible, you’re makingartificial contradictions. That Iam a nun and that I am thehead of a militant women’sorganisation? Well I am! Sowhat’s the problem?”

Jean-Luc MarionBorn 1946, Meudon, Hauts-de-Seine, France. Philosopher andtheologian. An interdisciplinary heavyweightin the best French tradition,Marion occupies his friendCardinal Lustiger’s old seat in theAcadémie Française. His mostrecent book, Brève apologie pourun moment catholique, is aresounding defence of Catholicsin the public square.“We live with love as if we

knew what it was about. But assoon as we try to define it, or atleast approach it with concepts,it draws away from us.”

Mario J. MolinaBorn 1943, Mexico City.Chemist.A joint winner of the Nobel

Prize in Chemistry in 1995 forhis discovery of howchlorofluorocarbon gases, orCFCs, deplete the ozone layer.

Rafael MoneoBorn 1937, Tudela, Navarre,Spain. Architect.His prize-winning buildingsinclude the Cathedral of OurLady of Angels, Los Angeles,opened in 2002, the third-largest cathedral in the world,built of earth-coloured concreteand alabaster. Gregory Peck isinterred in the sumptuous cryptalong with a number of bishopsand archbishops.

Toni MorrisonBorn 1931, Lorain, Ohio. Writer.Born Chloe Wofford, the name“Toni” comes from Morrison’spatron saint, Anthony ofPadua. The multi-best-sellingNobel laureate is professoremerita at Princeton, whereshe founded the PrincetonAtelier to develop promisingartists across the disciplines.“We don’t need any morewriters as solitary heroes. Weneed a heroic writersmovement – assertive,militant, pugnacious.’’

Herta MüllerBorn 1953, Nitchidorf,Romania.Müller grew up a German-speaking Catholic in the multi-ethnic, polyglot region of Banatin west-central Romania. Herfiction is rooted the violence,oppression and absurdityexperienced by minoritiesunder Nicolae Ceausescu’sregime. Razor-sharp anduncompromising, her uniquecapacity for observation hasgained her worldwiderecognition. She was awarded

the Nobel Prize in Literature in2009. “I do not understand theworld. I do not understand.That is why I write, because I donot understand.”

Les MurrayBorn 1938, Nabiac, New SouthWales. Poet.A staunch opponent ofliberalism, modernism andliterary snobbery, Murraycombines down-homeconservative values with a vastand lively erudition. ThisCatholic convert with Calvinistroots is widely considered oneof the great living anglophonepoets. “Everybody’s got a fewmagical things in their lives.They can talk about them as ifthey were rational and logical,but in fact their heart is poetry.”

Micheal O’Siadhail Born 1947, Dublin. Poet.The first three of O’Siadhail’s 17poetry collections were in Irish.His latest book, The FiveQuintets, recalls T.S. Eliot’sFour Quartets: “In Christianterms [Eliot] somehow missedout on the Resurrection. Hegets the selflessness, he gets thesacrifice, he has the fire … Buthe is not quite into the paradiseof absolute celebration and joy.”

José Antonio PagolaBorn 1937, San Sebastiàn,Spain. Priest and biblicalscholar.Pagola’s Jesus: An HistoricalApproximation is the mosttalked-about religious book tohave been published in post-Franco Spain. The Basque scholar argues

that Jesus’ core message was topresent the reign of God as oneof compassion. This was a radical departure

from the emphasis on the wrathof God that had inspired theprophets of Israel. Widelyacclaimed, the book has alsomet with opposition fromSpain’s bishops.

John PolanyiBorn 1929, Berlin. His father was Jewish butconverted to Catholicism; hisfamily migrated to Britainwhen John was four years old, and he studied atManchester University. Hereceived the Nobel Prize inChemistry in 1986 for hiscontribution to the field ofchemical-reaction dynamics.

Paolo PortoghesiBorn 1931, Rome. Architect.Influential church architect,theorist and historian whoargues that there is nodialectical opposition betweenthe old and the new, or betweentradition and modernity, butonly convergence andcontinuity.

Adélia PradoBorn 1935, Divinópolis, MinasGerais, Brazil. Poet.Her poetry was “discovered” in1976, when, at the age of 40, asmall collection of her poemswas passed along to Brazil’sgreat modernist, CarlosDrummond de Andrade, whoannounced in a newspapercolumn that St Francis wasdictating verses to a housewifein Minas Gerais. Her literarycareer was launched.

Andrea Riccardi Born 1950, Rome. Historian,politician and activist.The founder of the Communityof Sant’Egidio, an internationalCatholic lay organisationdedicated to peacemaking,service to the poor, andevangelisation, whichcelebrated its fiftiethanniversary this year. One of itssignature acts was to broker aninternational peace deal inMozambique in 1992. Riccardiwas minister for internationalcooperation and integrationpolicies under Italian primeminister Mario Monti.“Our churches have to

become warmly human, theyhave to be real communities,not closed in on themselves.”

David Adams RichardsBorn 1950. Newcastle, NewBrunswick. Writer and memberof the Canadian senate.Richards’ novels are a brilliantevocation of his native region,the Miramichi River valley inNew Brunswick, transformedinto a larger human canvas ofsin and redemption. Hisintricate treatment of ravagedconsciences, political hubris,inhuman orthodoxies, and aperson’s aching into holiness,knows no comparablecontemporary.“Faith is an inherent

condition. We all have it. We alluse it. We all need it. The ideathat only those who say theyhave faith actually have it is anabsurdity.”

features / The Catholic Imagination

n John HaldaneBorn London, 1954. Philosopher.

Haldane grew up“in a quiet andwell-orderedhome in the westend of Glasgow”;as an under -graduate in

London, he originally trained as anartist. That was before he found hisway to Aquinas and wrote books insuch areas as metaphysics, thehistory of philosophy, and moraland social philosophy. He is unusualthese days: a serious academicphilosopher who is equally at home

in the broadsheets. An analyticalThomist (he coined the term), heholds the J. Newton Rayzor Sr.Distinguished Chair in Philosophy atBaylor University in Texas and isProfessor of Philosophy at StAndrews; he is also Chair of theRoyal Institute of Philosophy.

“Certainly in the last twocenturies there have beenimportant developments in moralphilosophy that were notavowedly religious […] but of itselfthis does not challenge the claimthat the core ideas originated in aJudaeo-Christian understanding ofhuman nature.”


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Jacek Salij Born 1942, Budy, Wołyn,Poland. Priest and theologian.Thomist philosopher,Dominican preacher,translator, writer and publicist;a prominent dissident priestduring the Solidarity period.

Elisabeth Schüssler FiorenzaBorn 1938, Cenad, Romania.Theologian.A pioneer of feminist theology.Her teaching and researchfocus on questions of biblicaland theological epistemology,hermeneutics, rhetoric, andthe politics of interpretation,as well as on issues oftheological education, radicalequality and democracy.

Martin ScorseseBorn 1942, New York City.Film-maker.As a boy, Scorsese wanted toimitate his mentor JohnPrincipe by seeking ordination.Thankfully for the film world,the seminary expelled him.Silence (2016), 25 years in themaking, is only the latestproduct of a long, theologically-infused career.“We have to know ourselves.

We probably never will, but itseems to me if we don’t try,then everything else we’redoing is just artifice.”

Janet Martin SoskiceBorn 1951, Vancouver, BritishColumbia, Canada.Philosopher and theologian.

Soskice, who converted at 20after a thunderbolt moment, isone of the UK’s most eloquent,engaging and irresistibletheologians. Professor ofPhilosophical Theology atCambridge, her work alsoincludes Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations, science andreligion, and history of biblicalstudies.“It was as if I’d fallen secretly

in love, which perhaps I had. Iwas simply aware that theworld was profoundly orderedto the Good.”

Bruce SpringsteenBorn 1949, Long Branch, NewJersey. Musician.New Jersey’s most famousexport, Springsteen is not onlya performer: he’s a poet, ananalysand and a thoroughgoingperfectionist. Andrew Greeleycalled him a “CatholicMeistersinger”. He explores hisrelationship to the Church inhis memoir Born to Run. “Youcan’t live inside your work;your work has got to live insideyou.”

David TracyBorn 1939, New York City.Priest and theologian.Hailed as one of the mostoriginal theologians in recentdecades for his work inhermeneutics and theologicalmethod in a pluralistic context.The author of enduringclassics, Blessed Rage for Order(1975) and The Analogical

Imagination (1980), hecontributed a lively essay to thecatalogue of the MetropolitanMuseum of Art exhibitionHeavenly Bodies: Fashion andthe Catholic Imagination. Tracy was described by

Andrew Bolton, the curator of the exhibition, as “the J. D.Salinger of the theologicalworld”.

Jean VanierBorn 1928, Geneva,Switzerland. Philosopher,

theologian, humanitarian.In 1964, Vanier, a rising youngacademic in France and in hisnative Canada, invited twomen with mental disabilities to live with him in atumbledown cottage in avillage in northern France. From these small beginnings

grew L’Arche, an internationalorganisation in which men andwomen with mental disabilitieslive in family-sized houses with“normal” assistants. L’Arche communities are of

all faiths and none, united in thebelief that those who areapparently strong have much tolearn from those who are weak.Vanier has written numerous

books, and has, until recently,travelled the world giving talksand retreats. Those who haveheard him speak attest to hisalmost palpable holiness.

Gene WolfeBorn 1931, New York City.Writer.Possibly the most criticallyacclaimed science fiction andfantasy author of our time, he ismost famous for The Book ofthe New Sun, described by onecritic as “a tetralogy of couth,intelligence, and suavity that is also written in VistaVisionwith Dolby Sound. Imagine aStar Wars-style space operapenned by G.K. Chesterton inthe throes of a religiousconversion.”


nCharles TaylorBorn 1931, Montreal, Quebec,Canada. Philosopher.Taylor’s Catholicism was shaped byhis family and his reading of Frenchtheologians such as Yves Congarand Henri de Lubac, introduced tohim by Dominicans he knew as ayoung man. From Montreal, and hisfirst studies at McGillUniversity, Taylor went toOxford, studying underIsaiah Berlin and ElizabethAnscombe, and laterbecoming a professor ofsocial and political theory,as well as a fellow of AllSouls. He then returned toMcGill, spending the rest of hisacademic life there as a professor ofpolitical science and philosophy.

In 2007 he published to acclaim ASecular Age, in which he took to tasksecularisation theories, first shapedby Max Weber, which hold thatreligion diminishes in influence as

modernity, shaped by science andtechnology, flourishes. Instead,Taylor argues, religion does notshrink but diversifies. Belief andunbelief are lived experiencessitting alongside one another.

“I am comfortable now in a worldwhere people are seeking,” Taylortold The Tablet in 2014. “We could

not reconstruct the oldunanimous society if wewanted to, but this too is aworld where the Gospelcan flourish.”

The age in which we live,Taylor argues, is far from acomfortable unbelief, andthe atomisation of

society so often pessimisticallydescribed by philosophers andsociologists is overdone.

“People are parts of social webs,”he says, “with overlappingconnections. To a great extent, wehave a social life with hundreds ofoverlapping circles.”

n James MacMillanBorn 1959, Kilwinning, Ayrshire,Scotland. ComposerOne of the world’s leading livingclassical musicians, owes it all to hisgrandfather – a coal miner whoplayed the euphonium in thecolliery band and introduced theyoung MacMillan to music-making.

“Many of the leading figures ofmodern music – Schoenberg, forexample – are profoundly religious.It’s almost as though there’ssomething inherent in the art ofmusic that has to be anacknowledgement of the sacred.”

Not for nothing, says MacMillan,is music sometimes referred to as

the most spiritual of the arts. Hetakes it a stage further: “Spiritualityand music are so deeply entwinedthat to dispute the link is to negatethe art form.”

He’s known as a conservativeCatholic – more of a natural followerof Benedict, for whose UK visit in2010 he composed several pieces ofmusic – than of Francis; but heprefers to call himself an “ordinaryCatholic”.

For MacMillan, Catholicism is notabout sides or factions – “it’s muchmore profound than that” – andthough he has been an excoriatingcritic of the banality of much post-Vatican II church music, he nowfinds the so-called “liturgy wars”wearing. “I can’t be bothered withany of that any more,” he said.

One of his proudestachievements is the festival hefounded in the town where he wasborn, the Cumnock Tryst.


features / The english reformation


WHAT IS IT about the Tudors?With yet another blockbusterhitting the cinema screens soon– Mary Queen of Scots – the

English appetite for Tudor novels, films, plays,histories, seems endless. Ben Elton’s BBC2series, Upstart Crow, sends up our obsessionwith the period while plunging viewers evermore deeply into our Sunday-night comfortzone of jerkins, rapiers, taverns, bawdywenches and gut-spilling executions. Regularly featured in this familiar Tudor

line-up, alongside Catholic plots and Puritanrants, is Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monas-teries, the backdrop to C.J. Sansom’sbest-selling Shardlake series, and the subjectof influential works by Hilary Mantel andDiarmaid MacCulloch. In the language of1066 and All That, this vast property transferis generally viewed as “A Good Thing” – apiece of national housekeeping overseen bythe brisk Thomas Cromwell, whose efficientminions put the decayed monastic estate outof its misery and transferred the assets tomore responsible owners. One of the finestof this year’s batch of Tudor novels, however,takes a very different view.Victoria Glendinning’s The Butcher’s

Daughter traces the dissolution’s impact onthe community of Shaftesbury Abbey, a thriv-ing foundation whose abbess courageouslyresists closure. Like Mantel’s Cromwell, Elton’sShakespeare and Sansom’s Shardlake,Glendinning’s resilient heroine, Agnes Peppin,is not religious – an anomaly for the period,but an obvious prerequisite for modern read-ers. As a novice at Shaftesbury Abbey, however,Agnes acknowledges true religious sensibilitywhen she sees it. Two old nuns “are the incar-nation of the Rule of Stability. I have neverknown such joyous women”.

WHEN THE community is dissolved shewrites: “That weak wailing will echo amongthe stars until the Day of Judgment. Faith,fortitude, dignity, lost and gone with every-thing else.” In a shocking twist, hersympathetic, practical mentor, Sister MaryAmor, hangs herself. For Agnes this is mar-tyrdom, not suicide – Sister Mary was surely“a witness to a great wrong”. Shame overwhelms Agnes herself – she

regrets bitterly that on the day the abbey wasyielded up she failed to stab the mercenarycommissioner with the “small sharp knife at

my belt”. A traveller brings news that thesame tragedy is being repeated right acrossthe country: his words haunt her. “Madam”,he said, “you must understand. Our land isstrewn with ruins.” He began to sob and couldnot stop.

THE DRIVING force behind the desecrationis what Glendinning calls opportunism,embodied in the callous landowners whobrowbeat the abbess and her nuns into sub-mission and seize the assets of the great abbeyfor themselves. Her novel dramatises the ter-rible loss to society in the harshwinter that follows. “In formerdays, people looked to theAbbey for everything andfound it – shelter, medicines,food, fuel.” Under the oppor-tunists, charity ceases.Until the introduction of the

welfare state and the declinein religious belief in the secondhalf of the twentieth century,it was natural for the Englishto express horror at all this. Furious reformerseven stood up in Henry VIII’s parliament todenounce the dissolution. The new church-men hoped to redeploy the infrastructure forthe good of the nation: but within five yearsnot just the land and treasure, but the libraries,hostels, hospitals, almshouses – the nationalheritage and welfare system – had all vanished. The many distinguished Anglican pro-

testers at the dissolution included Elizabeth

I’s historian William Camden, the seven-teenth-century antiquarian WilliamDugdale, Samuel Coleridge, Jane Austen,and the early nineteenth-century radicalWilliam Cobbett, whose History of theProtestant Reformation remains the mostpowerful of the many indictments of whatmany called the “rape” of England: “Nothinghas ever yet come”, he wrote, “to supply theplace of what was then destroyed.”One particular sixteenth-century writer,

who writes in the same tones of indignationand grief as Cobbett, uses Glendinning’s termfor the perpetrators in his “Lucrece”, an alle-gorical poem about the wreckage of England.They are opportunists. “Oh Opportunity”,begins one agonised passage, “Thy guilt isgreat … thou mak’st the vestal violate her oath… Thou plantest scandal and displacest laud… The poor, lame, blind, halt, creep, cry outfor thee, / But they ne’er meet withOpportunity.” Strikingly, the poet also chooses the image

of a violated woman, innocent but over-whelmed by shame at her own submission,as his emblematic victim of the takeover. Afterher rape, belatedly, like Mary Amor, Lucrecekills herself; a mirror throughout of the soulof England, her dead body is compared to “alate-sacked island”. Appalled onlookers denythat she is a suicide: she is a witness to a greatwrong, and they vow to avenge her.

THE WRITER OF this long, barely read poem,is William Shakespeare. Had it been anyoneelse, the allegory might have been picked upby modern scholars, and would have led tothe detection of similar allegories behind sim-ilarly neglected narrative poems written inthe 1590s by his contemporaries. But theunshakeable mantra is that Shakespeare neverwrote allegory. As a result, his oddly ramblingpoems remain all but unknown. Editors of the poems are at a loss to explain

why exactly Shakespeare wrote them, or whythese, not the plays, were the runaway best-sellers that first made his name. But if weread them with the portrait of a ravaged coun-try in mind, they become the most moving

examples of a school of care-fully veiled poetry thatflourished at the end ofElizabeth I’s reign, exploringthe fallout of what, to mostthinking people of the period,looked like a failed reforma-tion.Who were Lucrece’s

avengers? Scholars acknowl-edge that Shakespeare payshomage at several points to

the Earl of Essex – in fact, his single referenceto a living contemporary is to Essex, towardsthe end of Henry V. And the man to whomhe dedicated those bestselling poems wasEssex’s closest friend, the young Earl ofSouthampton. These are usually seen as slightly disap-

pointing patrons: Essex was an ambitiousfavourite whose populist power bid led himto the block, and Southampton was his extrav-


Shakespeare’ssecret history

The bestsellers which first made Shakespeare’s name were nothis plays but his poems, including a daring allegory lamenting thedissolution of the monasteries / By CLARE ASQUITH

William Shakespeare: veiled poetry thatexplores the fallout from a failed reformation

Within five years, not just the land andtreasure, but thelibraries, hospitals,and almshouses had all vanished

PHOTO: PA/DPA

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agantly foppish follower. But recent studiesreveal that Essex’s wide appeal was the resultof qualities rare among Tudor politicians –integrity, humanity, tolerance, statesmanship.Where Elizabeth’s regime had become abyword for corruption, Essex offered hope:political reform, an assured Scottish successionand an end to religious intolerance. Shakespeare’s “Venus and Adonis” and

“Lucrece”, written in the early 1590s, passion-ately promote the manifesto of this rising star.Under the veil of allegory, they voice the griev-ances of the late Elizabethan opposition, andclimax in a damning analysis of the causesand development of the English Reformation.The final scenario is daring: a charismaticleader denounces the tyranny that destroyedLucrece, and unites the mourners in a rousingcall for regime change.

PETER LAKE IS one of the current historianswho wonder why literary scholars fail to pur-sue the covert political levels in Shakespeare’swork. My first book, Shadowplay, built on apersistent but marginalised line of scholarship,claiming that, in response to censorship, asophisticated political commentary, some ofit intended for the court, underliesShakespeare’s plays, and indeed the plays andpoems of most of his contemporaries. But thewhole concept of a politically or, worse, reli-giously committed Shakespeare remainsanathema to literary scholars. It is only outsideacademic circles, in the world of popular cul-ture, that changes are afoot in the way weview these writers and their background. It is easy to mock our fondness for Tudor

escapism, but it may have generated a newgolden age of sixteenth-century fiction andcinema. Promisingly, the latest film aboutMary Queen of Scots is based on a ground-breaking biography by John Guy, a leadingscholar who is still doing much to dismantlemany of the old Tudor myths.

VICTORIA GLENDINNING has rightly over-turned the current convention that thedissolution was a regrettable but necessaryact. Publishers and directors are beginningto capitalise on the dramatic potential of analternative, revisionist version of the EnglishReformation that has been sidelined and evenburied for centuries. If the picture Cobbett painted of the tragic

national impact of a monumental act of injus-tice does indeed enter mainstream for thefirst time, then the works of Shakespeare, adefining element in the way we English seeourselves and our own history, may at lastyield up his forgotten commentary on theunfolding drama of his own times.

Clare Asquith, the Countess of Oxford andAsquith, is the author of Shadowplay: TheHidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of WilliamShakespeare. Her latest book, Shakespeareand the Resistance: The Earl of Southampton,the Essex Rebellion, and the Poems thatChallenged Tudor Tyranny is published thisweek by Public Affairs at £21.99 (Tabletprice, £19.79).


advent Meditation / and hope was made flesh

In thecourse of excavation work in ancientbasilicas, archaeologists exercise patience,allied to a calm sense of hope. At first, only

a glimmer of what lies beneath may bepossible; then, with painstaking work, earlybaptisteries or a relic of post-baptismalcatechesis in the form of a fresco may berevealed.

The tenacity of scientific research and thekeen desire to reveal history’s treasures, joinedto the intrepid hope that what is unearthedwill inspire, drive the search forward.

Karl Rahner observed that “the past canonly be preserved in its purity by someonewho accepts responsibility for the future”. Thetask of being “missionary disciples” – in PopeFrancis’ resonant phrase – is one we arecapable of, not least because of the valuablelegacy of the witness of those who have gonebefore us along this path.

John of Salisbury put it like this: “We aresitting on the shoulders of giants. We seemore, and things that are more distant, thanthey did, not because our sight is superior orbecause we are taller, but because they raiseus up, and by their great stature add to ours.”

That valuable legacy also includes theremarkable course of Christian theology andinstruction found in Paul’s letters. Paul is not inthe least interested in any of the biographicaldetails of Jesus’ childhood, apart from notinghis descent from David “according to the flesh”(Romans 1:3). His teaching has a specific focus:“Being found in human form … he becameobedient to the point of death – even deathon a cross. Therefore God also highly exaltedhim …” (Philippians 2:8). The gateway to a newmanner of living was opened for humanity bythe sacrifice of Calvary. All other particulars ofJesus’ life are irrelevant to Paul’s purpose aspreacher and catechist.

Other writers of course did share stories ofJesus’ childhood years, right back to infancy.Some of these were judged too fanciful to betaken seriously or merit entry into the Church’ssacred library of books; others were admitted,among them Luke’s narrative theology. Histext presents a genealogy of Jesus and tells ofMary learning she was to be the mother ofhim who would be “great”.

Those who are dedicated to the welfare ofchildren seek to provide an environment andclimate that will enable each and every one ofthem to grow and learn in safety, perhapsbecoming as amazing as the boy fromNazareth who went missing in a big city andwas later found engaging Temple scholars inJerusalem with wisdom far beyond his years.

A child’s growth to maturity involvesgetting to know themselves and the worldabout them. The hope is that each will beenabled to grow in the bosom of his or herown family.

The strength and will to care for all who arevulnerable, children and adults, comes, in adisciple’s credo, from what Newman termed “ahigher gift than grace”. That gift from aboveturns out to be the one who is our childhood’spattern. God among us, God vulnerable in thisworld of flesh.

He it was who, as an adult under arrest,freed our minds and hearts to honour oncemore and respect all life, our own and that ofeach of God’s children. The sacrifice of Calvary,that fatal yet life-giving culmination of theBethlehem event, inaugurated a savingpathway for all who would set out on thejourney.

Thomas McCarthy OP is a Dominicanpriest of the Irish Province and Prior of San Clemente, Rome.

In the first of our reflections for Advent, Thomas McCarthy OP reminds usthat our vision is only possible because we sit on the shoulders of giants

ILLUSTRATION: CATHERINE PAIN

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features / The Laudato si’ effect


MICHAEL GOVE is a changed man.It may not be entirely obvious topolitical commentators, and if hiswife, the journalist Sarah Vine,

has noticed, she’s not making a big thing ofit. But it became evident to me last week whenhe delivered the 2018 Theos lecture. His choiceof subject – “When will there be a harvest forthe world?” – was fitting for a politician whoreturned to the Cabinet six months ago assecretary of state for environment, food andrural affairs speaking at the annual beano ofa highly respected Christian think-tank. Andwhat – or who – sparked this unexpected con-version? In part, at least, none other thanPope Francis. It is dangerous to put human beings into

neat categories, protean politicians in partic-ular. But as a rough guide we could say thereare those who work in a “both … and” sort ofway, and there are the “either … or” types.Margaret Thatcher – who was never afraidof confrontation –belonged in the latter camp;the more naturally emollient David Cameronwas made for the “both ... and” variety of pol-itics, which is where he ended up. It’s hard toimagine Mrs Thatcher leading a coalitiongovernment. Mr Gove, in his previously most visible

incarnation, as education secretary in thecoalition government between 2010 and 2014,was an “either … or” man through andthrough. He relished his battles with the “theBlob”, as he would call his opponents in theeducational establishment, but in the end

there was so much blood on the carpet thatCameron had to move him. Two years laterGove nailed his colours to the Brexit mast,thereby playing a part in the demise ofCameron that the Leave vote precipitated.He ran for the Tory party leadership but con-ceded to Theresa May who last year – to hissurprise – invited him to be environment sec-retary. He was back in the Cabinet, but if hesaw this job as a stepping stone to greaterthings he kept the plan well hidden, masteringhis new brief with characteristic diligence.And so a papal encyclical on “the care for cre-ation” – Laudato Si’ – found its way to hisbedside table. He spent nearly half of his lec-ture last Thursday discussing it.Gove’s lecture was characterised above all

by inclusivity. He did take a swipe at the con-temporary tendency to believe the phrase“That offends me” counts as an argument –though the swipe was delivered so elegantlythat professional victims may not have noticed.“Dissent, scepticism, challenge, even whenoffensive to some, are essential to keepingour politics healthy,” he pointed out, with rel-ative mildness. But he went on to name checkGordon Brown, Frank Field and the ProphetMuhammad, among others, as people whohave brought something to the table in currentdebates about the environment. Pride of place,though, in terms of environmental prophets,went to Francis, who in Laudato Si’has, Govetold his audience, written “one of the mostcomprehensive and thoughtful expositionsof Christian thinking on the environment”.Francis was praised for defending the Earth –which needs defending given that it is – and

here Gove approved of Francis’ arrestingimage – beginning to look more and more“like an immense rubbish heap”.Pope Francis was saluted for the idea in the

encyclical that the way forward for humanityis to help both the poor and the planet simul-taneously. “Pope Francis makes the point thatwe are not faced with two separate crisesafflicting the environment and society. Rather,the world is facing a single complex crisis.The solution, he believes, must be to combatpoverty and restore dignity to the underpriv-ileged at the same time [Gove’s emphasis] asprotecting nature.”

“THAT INSIGHT – I believe – is fundamental,”Gove went on. Pope Francis’ “both … and”strategy clearly had an immense appeal forGove. And in the later part of his lecture hespelled it out most explicitly. He referred tothe book, The Wizard and the Prophet: Tworemarkable scientists and their conflictingvisions of the future of our planet, by the “bril-liant American writer”, Charles Mann. Manndiscusses the achievements of two little-knownbut influential American scientists, WilliamVogt and Norman Borlaug. The philosophyof Vogt – “the Prophet” – was all about prop-erly valuing Creation: nature’s preciousresources needed protection from man’s rapac-ity. Borlaug – “the Wizard” – on the otherhand believed that humanity can use reasonto find solutions to the daunting problems offeeding the hungry. Borlaug’s work on increasing crop yields

is credited with saving a billion lives in thedeveloping world. So – do we acknowledgeour dependence on nature or seek to assertmastery over it? “Faced with these two pow-erful and contending visions,” Gove argued,“the wisest way forward rests in harnessingthe best of both … the via media I think weshould follow is not a splitting down the mid-dle of these arguments, but a radical fusion… If as Christians we believe Creation is agift we must preserve,” he concluded, “thenwe also believe creativity is a gift we mustuse to the full.”

WHAT DOES ALL this tell us about the stateof mind of Cabinet member Michael Gove atthis critical point in the history of the nation?As well as being blessed with a razor-sharpintellect we know he carries a stiletto up hissleeve – as was revealed when he turned onBoris Johnson on the morning his Oxfordchum was to launch his Tory party leadershipcampaign. “There is a very deep pit reservedin Hell for such as he,” one Johnson ally


The new face of Michael Gove

Could the Pope’s ‘care for Creation’ encyclical be helping to stiffen the resolve of the man charged byTheresa May with saving the planet? The politician engaged with the crisis facing both the environmentand society in his recent Theos lecture – and saluted Francis for his insight / By JAMES ROBERTS

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tweeted at the time. Last week Gove mightwell have brought Mrs May down by quittingthe Cabinet. But he seems to have decidedthat his future – and the country’s – was bestserved by his staying. The moment was notripe for bringing down the prime minister.But that moment may come before long. The last time Gove put himself forward for

the Conservative Party leadership, before con-ceding to Mrs May, he spoke of glamour andcharisma. “I did almost everything not to bea candidate for the leadership of this party,”he said in 2016. “I was so very reluctantbecause I know my limitations. Whatevercharisma is, I don’t have it … whatever glam-our may be, I don’t think anyone could everassociate me with it.”But Gove knows that celebrity endorse-

ments can be toxic, as Hillary Clintondiscovered. And this month in Texas,Hollywood favourite Beto O’Rourke lost tothe charmless and unloved Ted Cruz. As forcharisma, Gove knows it doesn’t cut the mus-tard with the wised-up UK electorate, andon the rare occasions voters have fallen forit, most have come to regret it.This is not faux humility, and it is not unap-

pealing. Gove really does agonise about issuesand motives, including his own. There is noreason why this trait should not accompanyan implacable ambition to one day reach thetop of the greasy pole Gove has slid downmore than once, though never fatally.

I SAW MICHAEL GOVE in 2010 during thevisit of Pope Benedict XVI to Britain. He wasjust starting out as education secretary andthe Pope was delivering an outdoor addresson education to a group of young people atSt Mary’s University, Twickenham. Lord(Chris) Patten, who had overseen the arrange-ments for the visit, and Michael Gove weresitting directly in front of me. At the end ofthe address Patten got up to leave. Gove stayedin his seat. Patten turned and gestured toGove to follow. Gove scuttled after him, as ifPatten was the boss. Today Patten is doinggood work in the House of Lords. Gove is oneof a handful of men and women who holdthe future of the country in their hands.Some voices from both sides of the debate

are characterising Theresa May’s currentBrexit deal as a capitulation to Brussels. Sheis trying to sell it as an “either … or” option– this deal or nothing. At the moment theodds seem to be heavily stacked against herpushing it through Parliament. Perhaps thetime is right, then, for a Brexiteer who haslately discovered the merits of “both … and”instead of “either … or” solutions. It could bethat Gove will deliver the stiletto at just theright moment, and then –with judicious com-promises and accommodations but noChequers-style fudges – somehow pull a Brexitthe majority can live with out of the bag. Andif he does, Pope Francis could take more thana little share of the credit.

A transcript of Michael Gove’s lecture isavailable on the Theos website atwww.theosthinktank.co.uk


Yes, boring people, Christianitydid itself co-opt the wintersolstice, observed by pagans

NEIL MACGREGOR,known as the DavidAttenborough of Thingssince his History of theWorld in 100 Objects and

specifically of Religious Things sincehis Living with the Gods, said in aninterview that the popularity ofChristmas is indeed proof thatChristianity still infuses the culture. Allthat giving and goodwill.True up to a point. But the problem

with secular society appropriating aChristian festival is that it ends upspoiling it. And yes, boring people,Christianity did itself co-opt the wintersolstice, observed by pagans, as thetime to celebrate the Nativity of theLord, though the date of 25 Decemberwas never the focal point of paganfestivities, including the Roman festivalof Saturnalia.Anyway, the problem about the

secular Christmas is that its celebrationnegates the whole point of theChristian one. It starts too early andfinishes too early. By starting too early,with celebrations from the latter part ofNovember, it rides roughshod overAdvent, which is meant to start now.And by finishing on 2 January itimposes a penitential regime – heard ofthe Dry January abomination? – rightin the middle of the Christmasfestivities which carry on to a crescendowith the Epiphany.There is only so much we can do

about it. I mean, am I actually going toboycott parties on the basis they shouldproperly happen between the eveningof the 24 December and 6 January? Iam not. But we can at least, onChristian turf, preserve the idea ofAdvent. That means, folks, not havingChristmas school fairs, but Advent fairs– like they used to in Germany. And itmeans not having full-on Christmascarol concerts but Advent carolservices: rather less “Hark the Herald”,a bit more “O Come, O ComeEmmanuel”. (Mind you, a few yearsback, I heard two womendisconsolately remark as they left oneAdvent service that there were noproper carols.) It’s being counter-cultural. But that’s what we do.And at the other end of the season, I

need hardly say that we carry on in fullfestive mode right through toEpiphany, with a particularly goodparty on Twelfth Night, the vigil of the

Epiphany. Some of us will carry on infestive mode right until Candlemas.Anyway … the next bona fideopportunities for celebration are StLucy’s Day – an opportunity for goingthe whole Scandinavian hog, withsaffron buns – and St Nicholas’ Day,complete with presents in children’sshoes in the morning. God knows,when Christians want to celebrate, wecan always find an excuse.

A BIT DISPIRITING, isn’t it, that theway officialdom discourages youngpeople from hanging around in stationsis by playing classical music to them.Last night, at Hammersmith tubestation, I heard the haunting sound ofSchubert’s “Ave Maria”, which I used tosing once. Now it’s being used as crowdclearance. Wouldn’t happen anywhereelse in Europe, I fancy.

CAN’T MAKE it to Santiago deCompostela to see the Pórtico de laGloria of the cathedral, the one withrather brilliant monsters on the pillarsdevouring the lost souls? No problem.Try South Kensington in Londoninstead. The second gallery of the Cast Courts at the Victoria and AlbertMuseum has opened after a decade ofrefurbishment and the treasuresinclude that portico. It was one of the earliest acquisitions of the cast collection.When the museum’s first curator,

John Charles Robinson, visitedSantiago, he was bowled over by theportal and insisted South Kensingtonshould have a replica so that lots morepeople could see it. And so a cast wasmade and taken from Galicia toLondon, where it now sits a few stepsaway from Trajan’s Column and withina few feet of some terrific Celtic crossesincluding a reproduction of theRuthwell Cross, with the “Dream of theRood” inscribed around it. Of course these things are not seen in

their proper settings and there’s a riotof competing pieces, but isn’t it apt thatthings that are objects of pilgrimageshould themselves go onpilgrimage to meet thepeople? In a way it’s oneof the functions ofreligious art.

Melanie McDonagh is senior writer forthe London Evening Standard.

MELANIE McDONAGH’S NOTEBOOK

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features / The tablet Interview

FOR GENERATIONS of Catholics, anAmpleforth education was seen notjust as the best money could buy, butalso a priceless gift to their children

that would set them up for their future life.That is why the parents of award-winningradio phone-in host and sometime Newsnightpresenter James O’Brien sent him there at13. His dad, Jim, a journalist with The DailyTelegraph, had left school at 15 and, O’Briensuggests, saw making sacrifices to send hisboy to Ampleforth “as a way of giving me thegolden ticket he never had”.And, in many ways, he was proved right.At 46, O’Brien has risen to the top, startingout with shifts at the Daily Express and thenbecoming a “showbiz” editor on what we usedto call Fleet Street before switching to broad-casting. He has been presenting a livephone-in show since 2003 on LBC, where –since the station went nationwide four yearsago – his weekday morning slot now attractsan audience of one million.High-profile phone-ins are usually associ-ated in the public mind with an overtlyconservative/populist/controversialist outlook

on the world. Among others on the LBC rosterare Nigel Farage and Nick Ferrari, but O’Brienis, in the words of the New Statesman, “theshock jock that liberals love”. His principledtakedowns of pompous politicians and dog-matic callers regularly go viral on social media,so much so that an irritated Sun editoriallabelled him a “leftie propagandist”.It is a tag he doesn’t like. “I believe in acommonwealth, a society that has a stableeconomy and rules in place to make sure thepoorest people in that society don’t sufferunduly,” he says. “And that means redistrib-ution of wealth, which you can cast asleft-wing, but I’d call it decent and fair, andChristian.”

We are meant to be talking about his newbook. How To Be Right … in a world gonewronghas shot straight into the pre-Christmasbestsellers’ chart, but it is Ampleforth that isuppermost in his mind. “My personal journey,”he tells me, in private gentler and more hes-itant than his public persona, “was informedvery much by going to Ampleforth. The dis-covery I made there that men of the cloth

could be deeply, deeply flawed was very dif-ficult.”He recalls, in particular, “a couple of themonks who were so profoundly unpleasantthat they shook everything up for me. I’d onlyever attended Catholic schools before that[he was raised in Kidderminster, inWorcestershire] and I’d never really ques-tioned it. But these monks had not onlyscholastic authority but also divine authority.That is what we were told, that they had beenchosen by God to be monks.” It was a claim that the teenaged O’Brienstruggled to reconcile with the monks’ behav-iour. Even at that age, he was evidently onefor probing what was presented to him as factwhen it didn’t ring true – a trait nurtured byhis “wonderful” parents, who had adoptedhim and his sister when they were babies. He left Ampleforth at 18 – “under a cloud”and slightly earlier than planned after beingcaught smoking cannabis, something that,he says, broke his parents’ hearts. Its imme-diate legacy was a decade where he was“furiously anti-religion and furiously irreli-gious. I realise now it was because of theAmpleforth experience, rather than any senseof enlightenment, or conversion. It wasbecause I couldn’t disassociate the Churchfrom the men at the school.” Falling in love with fellow journalist Lucy

JAMES O’BRIEN

12 | THE TABLET | 1 DECEMBER 2018 For more features, news, analysis and comment, visit www.thetablet.co.uk

Shock jock for the truthThe outspoken radio host talks to Peter Stanford about the clericalabuse scandal – and explains why he is holding on to his faith

12-14_Tablet01Dec18Stanford O'Brien Hennessy USE.qxp_Tablet features spread 11/27/18 2:20 PM Page 6

McDonald prompted a rethink. “I wanted usto get married in a Catholic church, and thenI had a crisis of conscience. ‘You can’t,’ I toldmyself, ‘You’re a hypocrite’.” The timely intervention of two nuns whowere listeners to his show put him straight.“They had written in and asked if I wantedto meet up for a cup of tea because I had obvi-ously been sharing some of my soul-searchingon the radio. I hadn’t been to church for along time, but they took me to meet theirparish priest in west London. Together theymade me realise that it was the people whohad put me off, not the faith or the actual reli-gion. It was the start of the journey back.”

NOT ALL OF IT has been smooth. After theirchurch wedding (Lucy was an Anglican), thecouple had two daughters, Elizabeth andSophia, and the question of Baptism cameup. “My dad, who is not with us anymore, wasvery adamant about Baptism, and I was stilla little bit, ‘Shall I, or shan’t I?’” Again fateintervened. “I had started going to churchagain and then we moved to Chiswick. Therewas a lovely parish priest there who spoke tome in such a human way about everythingthat finally I got rid of the last vestiges of theauthoritarianism of Ampleforth.” Unlike many other public figures who eitherkeep schtum about being churchgoers – “wedon’t do God,” as Alastair Campbell famouslysaid of his boss, Prime Minister Tony Blair,in 2003 – or insist that it is a private matter(the current occupant of 10 Downing Street,a vicar’s daughter, among them), O’Brien hasnever been one to hide his light under a bushel.“I do describe myself as a Christian,” he wrotein a recent tweet to his 400,000 followers.“You’re welcome to mock!”Both the language of religion – “soul” and“conscience” crop up regularly in How To BeRight … – and churchgoing are, he says, justpart of who he is and how he sees the world.Among the chapters in the book are onesexamining “Islam and Islamism” and reli-giously-inspired homophobia. The pointO’Brien is making in both is that inaccurateor bigoted views about faith should not gounchallenged in a world awash with “fakenews” and prejudice trading as gospel.

SO HE TAKES to task callers claiming divinesupport for their viewpoints with his owndetailed knowledge of what the Qur’an andthe New Testament actually say. “It robs themof one of their more insidious weapons, thatthey say it because God said it. My approachis, ‘Let’s have a look at exactly what God saidabout this’.”Which requires knowledge. He is, he says,a reader of the Gospels. “Winning arguments,”though, “is something I learnt at school, withmonks who were citing the Bible as an author-ity for things I didn’t think were fair.Homosexuality was one of the earliest exam-ples. It was so anathema in my days atAmpleforth, and so denigrated, so I wrote forthe school mag I edited about what Jesus didor didn’t say about it.” He was summoned by


From the ORIGINS OF ISRAEL to the fall of the OTTOMAN EMPIRE

The Oxford Illustrated History of the Holy Land Edited by Robert G. Hoyland and H. G. M. Williamson

13 September 2018 | £30.00 | 141 illustrations

CONTINUED ON PAGE 14



the acting head. “We had an argument aboutthe Gospels. His frustration was palpable. Hebanned the whole magazine.”This long-ago story has a happy ending.“Cardinal Hume came back as guest of honourfor ‘exhibition’ weekend,” O’Brien recalls, “andhe was instrumental in making sure my mag-azine was unbanned. He seemed a good egg.”So another who reinforced his faith? O’Brien replies that he prefers to talk ofhope rather than faith. “The parting of theRed Sea for Moses, or the loaves and fishesand feeding the 5,000 aren’t bridges I wouldbe prepared to die on … But you take whateverbridge you can find. And, for me, religion hasalways been a very bounteous source of good-ness and guidance.”

THERE IS also, he admits, a “slightly cynical”side to being out of the closet about religion.“It freaks people out because too many publicfigures in this country conflate being Christianwith right-wing politics. People associatebeing Catholic with Jacob Rees-Mogg, AnnWiddecombe and Iain Duncan Smith, whojustify their own bigotry with their faith. Sothat is why I made a decision a few years agoto stand up and say, ‘I go to church’.”But, recently, he says, it has been every otherweek rather than every Sunday. The reason?Back to Ampleforth. In August, when theIndependent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abusepublished a report about the “appalling” abuseinflicted at Ampleforth over decades on chil-dren as young as seven, O’Brien tackled thesubject in his phone-in show with callers whohad been victims of sexual abuse. He drewon his memories of being there and was leftin tears at the suffering inflicted on children. “I didn’t become aware of the full extent ofwhat went on at Ampleforth until I read thatreport,” says O’Brien. “I knew who some ofthe unnamed monks mentioned in it are,some of the ones who are only given code-names because no charges were ever brought.And it makes my skin crawl to think aboutwhat they were up to under our noses.”

WHAT ANGERS HIMmost is the cover-up. “Itis too often about protecting the guilty andnot thinking about the victims. All institutionsdo it, from schools to companies to univer-sities. But if you are going to expect anyinstitution to behave differently, it would bea religious one. Yet in many ways the Churchhas been among the worst offenders, fromthe Vatican down.”His horror will resonate with manyCatholics, as will how he is going forward.“What I say is that I will not allow those incharge of this collusion and cover-up, whoare not representative of anything except theirown foul deeds, to deprive me of the comfortof prayer, and from reading the Gospels. Iwon’t let them take that off me, but it can bequite hard to hold on to it.”

How To Be Right … in a world gone wrongby James O’Brien is published by WH Allenat £12.99 (Tablet price, £11.69).

A seasoned Westminster figure sensed ‘there may be agnu’ lurking in the Commons

“We’ve become like anemerging economycountry where when thePrime Minister coughsthe currency wobbles.”

So said my friend the seasonedpolitico-financial journalist onThursday 22 November as we took abite to eat while waiting for Mrs May tomake her statement in the House ofCommons on the “Political Declarationsetting out the framework for thefuture relationship between theEuropean Union and the UnitedKingdom”.The company that employs my friendhas instant, constant and global reach.His remark made me think that themultiple, molten uncertainties inwhich we have lived since thereferendum of June 2016 have left thewhole country living in a kind offloating exchange rate not just withEurope and the rest of the world butwithin the UK too. It certainly feelslike that as I write this on the Sundaymorning when the European Council“endorsed” both the withdrawalagreement and the politicaldeclaration.By the time you read this it ispossible, but unlikely, that Mrs Maywill be facing a confidence vote of herown MPs if the number of letters to thechairman of the Conservative Party’s1922 Committee has reached 48. If not,the concentration will henceforth fallupon the UK’s internal political marketand the build up to the “meaningfulvote” now expected in the House ofCommons on 11 December.The outcome is unreadable. Theparliamentary arithmetic looksimmensely difficult for the PrimeMinister. Her party is fractured as, in alesser degree, is her Cabinet. TheDemocratic Unionist Party, uponwhose votes she relies for her workingparliamentary majority, are adamantlyagainst the Northern Ireland“backstop”. Their support is normallycrucial to Mrs May’s ability tocommand the House of Commons. Can the PM bring a cohort of LabourMPs to her side? A seasonedWestminster figure told me he sensed“there may be a gnu” lurking in theCommons chamber. What did hemean? A de facto government ofnational unity that would not speak its

own name but would come togetherjust for this and then melt away. Nobody knows. What is certain isthat 11 December will be a greatparliamentary occasion – theCommons fulfilling its classic functionas the “grand inquest of the nation”, touse the venerable term. Whatever theoutcome, a deep line will have beenscored across a page of British history.The Commons ProcedureCommittee, chaired by theConservative MP Charles Walker, hasproduced a set of options for how thegovernment’s motion and theamendments to it might be crafted. Inmy view, every part of the spectrum ofopinion on Brexit should feel that ithas had its moment in the House ofCommons, for Europe is a powerfulgenerator of grievance politics.As Parliament girds itself for themoment – and the House of Commonschamber is the right place for our greatnational showdowns – thoughts haveflickered back to the key vote on theprinciple of “Brentry”. It took place on28 October 1971, after a six-day debateon the deal secured by the HeathGovernment. Roy Jenkins led 68 fellowLabour MPs into the lobby in supportof the government and in defiance ofthe Labour Whip, to give Ted Heath amajority of 112.Heath said, with reason, this wasthe greatest moment of his politicallife. He did not show his emotion inpublic; in private, just occasionally, hedid. After the vote he went back toNumber 10 with his closest associates.He sat them down and took to hisclavichord to play the First Preludefrom Book 1 of J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Then thecelebrations began.If Mrs May wins the most importantvote of her premiership (and I thinkshe just might), what sound willresonate throughNumber 10 that night?She has a taste for Abba.How about “Waterloo”?Another victory won inBrussels and itsenvirons.

Peter Hennessy is Attlee Professor ofContemporary British History at QueenMary University of London and anindependent crossbench peer.

PETER HENNESSY’S THE LION AND THE UNICORN

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13



PUZZLES

Across7 One of the gifts presented in the Bethlehem stable (5)8 The -------, name by which Mendelssohn’s Fourth Symphony isknown (7) 10 A shelf supporting panels or designs behind an altar (7)11 Goethe character who sold his soul to the devil (5)12 The particularly special veneration due to the BlessedVirgin Mary (10)16 Venetian painter of the Rococo era specialising in landscapes (10)20 Arthur -----, English composer of Prayer to St Francis and TheInfant Jesus in the Tabernacle (5)21 State in Canada whose largest city is Calgary (7)23 The printed reports of debates in Parliament (7)24 See 4 Down (5)

Down1 Name of an album by tenor Andrea Bocelli, meaning “love” (5)

2 William Powell -----, very successful Victorian painter of DerbyDay and The Railway Station (5)3 In the O.T., King of Israel and husband of Jezebel (4)4 & 24 Acr: Statement of belief in the Mass named after the Councilof 325 (6,5) 5 One of many Wordsworth saw all at once (8)6 Codes or set ways of performing ceremonies (7)9 Prophet who advised and rebuked King David (6)

13 In the style of an Irish poet and Nobel Prize (1923) winner (8)14 Mother of King Jehoshaphat in the O.T. (6) 15 Genus of animals including the spiny anteater (7)17 Christe ------ nos, (Christ graciously hear us) Litany of Loretoresponse (6)18 Peer Gynt composer whose works include Ave Maris Stella (5) 19 Composer who ordered his Symphony No. 44 to be played at hisown funeral (5)22 Johann Christian ----, composer of much church music, R.C.convert, died London 1782 (4)

SUDOKU | Beginner

50 years ago

Please send your answers to:Crossword Competition 1 DecemberThe Tablet, 1 King Street Cloisters, Clifton Walk, London W6 0GY.Please include your full name, telephone number and email address,and a mailing address. Three books – on Paul, Theology andChristian Ethics – from the OUP’s Very Short Introduction series willgo to the sender of the first correct entry drawn at random on Friday14 December.l The answers to this week’s puzzles and the crossword winner’sname will appear in the 22/29 December Christmas double issue.Solution to the 10 November crossword No. 633Across: 1 Baltic; 5 Chant; 8 Plain; 9 Pancras; 10 Laid; 11 Pastiche;13 Knell; 14 Epoch; 19 Cabochon; 21 Gulf; 23 Initial; 24 Avila; 25 Siren;26 Trench. Down: 2 Arabian; 3 Tuna; 4 Cephas; 5 Cenotaph; 6 Auric;7 Tasked; 8 Palm; 12 Election; 15 Cluniac; 16 Scrips; 17 Job Lot; 18 Offa;20 Briar; 22 Bare.Winner: Dr Gregory Porilo, of Tooting, south-west London.

FROM THE ARCHIVE

“East is East and West isWest and never the twain

shall meet,” said Kipling, butmiracles happen in theChristian Church. Can theEastern Orthodox and theCatholics unite? Centuries ofmisunderstanding divide them,but after the three encountersbetween Pope Paul andPatriarch Athenagoras,spiritual leader of theOrthodox, hope springs that theanswer may be “yes”.

Miss Helle Georgiadis,honorary secretary of the

The great work for theunification of catechetical

instruction throughout theCatholic world is to bepostponed for the present. Agood deal has already beendone. Fr Roderick McKeachen,D.D., an American priest whohas specialised for many years inthis branch of study and work,has been busy at the Vatican forsome time now, layingfoundations, collecting and co-ordinating texts of practically allexisting catechisms, andgenerally preparing the ground.

THE TABLET • 30 NOVEMBER 1968

100 years agoTHE TABLET • 30 NOVEMBER 1918

But the project which the HolyFather has in mind goes farbeyond the preparation of justone common, simple“catechism”, or text. It is“catechetical teaching” that is inquestion, and that, whenextended to cover all that can becovered by the term, forms asbig a subject as the codificationof canon law – in some waysbigger. The ground. then,having been prepared, it hasbeen thought wise to postponefor the present the carrying intoaction of the scheme.

Society of St John Chrysostom,will be talking about this nextMonday at the Van Zuyt Centre,in Arlington Road, London …Her talk starts at 8.15, and therewill be time for questions anddiscussion afterwards. Forthose who only know the LatinWest, the spirit of Orthodoxyoften proves elusive: MissGeorgiadis is well able to be aguide between the two, for sheis one of those who have madethe unusual spiritual journeyfrom the Orthodox to theCatholic Church.

PRIZE CROSSWORDNo. 636 | Alanus

Each 3x3 box, each row and each column must contain all the numbers 1 to 9.

Solution to the 10 November puzzle

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1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 6

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15_Tablet01Dec18 Archive Puzzles.qxp_Tablet features spread 11/27/18 2:27 PM


THE JUXTAPOSITION OF your twoeditorials on Brexit and the First WorldWar (17 November) reawoke in me theshame I’ve felt being English in the face ofBrexit. Yes, we have to pray that those whodied in the First World War did not die invain. I’d say also for those like my greatuncle Johnny. I’m now 70 and I rememberJohnny when I was a child. Johnny lost halfhis face in the war and lived in a sort ofseclusion with his sister, great aunt Katy,who lost her man in that same war.But then there was my dad in the Second

World War. He died 30 years before mymother, I think because of ill healthresulting from his experience fighting andbeing a prisoner of war. I value my time in Brussels, working

alongside the EU institutions that RobertSchuman, Jean Monnet et al. constructedto forestall future war. We have to do morethan pray, but act for peace where we can. I was there to lobby for change. But those

who I worked for considered it worthlobbying the EU in order to get justrelations with Africa. We English don’tthink it worth lobbying, hence Brexit.MARGARET CLARK SNDLIVERPOOL

THE OUTCOME OF THE referendum was anarrow one, to leave by 52 per cent to 48per cent. Does not the agreement arrived atbetween the UK and EU after over twoyears of negotiation show a careful, andunifying, respect for that specific outcome? One side, the Leavers, get what they voted

for, namely departure from the EU, andother measures too. But the agreementkeeps the UK much closer to Europe thanthey wish it to be – to the extent that someBrexiteers consider the deal a betrayal. Yet, while it respects the outcome of the

referendum – which democratically itshould – does not the agreement keep theUK very close to the EU in most importantrespects, not least trade and cooperation inthe key processes? Our cooperation withthe EU remains very close, such as noRemainer could have dreamt of.In other words, is not this agreement

respectful of the people’s vote to leave, as itshould be, yet gives more consideration tothe wishes of those who voted remain thanthey most likely ever expected. Is it not aunifying outcome? In the interests of stability and unity,

should not parliament now show respectfor it and vote for it?MICHAEL KNOWLESCONGLETON, CHESHIRE

ONE OF THE CURIOUS features of Brexit isthat three of its most zealous advocates areBill Cash, Iain Duncan Smith and JacobRees-Mogg – all, I believe, practisingRoman Catholics. In view of 400 years ofour post-Reformation history, I have alwaysthought that British Catholics should enjoyan instinctive cultural sympathy withcontinental Europe. What a shame this triois so hostile to the EU.PATRICK BENNETTPYRFORD, SURREY

Can we resolve divisions over Brexit?TOPIC OF THE WEEK

Celebret opens doors l Your report (News briefingfrom Britain and Ireland, 24November) on the issuing ofidentity cards for priests toreplace the traditional celebretindicates that the wording willbe in English. The only times Ihave been asked for a celebret isin other countries. May Isuggest that the wording alsobe available in Latin, tofacilitate use abroad? Or willclergy still have to apply for aLatin document?The old system seemed to

work well – one could alwaysverify a priest through a searchin the Catholic Directory and asimple Latin letter was easilyobtained. These days, when alldioceses plead poverty, it is awonder that money has beenfound for a commerciallyproduced scheme. I trust thesalesperson for the cards got agood bonus for selling this tothe poor bishops. (FR) JAMES CASSIDY DAVENTRY, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE

l Years ago in Florence I wentto a library and asked to see theCodex Amiatinus. They askedfor identification, but a Britishpassport did not impress them.Better was a document fromManchester University’s JohnRylands Library, but theclincher was a celebret in Latin,signed with a seal and callingfor a blessing for anyone whoassisted me in celebrating Masswhile on holiday. Two mencarried in the Codex Amiatinusand I spent hours drooling overthis wonderful manuscript fromthe Anglo-Saxon renaissance.JOHN P. MARMIONUPTON, WILTSHIRE

System of violence l The elephant in the room ofabuse in the Church is violence.My experience is that much ofthe sexual abuse was justanother symptom (“Smiles thatmask dark secrets”, 24November). At 12 I was sent2,000 miles to boarding schoolin South Africa. As a well-brought-up child from a lovinghome I was stunned by thevicious punishment meted out

by the brothers for the slightestthing, usually a hard slap acrossthe head or being hit by themetallic edge of an 18-inchruler. On occasion, I alsoreceived a dozen lashes with aleather cane, like many others.This fomented a culture of

violence among the boarders.There was seldom a week thatpassed where some of theyounger boys like me were notslapped across the face orhumiliated, especially if you hadsome academic prowess. There was some mild sexual

abuse, which the boys called“interfering”; but my view isthat it was merely an extensionof the violence from terrible

men who had us at their mercy.And, yes, it has had an impacton me. To this day, 60 years later, I

am unable to stand up formyself, although I will fightfiercely for others. Something isbroken in me; a successful,well-liked man with a lovingfamily, who believes thatnothing I do will ever reallywork out well, and whopathetically still longs forsomeone to stand up for me. This hope is the legacy of the

power without responsibilitywhich the Church has handedto its clergy. I think there aremany men who will be able toidentify with my experience.

The only thing left untouched ismy love for Jesus Christ.NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELD

Gentle hand of GodlWe recently visited somefriends in a town where atyphoon had caused extensivelandslides and many deaths.The biggest loss was when morethan 30 people ran into a five-storey concrete governmentbuilding for safety, and thewhole mountainside slid away,bringing the structure down ontop of them. The local peoplewere in shock and mourning.Where nature’s fury had done

its worst, the gentle hand of

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.


16-17_Tablet01Dec18Letters.qxp_Tablet features spread 11/27/18 4:57 PM Page 2


LETTERS

God was there in its wake. Onlya few days had passed and mostof the townsfolk were helping tofind the dead and cleaning upthe town. The men dug, thewomen brought them food andwater. There were Novenaprayers in the homes of thedead attended by many andthere was worship and praise,thanksgiving and prayers formercy, for their loved ones. Asthey pulled together, the mercyof God soothed the weariness oftheir hearts.STEPHEN A. CLARKMANILA, PHILIPPINES

Canon law reform lHow disappointing thatClifford Longley should find itdifficult to put flesh on thebones of clericalism (Column,17 November). If he has beenwined and dined in presbyterykitchens he might recognisethat priests are often jealous oftheir territory and limit accessas far as possible on grounds ofsecurity and confidentiality. He makes the most ludicrous

assertion that “Catholic priestsdo not like being treated asspecial … they like to explainthemselves to anyone who willlisten”. What rubbish. He alsomuddies the waters of seriousdebate about clericalism byimplying that it is somehowrelevant to priestly involvementin the sexual abuse scandal. He characterises diocesan

curia as “humble foot soldiers

doing their best on a difficultwicket”. A more apt analogymight be that these curialofficials are undecided what thegame is and what, if any, rulesshould be applied. Canon law inrelation to parish governanceurgently needs to be reformedfor a post-clerical Church.FRANK CAMPBELLSOUTHAMPTON

Youthful illusions l Fr William Joseph (Letters,17 November) makes a cogentpoint when he urges that we “dowhat St Augustine and StThomas did … They took thecontemporary understanding ofthe world and projected on to itChristian values.”I would caution, however,

against any certainty that theoft-agonised-about “youngpeople” are automaticallyalienated by “a spirituality fromthe Middle Ages” and willautomatically return if variousaspects of contemporarywestern culture are adopted bythe Church. One need only lookat the various Protestantdenominations which haveembraced the “reasonableness”Fr Joseph lauds to see that thisis not a magic formula forrefilling the pews. Indeed, the“culture of modern science andinstant communications” is onecharacterised also bysuperficiality, quick-fixsolutions, loneliness andmimetic jealousy. Young people

are suffering record rates ofmental illness and alienation.The secular western world hasin many respects failed them.While the Church needs to

engage with the modern world,it needs to also remember thatit is always going to be at oddswith that world, always going tobe a countercultural force. SEAMUS SWEENEYCLONMEL, IRELAND

Arms and the manl Your report (News Briefingfrom Britain and Ireland, 24November) that the Diocese ofNottingham has apologisedafter Fr Frank Daly’sRemembrance Day homilyagainst the arms trade may bemisleading. Although somepeople were offended, probablyas many have stated theiragreement with him. Second,the diocese has apologised toanyone who was offended, butthat should not be taken asoffering any support to the UK’sinvolvement in selling arms tocountries with dubious humanrights’ records. (MGR) JOHN HADLEY LEICESTER

Fighting for peacel Those who defend thepeaceful intentions ofconscientious objectors shouldremember that the outcome ofthe world wars was far fromcertain. My grandfather was a

man of peace yet he joined thearmy at the start of the first war.In the second my father servedin the Royal Navy. They felt thattheir country needed defendingand were not prepared to letother men do the fighting whilethey promoted peace at home. CAROL KELLASSOUTH CROYDON, SURREY

Shortage of priestslWhen I read the headline“Catholic peer says Church maysoon welcome women priests”,(News from Britain andIreland, 3 November) I said“why not”. It would begin tosolve the problem for parisheswith no local priest andhospitals short of a chaplain. MURIEL CONFUEIPSWICH, SUFFOLK

Robots are the futurel In view of the Church’sinability to consider that anybaptised person could be calledby God to ordained ministry, isthe future the Mass beingoffered by a team of robotsoperated from a bishop-stationmiles away? ANN LARDEURCHALDON, SURREY

Correction: The photograph ofthe monk on the front cover ofthe 15 September issue wastaken by Richard McCamblyOCSO of St Joseph Abbey,Spencer, Massachusetts.

[The] Advent we keep is not apoetic make-believe, or anostalgic historical pageant, oreven an exercise inremembering our roots,although this might have value.The coming of God in Christ stillcontinues, and will beconsummated in a coming and agift beyond the stretch of ourhope. We are an Advent people.The season of Advent celebratesin symbolic form a reality of ourown lives and of all men’sdestiny with God, because hewho came in weakness inBethlehem is he who will come again.SISTER MARIA BOULDINGFROM THE COMING OF GOD (CANTERBURYPRESS, 2001)

A PRAYER FOR ADVENTAlmighty God,give us grace that we maycast away the works ofdarknessand put upon us the armour oflight,now in the time of this mortallife,in which thy Son Jesus Christ cameto visit us in great humility;that in the last day when he shallcome again in his glorious majestyto judge both the quick and thedead,we may rise to the life immortal;through him who liveth andreigneth with youand the Holy Ghostnow and for ever. Amen.THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

Advent wakes us upto the fact that people

can experienceextraordinary joy even

in a very depraved sort ofworld, and they can bear

witness to Christ even before acorrupt society. In a world likeours, which so evidently needssocial transformation, how canwe fail to ask Christians to make the justice of Christianityincarnate in their homes and in their lives? How can we notask them to become new menand women who are agents of change?ST OSCAR ROMEROFROM A PROPHETIC BISHOP SPEAKS TO HISPEOPLE: THE COMPLETE HOMILIES VOL .4(CONVIVIUM PRESS, 2015)

✦ CALENDAR ✦

Sunday 2 December:First Sunday of Advent (Year C)

Monday 3 December:St Francis Xavier, PriestTuesday 4 December:

Advent feria or St John Damascene,Priest and Doctor

Wednesday 5 December:Advent feria

Thursday 6 December:Advent feria or St Nicholas, Bishop

Friday 7 December:St Ambrose, Bishop and DoctorSaturday 8 December:

The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin MarySunday 9 December:

Second Sunday of Advent

For the Extraordinary Form calendar go to www.lms.org.uk

THE LIVING SPIRIT


A N D L I T U RG I C A L C A L E N DA R

16-17_Tablet01Dec18Letters.qxp_Tablet features spread 11/27/18 4:57 PM Page 3

FLORENCE’S Museo di San Marco,until recently a Dominican monastery,houses the most extraordinary art:everywhere you turn there’s a stun-

ning Fra Angelico, or some art piecereferencing the life of the fascinating monk-ruler Savonarola, or a fresco detailing a storyfrom the Gospels.

• COMING SOON •

ARTSTHE CANE by Mark Ravenhill, Royal Court Theatre, London (opens 6 December) • TIDES, directed by Tupaq Felber (in cinemas 7 December)

TEES VALLEY YOUTH ORCHESTRA, Newcastle Cathedral (8 December) • BOILLY: SCENES OF PARISIAN LIFE, National Gallery, London (opens 28 February)

A woman’s work

In the Refettorio Piccolo, or small refectory,the visitors flock towards a Last Supperpainted in 1480 by Domenico Ghirlandaio.It is a magnificent work; but most peopledon’t notice the painting immediately to itsright – and so they miss one of the most excit-ing contemporary twists of the Renaissancecity’s rich and colourful story.


The painting is called Lamentation withSaints, and it has been dated 1550-60. Bythen Fra Angelico and Savonarola, both ofwhom lived in this monastery, were long dead;but the painter of this piece was in residence,and working hard. The painting is large andcolourful: in the background are the domesand rooftops of Jerusalem, and the recentlyvacated crucifix of Golgotha. In the fore-ground, the body taken down from that crossis blue-tinged and bloody from the gash toits side. It is surrounded by women: twoMarys, and two other women. Their eyes arereddened, their tears fall: the Virgin is holdinga palm to her breast as though she can hardlybear the grief.

IT IS FAIR to say the artist understoodwomen’s feelings very well – because she washerself a woman. Plautilla Nelli (1524-88)was the most significant female artist ofRenaissance Florence, but only now, 430 yearsafter her death, is she being rediscovered bythe city of her birth.

She was the daughter of a textile merchant.Today a street in the San Lorenzo district ofFlorence is still named after her family – Viadel Canto dei Nelli – and she was related toBartolomea di Stefano Nelli, the mother ofthe philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli, whodied when Plautilla was still a child.

She was not always Plautilla: her birth namewas Pulisena, but she took a new name when,at 14, she entered the Dominican convent ofSanta Caterina da Siena in the Piazza SanMarco. Her sister, Petronilla, was also a nunthere, and both women were well educated:Petronilla wrote a biography of Savonarola,the reformer who led the Florentine Republicfrom 1494 until his execution in 1498.

Plautilla’s talents, though, lay in art; behindthe convent walls, she was a prodigiouspainter. In 1568, she was sufficiently wellestablished for the art historian Giorgio Vasarito write about her in his Lives of the MostExcellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects.But in the centuries that followed, Nelli’s workdisappeared from view. That is until 2005,when an American art historian and philan-thropist called Jane Fortune chanced upona book about her on a visit to Florence, anddecided to find out more about the obscureartist/nun who seemed to be an example ofwhat had already seemed to her to be sorelylacking from Renaissance history: the evi-dence of women artists.

Fortune decided to go on the trail of Nelli,and the first painting she was able to locateby her was the Lamentation of the Saintswhich, then as now, was in the Museo di SanMarco. It was, however, faded and lacklustre:desperately in need of restoration, which thewealthy Fortune decided to pay for. It was tobe the start of a passion project that has seenmany more examples of Nelli’s work restored:sadly Fortune died in September, a few weeks

Florence at last honours its female artistsBy JOANNA MOORHEAD

St Catherine witha Lily by therediscoveredFlorentine painterPlautilla Nelli

18-20_Table1Dec18 Arts.qxp_Tablet features spread 11/27/18 2:16 PM Page 14

FRUSTRATINGLY, Jane Austen com-pleted only seven novels, leaving twounfinished. Sanditon (1817) wasstalled by the most common authorial

interruption – death – but the other sawn-offstory, The Watsons (1805), stopped for unclearreasons after 18,000 words, taking EmmaWatson, youngest daughter of an impoverishedand unwell clergyman, to the brink of betrothalto Lord Osborne, an awkward aristocrat.

Attempting to clarify the abandonment,Laura Wade’s play The Watsons also sketchespossible endings. Wade’s Home, I’m Darling,which transfers to the West End from theNational in January, has a spectacular coupin which a woman sitting in a 1950s kitchentakes a laptop out of her drawer, for reasonsplausibly explained. In a similar chronologicaldisruption, Miss Watson encounters a maidin eighteenth-century clothes but with aniPhone in her pocket.

The backwards traveller is Laura, a play-wright trying to complete Emma’s story. Thiscollision of classical literature with postmod-ernism will irritate some as tricksy, but Wade’spurpose is serious. The split-time conceit allowsher to be clear about who wrote which bits, animportant protocol, for me, in finishings ofworks by others. And, when Laura gathers the16 characters in the library, like Poirot withhis suspects, to tell them their beyond-Austenstorylines, they argue back in ways that raisebig questions, common to democracy and the-ology, about control and freedom.

DIGITAL ARTS

Oh Wonder – All We Do In this moving short film, the band Oh Wonder ask artists and filmmakers what it means to be human www.tinyurl.com/tabletdigitalarts

ARTS

THEATRE

Playing with timePostmodern Jane Austen and an improbable coincidence

MARK LAWSON

The WatsonsCHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATREDealing With Clair

ORANGE TREE THEATRE, RICHMOND

before the unveiling of the latest piece, aCrucifixion that hangs in the Museum of theCenacolo of Andrea del Sarto.

The Crucifixion joined two other large-scale pieces by Nelli on the museum walls:it hangs there between her Saint Dominicreceives the Rosary, and St Catherine in stig-mata. Across the room are two much smallerpaintings that reveal much about how skilfulan artist she was: another St Catherine, thistime in profile and with a tear running downher cheek, her head swathed in the folds ofher cream veil; and her Painted Madonna,which shows a serene and thoughtful VirginMary, with long, elegant fingers holding onto a piece of white cloth.

Fortune lived to see much of her ambitionachieved. But the greatest prize of all is stillahead: because Nelli’s most significant pieceof work is a huge, seven metres by five metres,Last Supper, and its scale means it is takinglonger to restore. It is due to be completedby October 2019, and will hang in the Museodi Santa Maria Novella in the city.

THE PAINTING is significant in lots of ways,not least the fact that Nelli chose to paint itat all because, for Renaissance artists, theLast Supper was the subject par excellence,and only painters who considered themselveson the map even attempted it. Nelli was clearlyregarded as important and accomplishedenough to create this work. It is unusual inthat it is signed by her, and her name is fol-lowed by a request: Orate Pro Pictora; “Prayfor the Paintress”.

Rosella Lari, the restorer who has alreadybeen working on it for more than a year, saysthe painting reveals plenty of clues about itscreator, as paintings always do. Nelli was awoman who paid attention to detail, and whoperhaps liked to look after others. HerLamentation – on which Lari worked too –also has elements that hint at it being thework of a woman rather than a man. Thedead Christ is propped on a white stone, whichlooks almost like a pillow and hints at a needto care for him. Even more telling, in the back-ground there’s a solitary female figuregathering herbs. It’s a symbol, says Lari, thatlife goes on.

“Even in the midst of death, life continues,”writes Lari in Invisible Women: ForgottenArtists of Florence, edited by Jane Fortune.“She is gathering food to eat, and it is not bychance that Plautilla Nelli chose the gathererto be a woman. After all, women guaranteethe continuity of life …” In modern Florence,that continuity is being played out with newdiscoveries that are revealing the role womenplayed in what was probably the most impor-tant moment in art history.

For more information on Plautilla Nelli andother women artists of the Renaissance, visitadvancingwomenartists.org

PHOTO: THE OTHER RICHARD


As in Home, I’m Darling, Wade’s plottingand dialogue are nimble and witty. GraceMolony’s Emma hilariously shows, in faceand voice, how Laura’s futuristic feminist val-ues hit her like a terrible medical diagnosis.Joe Bannister’s Lord Osborne counter-intu-itively makes an agonised inability to speakfluently into captivating acting. Louise Ford’sLaura, perhaps channelling the new DoctorWho, strikingly portrays a woman out of timewho must calculate how to use her superiorhistorical knowledge. A thirtieth anniversary revival of Martin Crimp’sDealing With Clair is a startling example ofhow plays can be changed by context. Becausethe title character is an estate agent who van-ishes after showing a client round a house, theplay was considered by some in 1988 to be toodistastefully close to the case of Suzy Lamplugh,presumed to have been murdered in similarcircumstances two years earlier.

DISTANCE SHOULD have freed the 2018 pro-duction from this distraction, except that,improbably, its opening coincided with policeannouncing that they were searching aMidlands garden after a tip-off Ms Lamplughwas buried there. So potentially controversialtopicality loomed again.

However, Richard Twyman’s tight produc-tion of an updated text – the London houseClair was selling for £190,000 in the original,is now going for £750,000 – makes clear thatCrimp was in no way opportunistically usinga news story. The vulnerability of youngwomen, in professions where they may beencouraged to seem friendly to men, is sen-sitively depicted.

And, as in Crimp’s later successes (Attemptson her Life and The Treatment), his key con-cern is words. The play turns on a series ofdeadly puns, including “dealing with” and“owning”, applicable to places or people. Clair’sfate is revealed – tensely, in every sense – bya shift from “lives” to “lived”. Co-producersEnglish Touring Theatre must surely strikedeals for the show’s further life.

Tom Mothersdale andHara Yannas in MartinCrimp’s Dealing with Clair



ARTS

ASUBTLETY AS FINE and brittle asbone china distinguishes this dramaof thwarted love among the faithful.It’s the work of Chilean director

Sebastián Lelio, adapting from NaomiAlderman’s novel for his English-languagedebut. Rachel Weisz stars as Ronit, an expatphotographer in New York who is convulsedby news from home. Her widowed father,chief rabbi of an orthodox community in northLondon, has died suddenly.

Ronit’s reappearance, while the family sitshiva, is unexpected, and somewhat unwel-come: having flown the coop years ago shewas unreconciled with her father to the last.The newspaper obituary claims he left nochildren, but here she is, a living revenant.Her coolly distant relatives greet her with thetraditional “May you live a long life” (trans-lation: please drop dead).

Her homecoming is met with notableambivalence by her old friends Dovid(Alessandro Nivola), the late rabbi’s protégé,and Esti (Rachel McAdams). And there’sanother shock for her – the two are now mar-ried. Hiding real hurt behind her watchful

CINEMA

Forbidden loveA taboo that tears a trio apart

ANTHONY QUINN

DisobedienceDIRECTOR: SEBASTIAN LELIO

I’VE BEEN to rural northern Ireland afew times and reckon it must be one ofthe most beautiful places on Earth – well,certainly the bits of the Earth I’ve visited.

Sea, rock, mountains, prickly yellow gorseand dry stone walls, all mossy stone, emeraldgreen and azure blue. So I tuned into the firstepisode (28 November) of the BBC’s drama-tisation of Eugene McCabe’s acclaimed novelDeath and Nightingales, set in Fermanaghin the Ulster of the 1880s, with keen antici-pation: whatever its merits as drama, it wouldsurely give us some dreamy landscape shots.

And indeed it does, its cameras lingeringover a lovely, hazy, haymaking farming worldwhere every field gives long views over a seastudded with wooded islands. Even the des-olate quarry from which Protestant landownerBilly Winters makes his money is lit seduc-tively as if permanently in moonlight. And ifthe spotlessly clean and taupe-coloured rooms

of Winters’ house, Cloncula, owe rather moreto the aesthetics of the twenty-first-centuryNational Trust than to the smoke-stainedanaglypta and drapery more likely in 1885,they are very easy on the eye too.

This is a stunning dramatic adaptation ofMcCabe’s atmospheric novel. I was quitebowled over by it. The American of thisepisode’s title (“The Grey American”) some-what slantingly refers to Liam Ward, thecharismatic quarry labourer (recently returnedfrom a period in the States) who is so attractiveto Winters’ stepdaughter, Beth (played withastonishing assurance by 21-year-old AnnSkelly). The greyness seems to me more of amysterious, half-lit ambiguity. The charactersslide in and out of focus; they sometimes do

unexpected and inconsistent things; they defyneat conclusions: this builds a very satisfyingdramatic suspense.

It would have been easy to sling about somecrude distinctions: to make the Catholicsmerry, easy-going, penitent sinners and theProtestants dour and repressed. But this pro-duction does not quite do this. Winters isblack-clad and melancholy and may or maynot be informing for the British stationed upat the castle, but he is played with great sen-sitivity by Matthew Rhys.

He surprises us; just as we think we havehim nailed as the demon of the piece, we meeta man who also gives generously to beggarsand enjoys an evening of light-ent at a musichall (Beth refuses to accompany him, sayingshe prefers to read about “death and nightin-gales” in Keats). He is affable to the Catholicbishop who comes to tea (though he hums“Rule Britannia” behind his back) despite thefact that he calls his wife “a treacherous slutof Rome” when he finds out that Beth is nothis daughter. He might turn out to be an unre-pentantly nasty piece of work – but then somight Liam (handsome Jamie Dornan doingirresistible inscrutability all too convincingly)and so might Beth, damaged but driven bydesire for vengeance. Or none of them. Orsomething altogether more complicated andinteresting altogether. I can’t wait to find out.

TELEVISION

Ulster unpluggedStunning adaptation so easy on the eye

LUCY LETHBRIDGE

Death and NightingalesBBC2

eyes, Ronit tries to fit in, but the ghost of herbohemian exile in New York persists. Dovidand Esti’s married life, meanwhile – strictobservance, a joyless routine of weekly sex –indicates how conservative they have become.Yet what Lelio and co-writer RebeccaLenkiewicz suggest, implicitly, is the deepconnection that once linked these three people,and the scandal that tore them apart: it tran-spires that Ronit fled not just her faith, buta forbidden romance – with Esti.

Lelio has form with women’s stories. Hisbest film, Gloria (2013), bravely addressed

the near-taboo subject of an older woman’ssexual fulfilment and made of it something,well, glorious. His Oscar-winning film of lastyear, A Fantastic Woman, examined the plightof a transgender woman coping with the deathof her much older boyfriend. Disobediencealso deals in social ostracism, though locatedwithin the narrow circle of orthodox Judaismits interest feels rather more niche.

On the other hand, it features a sex scenethat will probably appeal to cinemagoers ofevery faith and none. Again, its implicationsare subtly limned in scenes of Esti and Dovidat work, the former teaching Othello at school,the latter leading a discussion of the “Song ofSongs” in scripture class.

What is admirable here is the even-hand-edness of the characterisation. Dovid mighthave been a domestic tyrant, but Nivola’s per-formance instead offers a troubled manreaching for nobility of spirit. His formaladdress to the synagogue is a great scene oftension as he realises what “freedom to choose”actually means. McAdam, pale as a martyr,starts out quietly before she senses self-deter-mination. Weisz’s arc goes in the oppositedirection, beginning in forthright confronta-tion, then a slow diminuendo as the marriagestory takes over; but she has a face you nevertire of looking at.

Shot in dowdy winter tones, Disobedienceperhaps needed a little more wildness andenergy: it lacks the emotional punch of Gloria,and the knight’s-move oddity of A FantasticWoman. It has a good heart, though, andsometimes that’s good enough.

PHOTO: NIGHT FLIGHT PICTURES, TEDDY CAVENDISH

Ann Skelly and Jamie Dornan

Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdam



BOOKS

S PE E D R E A DI NG

The “war to end all wars” wasnothing of the kind – asEurope would discover. Forthe Armenians, moreover,November 1918 brought onlyfresh suffering. Convincedthat France would sponsor ahomeland in Cilicia, nowsouth-east Turkey, thousandsof them joined a would-bearmy, the Légion d’Orient,which fought its way intoCilicia only to be abandonedby its French sponsors. TheTurks reconquered Cilicia,slaughtering those Armenianswho had not fled. In TheArmenian Legionnaires:Sacrifice and Betrayal inWorld War I (I. B. Tauris,£25; Tablet price £22.50)Susan Paul Pattie retells a taleof naivety, heroism andimperial perfidy. Britons meanwhile

rejoiced. As the guns fellsilent at 11 a.m. on 11 November, the roar of thecrowd in London was likenedto the sound of an ocean wavecrashing on to the shore, asGuy Cuthbertson writes inPeace at Last: A Portrait ofArmistice Day, 11 November1918 (Yale University Press,£18.99; Tablet price £17.10).Even in the sleepiest towns,“pandemonium broke out”.Besides the exuberance in thestreets, churches werepacked. It was “arguably thelast day in English historywhen the Church of Englandwas truly a national church”.Allan Mallinson’s Fight to the

Finish: The First World War –Month by Month (BantamPress, £25; Tablet price£22.50) recalls that this was afight to the last round – thepossibility of defeat onlyreared its head in Germanythat October. By then, asChurchill later reflected, “toomuch blood had been spilt”.

Ma rCus Ta n n e rhears the guns fall silent

idoubT if many of today’s children areaddicted to The Wind in the Willows, orread it at all. For my generation it was

mandatory; my own 1929 edition has beenread to bits, almost literally, the spine missing,pages loose. Grahame died in 1932, soalthough this, his last book, was publishedback in 1908, it had pretty well acquired classicstatus by the Twenties and Thirties, thoughit had not been acclaimed initially – manyreviews were negative. The po-faced TimesLiterary Supplement reviewer found that “asa contribution to natural history the work isnegligible”. Oh, for heaven’s sake!But the book caught on, its sentiments much

in accord with a particular mindset of the day,and it remains enshrined within the canon. Iremember with relish Alan Bennett’s NationalTheatre production of 1990, with a deliciouslycamp Badger, whose interest in visiting youngfield mice seemed a touch dubious.Grahame was already an established literary

figure by the time of the book’s publication,known for The Golden Days and Dream Days,collections of stories and essays reflecting anidealised view of childhood, which also strucka chord with attitudes of the day, and verymuch represent Grahame’s own outlook.Matthew Dennison’s excellent biography isnicely titled. His convincing perception ofGrahame is that of a man who never reallygrew up, who remained persuaded that child-hood was the richest and most rewardingperiod of life, the rest an anticlimax. Needlessto say, this did not lead to a well-groundedpersonality and it is something of a surpriseto read of his successful career as secretaryof the Bank of England, until he packed thatin when in his fifties, to spend the last decades

divine discontent and longing

PE N E LOPE L I V E LY

eternal boyMATTHEW DENNISON

(HEAD OF ZEUS, 272 PP, £18.99)

TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £17.09 • TEL 020 7799 4064

of his life in a kind of inertia, failing to writeanything more. That inertia was compoundedby Grahame’s response to the suicide of hisson, while he was an undergraduate at Oxford.This unfortunate boy – always called Mouse,which can’t have helped – was born with sightin one eye only, and grew up overweight anda social misfit, the only offspring of Grahame’ssomewhat disastrous marriage to ElspethThomson when both were in their thirties.She had pursued him, remorselessly; he hadgiven in, half inclined towards marriage, halfnot. Inevitably, he turned out to be not par-ticularly keen on sex; even the conception ofMouse seems an achievement.

MaTTheW dennison quotes extensivelyfrom the couple’s letters to each other, whichmake for uncomfortable reading. Grahamewrites always in a mawkish combination ofersatz cockney and baby talk, quite excruci-ating to the twenty-first-century ear. Maybethis affectation was less offensive at the time,but it still seems to indicate a retardedapproach to a relationship, some sort of inabil-ity to be straightforward. And, indeed, themarriage appears to have got increasinglycolder, with Grahame retreating into sanc-tuaries of his own that he created whereverthey lived. And Elspeth sounds extremelytiresome, bossy and opinionated.He had had misfortune all along, poor

Grahame. His mother died at 27, after thebirth of her fourth child. His father withdrewinto melancholia, going to live in France,abandoning his children to the care of uncles;he never contacted them again. The uncle-in-chief frustrated Grahame’s desperate desireto go to university, to Oxford, and set him upas a clerk at the Bank of England at the ageof 16. Way back in Grahame’s childhood, therehad been a brief idyllic interlude at his grand-mother’s home in Cookham Dean, the sourceprobably of his lifelong cult of childhood. Itwas that which perhaps also prompted a bookthat, while entirely Edwardian in languageand vision, has acquired an abiding status forits setting, its characters, its mythology. Onehas to excuse that disturbing Piper at theGates chapter, which expressed Grahame’sbizarre belief in some sort of rural pagan god,and which had me both exasperated andbewildered as a child reader.

Lost soul: Kenneth Grahame

is now run by Church House Bookshop– one of the UK’s leading religious

booksellers with thousands of titles in stock.

To place an order call: +44 (0)20 7799 4064

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the published review.

PHOTO: PA/TOPHAMS

21-23_Tablet1Dec18 Books.qxp_Tablet features spread 11/27/18 2:12 PM Page 22


•OUR REVIEWERS•

BOOKSSIMON SCOTT PLUMMER is a former leader writer for The Daily Telegraph • MARCUS TANNER is the author of Albania’s Mountain Queen • PENELOPE LIVELY is a Booker-

winning novelist • TIMOTHY CONNOR was a schoolteacher and is an architectural historian • CHRISTOPHER BRAY is the author of 1965: The Year Modern Britain was Born

This bioGraphYmarks the completionof a mighty trilogy on the life andposthumous influence of Gandhi by one

of the leading historians of modern India.Occupying him for more than 20 years, theproject first produced India after Gandhi,then Gandhi before India, and finally the present book, dealing with the period whenthe Mahatma, having returned to the countryof his birth, became one of the greatest figuresof the twentieth century. Why add to the huge corpus of works on

Gandhi? In his preface, Ramachandra Guhawrites that each generation of Indians – hewas born in 1958 – needs to reassess the lifeof their most famous son. He has been able togo well beyond the 90-odd volumes of Gandhi’sCollected Works from his time in India to findwhat other people thought about the Mahatma,in particular through consulting the paperscollected by his secretary after his murder.The result is an absorbing and impressively

detailed account of the devotion which Gandhiinspired and the forces with which he had tocontend, whether they were British (Churchilland Lord Linlithgow, Viceroy from 1936-43,were especially hostile) or Muslim (underMuhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder ofPakistan). Then there were fellow Hinduswho rejected his belief in ahimsa (non- violence) or B.R. Ambedkar, an untouchablewho questioned his opposition to the castesystem. The image conveyed by the last yearsof Gandhi’s life, blighted by the slaughter ofover one million people which accompaniedPartition, is of a frail old man battling almostsingle-handedly against communal mayhem.He would soon fall prey to a Hindu extremist,Nathuram Vinayak Godse, who hated his vic-tim’s philosophy of non-violence and hiseirenic attitude towards Muslims.It is sometimes forgotten that Gandhi was

middle-aged and famous when he landed inBombay in 1915 after more than 20 years asa lawyer and human-rights activist in SouthAfrica. There he had developed satyagraha,or truth-force, the deliberate violation of laws

considered unjust, the most notable mani-festation the march from Natal into Transvaalin 1913, and had paid for it with multipleprison sentences. Then, he had campaignedfor an Indian diaspora of around 150,000.Now he would seek to represent the interestsof 300 million Indians under British rule. By the simplicity of his life, his encourage-

ment of hand-spinning and weaving (topromote swadeshi, or self-reliance), above allby his extensive travels in rural areas, he turnedthe Indian National Congress into a massmovement for the attainment of swaraj, orself-rule. In 1930 he led his famous march tothe sea at Dandi in Gujarat, in protest at thesalt tax. Other instruments of persuasion werethe hartal, or closing of shops, and Gandhi’spersonal fasts, the longest, in 1933, lastingthree weeks. As in South Africa, he was fre-quently jailed.

india aTTained the independence he soughtbut in a form which he deplored. He wantedCongress to represent people of whatever reli-gious belief and took up the cause, dear toIndian Muslims, of protecting the OttomanCaliphate, before it was abolished in 1924 byKemal Atatürk. Jinnah, however, objected tothe strident nature of that campaign and toCongress’ decision to withdraw cooperationwith British rule. Those differences wouldsharpen to the point where, in order to avoiddomination by what Jinnah termed a “Hinduraj”, the Muslim League would advocate thepartition of India and the creation of Pakistan.Aside from his public campaigns, Gandhi’s

personal life makes for fascinating reading:

his patriarchal attitude towards his wife,Kasturba; his difficult relationship with theireldest son, Harilal; his intense feelings forSaraladevi, niece of Tagore, with whom heonce contemplated a “spiritual marriage”; hisforswearing of sex save for procreation, topreserve “the vital fluid”, and his testing ofthat chastity by sharing a bed with his great-niece, Manu; his grief at the death of hissecretary, Mahadev Desai, which left him like“a bird without wings”.

This is a comprehensive portrait of a greathuman being who combined a self-sacrificingdetermination to end colonial rule with afondness for the British people. He was quirky,sometimes naive, always courageous. Aboveall, his openness to others makes his contem-poraries, notably Jinnah, look narrow-minded.Guha recalls a tribute from a Muslim Leagueofficial in Tamil Nadu: “Mahatma Gandhiwas the twentieth-century Christ, and he diedfor us Muslims.”Seventy years after his martyrdom, the sub-

continent remains divided and India hasturned its back on many of his ideals. ButGuha reminds us that its immediate effectwas to reconcile Jawaharlal Nehru, the PrimeMinister, and his Home Minister, VithalbhaiPatel, and to stop major communal riots inIndia for over a decade. Then there is thewider inspiration which satyagraha hasimparted to figures as diverse as MartinLuther King, Lech Wałesa, Václav Havel,Desmond Tutu and Aung San Suu Kyi.Gandhi’s legacy is one which no other twentieth-century figure can match.


The twentieth-century ChristAn absorbing account of the life of Gandhi, public and private

S I MON S COT T PLUM M E R

Gandhi: The Years that Changed the World 1914-1948

RAMACHANDRA GUHA(ALLEN LANE, 1,152 PP, £40)

TABLET BOOKSHOP PRICE £36 • TEL 020 7799 4064

PHOTO: PA ARCHIVE

Gandhi discusses theKarachi Congress of 1931

21-23_Tablet1Dec18 Books.qxp_Tablet features spread 11/27/18 2:12 PM Page 21


The WeLLCoMe Collection’s currentexhibition focuses on the ways in whicharchitects, planners and designers have

attempted to influence our feelings of individual well-being, self-esteem and physicalhealth, and their wider impact on commu-nities and society. Presented under themalignant shadow of the Grenfell Tower fire,it explores the idealisms, European as wellas English, that influenced such developments.For the moment, the story ends with, first,neglect, then tragedy (or “the market”).Living with Buildings and Walking with

Ghosts: On Health and Architecture is writtento accompany that exhibition. Sinclair is abrilliant writer with a unique insight into theauras of buildings, particularly London build-ings. Much of this book is taken up with hisforays into London from his Hackney base,with Hawksmoor’s “iconic” Christ Church,Spitalfields – at one moment the haunt of thedispossessed and ill, at the next a venue forStrictly Come Dancing – providing openingand closing meditations. Besides this churchSinclair examines housing experiments such

housing for healthT I MOT H Y CON NOR

Living with buildings and Walking with Ghosts

IAIN SINCLAIR(WELLCOME COLLECTION, 224 PP, £14.99)


as the City’s Golden Lane Estate developmentand the Unité d’Habitation in Marseille. Thereare brief excursions to Mexico and the isle ofHarris, as well as to the site of the RoyalMilitary Hospital at Netley near Southampton,demolished in 1966.In so far as the book has shape it is deter-

mined by memoir. Sinclair’s wide circle offriends, artists, writers and commentatorsprovide incident, travelling towards themoffers narrative and their illnesses featurevividly. Only incidentally does the “dialoguebetween health and architecture” surface,most directly, perhaps, in his account of anexample of the impact of developments atGolden Lane. Even when the subject is thevarious incarnations of the ModernMovement’s avowed belief in its mission toprovide a newly healthy environment as, for

example, at the Unité, that issue is not thecentral concern. The exhibition itself advertisesTecton’s Finsbury Health Centre completedin 1938 as a symbol of that intention. It wasa building of new materials, full of light andclean lines that epitomised the movement’soptimism. Sinclair refers to “that brief post-war, welfare state moment when the ideal ofimproved health by better design, better materials, more sunshine ... seemed achiev-able”, but this emblem of the interaction ofhealth care and community is omitted fromthe book. Hospitals feature little in thisaccount that lacks the biting urgency withwhich he skewered the desolation to be foundin the ring of Victorian asylums aroundLondon in London Orbital.Whether at the level of a single phrase –

satellite dishes as “the plague buboes ofpoverty” – or in his ear for cadence – at anunderground car park “waiting chauffeursvape” – or in his sensitive eye for incongruity– “the badged performer leading a party ofRipper tourists outside a façade of a JackLondon dormitory staffed by nuns” – Sinclair’stouch is as powerful and discomforting asever. If this suggests that the whole of thisbook is less than the sum of its sometimesglittering parts, that may be because, whileaware that he had been “invited to commenton the relationship between the built environment and the health of those wholived in them”, Sinclair does not quite locatewhat he calls his “sickness vocation”. Even atthe very end it is the poignancy of his friends’suffering that lingers, while the contributionthat buildings, let alone architecture, maketo it remains in the background.

London. There’s Ben Trotter who, sickenedby the Smoke’s hyper-capitalism, has skippedtown for an old mill on the River Severn, thebetter to look after his newly nationalisticdad, Colin. There’s Ben’s sister, Lois, whosemarriage is falling apart, and whose daughter,Sophie, is none too happy with her Leave-voting boyfriend, Ian. There’s Coriander, aright-on art history student who is bothSophie’s pupil and the daughter ofBen’s old schoolmate, the Leftist polit-ical commentator Doug. All these –and sundry other – characters’ storiesare interwoven into a tapestry of thisseptic isle.Middle Englandopens with Gordon

Brown’s horrific 2010 election cam-paign, and moves on through the coalition,the Olympic opening ceremony (which Coethinks was as culturally unifying as VaughanWilliams and Morecambe and Wise), EdMiliband’s bacon sarnie, the murder of JoCox, to that momentous referendum. Thedetail is astonishing. Did you know that duringthe 2011 riots the looters were encouraged to

target mega-chains and leave small independ-ents alone? Coe does – and in an afterwordhe tells you how he knows. Yet the book neverfeels researched. Those real-life incidents aredramatised with his customary narrative muscle. Where the novel does go awry is in itstone. It rarely raises a smile. There’s a farcicalsex scene involving a wardrobe, a scented candle and some Viagra that’s right out of

Tom Sharpe or – Coe’s hero – DavidNobbs. Alas, like one of the charactersinvolved, it never rises to the occasion.A comic writer Coe remains though,

and for all its anger and animosity, thenovel ends, as comedies must, withrelationships sorted and even a babyon the way. Whether, amid all the doom

and gloom, you find this cheering is moredown to you than it is to Coe. At one point inThe Closed Circle, Ben Trotter wonderswhether he is trying to make the autobio-graphical novel he is working on appear moresignificant than it is “by sticking a whole lotof politics in”. Clapping Middle England shut,you can’t help feeling he was right to worry.

JonaThan Coe made his name withWhat A Carve Up!, a gothic state-of-the-nation novel that took the Thatchersettlement to violent comic task. A quarter

of a century on, Coe is taking the country’stemperature again – and finding it hot withanger and cold with fear. No prizes for guess-ing that a book called Middle England isolatesBrexit as our national disease. Prizes aplenty,though, for summarising its drift. MiddleEngland, many of whose characters we firstmet in Coe’s The Rotters’ Club and The ClosedCircle, is more densely populated than

Middle englandJONATHAN COE

(VIKING, 432 PP, £16.99)


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nano nagle: The Life and the Legacy / DEIRDRE RAFTERY / IRISH ACADEMIC PRESS, £22.99; TABLET PRICE £20.69 / A biography ofthe founder of the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and pioneer of Catholic education in Irelandwww.tinyurl.com/tabletbooks

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Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation, Marseille

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Schools offer free ‘fire’ placesThe Diocese of Sacramento, inCalifornia, has announced thatit will offer free schooling at anyof its more than three dozenschools to students displaced bythe bush fire that devastatedwhole towns in the region.

The offer includes tuition,free lunches and uniforms, andwill last until the end of theschool year in June. Tuition at aCatholic school in the regioncosts from $5,000 (£3,900) to$6,000 (£4,700) per year.

The fire left some 85 peopledead, with 249 still listed asmissing. Firefighters finallycontained the blaze on Sunday,but only after it had scorchedmore than 19,000 buildings and153,336 acres according toauthorities. It was the worstwild fire in Californian history.

Taiwan voted last weekend torestrict marriage to one manand one woman in an advisoryreferendum. The votechallenged a May 2017Constitutional Court ruling onsame sex unions, which calledfor legislation within two yearsto allow gay marriage.

The government announcedthe referendum after protests byCatholics and others. Althoughthe ballot is only advisory, it hasfrustrated lawmakers andLGBT campaigners (above)who hoped their island wouldbe the first place in Asia to letsame-sex couples share childcustody and insurance benefits.

Archbishop John Hung Shan-chuan of Taipei said before thereferendum: “We do not

discriminate against gays andare willing to protect theirrights, but we cannot supportsame-sex marriage and same-sex union”. He urged the faithfulto “feel free to choose with faithand conscience”.

The Catholic Church inCameroon’s anglophone south-west region, where separatistsare waging an insurgency, hasblamed the army for killing FrCosmos Omboto Ondari. The33-year-old Kenyan Mill Hillmissionary was shot on 21November outside St Martin ofTours Church in Kembong,where he was parish priest. Hedied immediately.

“Eyewitnesses said he waskilled by government soldierswho were firing at random froma passing vehicle,” reportedBishop Andrew Nkea Fuanya ofMamfe, whose diocese coversKembong. Fr Ondari is thesecond Catholic priest killed inthe English-speaking regionthis year.

Migrants offered refugeAs large groups of CentralAmericans continue to movethrough Mexico towards theUnited States, the House of thePilgrim at the Mexico CityBasilica has opened its doors.

More than 900 CentralAmerican migrants took refugein the House, which is normallyused to host pilgrims taking partin the annual pilgrimage to theshrine of the Virgin ofGuadalupe. In the first days ofNovember, 6,000 CentralAmericans arrived in MexicoCity and were temporarilysheltered at a sports stadium inthe east of the city. The grouphas now continued north and isin the border city of Tijuana.

Human remains foundunderneath the Holy See’sembassy to Italy belong to aman and not to EmanuelaOrlandi, the daughter of aVatican employee who wentmissing in 1983.

The office of Rome’s publicprosecutor said that tests on thebones revealed they came froma male skeleton. Other sourcesinvolved in the investigationtold the Turin-based La Stampanewspaper that the bones are atleast 100 years old.

Last Sunday’s annual WorldDay of the Poor, which PopeFrancis established in 2017, wascelebrated by the Churchglobally, under the theme, “Hearthe cry of the poor.”

The Pope celebrated Mass atSt Peter’s to mark the day andafterwards joined about 1,500homeless people for lunch inPaul VI Hall (pictured above).The menu included lasagne,chicken pieces, mashedpotatoes and tiramisu, providedby Rome’s Hilton Hotel.

The Archdiocese of Berlin inGermany also hosted a banquetfor the city’s homeless andvulnerable people in StHedwig’s Cathedral.Archbishop Heiner Koch ofBerlin welcomed 300 guestsand 140 helpers from localparishes.

Four Catholic bishops havejoined environmentalorganisations in demonstratingagainst coal-fired power plantsin The Philippines on the islandof Negros. They oppose theconstruction of a new coal-firedproject in the city of San Carlos.Bishops of the dioceses of SanCarlos, Bacolod, Kabankalan,and Dumaguete want theirregion declared coal-free.

Bishop bans priest from demoIndia’s Syro-Malabar Churchhas tried to ban a priest fromdemonstrating against thebailing of a bishop accused ofraping a nun over a two-yearperiod.

Fr Augustine Vattoly isamong those calling for thecontinued detention of BishopFranco Mulakkal of Jalandhar,who was freed on bail followinghis arrest in September. Thedemonstrators have accusedhim of intimidating witnesses.

Fr Vattoly says he received a

letter from Bishop JacobManathodath of Palghat inKerala, and ahead of a 14November demonstration. Theletter said: “I hereby stronglyprohibit you from organisingand attending” the protest. Italso warned him that“disobedience will incurecclesiastical actions”.

Protests have broken out inAraucania, in the south of Chile,after a Mapuche youth, CamiloCatrillanca, was killed by apolice officer on 14 November.

The Mapuche hold territorialclaims in both Chile andArgentina and say they havebeen mistreated by Chileanauthorities. Following the youngman’s death, the auxiliaryBishop of Santiago, CristiánRoncagliolo, participated in aDay of Prayer with the Mapuchepastoral group in the Chileancapital, Santiago.

The Congolese Catholic Bishops’Conference says it will helppeople to take part in generalelection scheduled for 23December in the DemocraticRepublic of Congo.

Meeting last week in thecapital, Kinshasa, the bishopssaid they would do their best toensure a credible election,despite a clampdown on publicdemonstrations by oppositionparties, lack of press freedomand concerns over plans to useelectronic electoral machines.

The widely-respected MartinFayulu will lead a coalitionagainst Emmanuel RamazaniShadary, a former interiorminister and the candidate ofthe ruling coalition. PresidentJoseph Kabila (above) said inAugust that he would step downafter 17 years in office.

24 | THE TABLET | 1 DECEMBER 2018 For daily news updates visit www.thetablet.co.uk

T H E C H U R C H I N T H E W O R L D

For daily news updateson the top stories, visitwww.thetablet.co.uk

Compiled by James Roberts

NEWS BRIEFING

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1 DECEMBER 2018 | THE TABLET | 25For daily news updates visit www.thetablet.co.uk

•QUOTE OF THE WEEK•

NEWSMissionising the Jews was not foreseen and not necessary for the simple reason that they already knew the ‘unknown God’

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, writing in Herder Korrespondenz, rejects accusations he had advocated missionising Jews (see page 27)

Gregorian University inRome. They will be assisted bythe Cardinal Archbishop ofChicago, Blase Cupich, and theCardinal Archbishop of Bombay,Oswald Gracias.

The Archbishop of Boston,Cardinal Seán O’Malley, will beattending the summit and thePontifical Commission for Minors,of which he is president, isinvolved in the preparation.

The appointments reveal a bidto end piecemeal, localisedresponses. A close analysis of thescandals shows a disturbingly sim-ilar trend of how the world’sbishops have handled abusivepriests, which generally include amix of denial, obfuscation and a

State and Church urged to join forces on safeguardingAT AN EXPERTS’ meeting inCologne entitled “The CatholicChurch on the way to sustainableprevention of sexualised violence”,Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, theGerman government’s commis-sioner for dealing with the sexualabuse of minors, urged closer co-operation between Church andstate, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt. Speaking to Germanradio station Deutschlandfunk

before the 23 November meeting,Mr Rörig said it was now quiteobvious that bishops in a numberof German dioceses were “dynam-ically pressing ahead” with theirefforts to establish full trans-parency. This showed their goodwill, he said. It was now essentialto persuade religious orders to dothe same.

The federal government andthe federal states should “at least

THE VATICAN has released detailsabout the unprecedented 21-24February 2019 global gatheringof bishops on child protection,called by Pope Francis. Rome’sapproach till now has been hap-hazard and inconsistent, andFrancis is aiming for a collective,centralised, coordinated responseto preventing abuse in the Church.

The Pope has asked clerical sex-ual abuse victims and his childprotection commission to helpprepare for the meeting, whichwill be attended by 180 partici-pants, the vast majority of thempresidents of bishops’ conferencesfrom across the world.

Francis has also drafted in twowomen to assist with the prepa-rations, Dr Gabriella Gambinoand Dr Linda Ghisoni, who areboth senior female Vatican officialswith impressive legal expertise.

On the organising committeeare two of the Church’s most cred-ible anti-abuse experts. CharlesScicluna, the Archbishop of Malta,is a long-time church prosecutorwho is now the Pope’s point manin handling abuse cases. Joininghim is Fr Hans Zollner, the Jesuitpriest who runs the Centre forChild Protection at the Pontifical

CHRISTOPHER LAMB / in Rome meeting went down badly. It wasseen in many quarters as Romeblocking legitimate attempts bythe US to get a grip of the crisis.

The summit is likely to pave theway for a new framework of epis-copal accountability. The Pope’schoice of Cardinal Cupich to siton the organising committee sug-gests Rome supports his idea ofa “metropolitan model” of holdingbishops to account. This wouldmean that misconduct claimsagainst diocesan leaders be han-dled by the local archbishop,known as the metropolitan.

Archbishop Scicluna has arguedthat changes to canon law couldbe made to give “a stronger rolefor the metropolitan bishops” and“a bigger role for the victims incanonical penal processes”.

The involvement of CardinalCupich, who has also argued bish-ops could be held accountable bylay commissions (an idea less pop-ular in Rome), ensuresinvolvement of a key Francis USally in the summit.

With more than a dozen stateinquiries into clerical abuse anda US Justice Department probein Pennsylvania following thissummer’s Grand Jury report, theUS Church and its bishops areunder intense national scrutiny.

in part” be involved in theappraisal of the abuse of minorsin the Catholic and otherChurches as the state bore theresponsibility for all childrenincluding those in the Churches’care, Mr Rörig told theSüddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

“It would be an important his-torical step if the criteria andstandards for a comprehensiveappraisal and an independentclarification [of sexual abuse]could be developed jointly and itsimplementation regulated by con-tract. In concrete terms that wouldmean that Church and state couldcommunicate on the standards ofa continuous and respectful par-ticipation of the persons affected

focus on institutional protectionahead of care for victims.

Francis is adamant that thisscandal needs to be addressed as“one Church” and not by a singlebishops’ conference. “The HolyFather is convinced that thescourge, the ‘sacrilege’ as he hassaid numerous times, of abuse isa problem that does not pertainto a single country, and certainlynot only to western countries,” FrZollner said. “It requires a firmand universal response, withinspecific contexts and cultures.”

Greg Burke, the director of theHoly See Press Office, said lastweek that the February gathering,which will include male andfemale religious superiors and theleaders of Vatican departments,shows the Pope has “made theprotection of minors a fundamen-tal priority for the Church”.

Nevertheless, relations betweenthe Vatican and the United Statesare strained over how to handlethe issue with the American bish-ops, who are facing a raft of stateinquiries and investigations, andwant to show the world they havetaken action to solve the problem.

As a result, the Holy See’s orderto the US hierarchy not to vote onnew bishop accountability meas-ures until after the February

GERMANY in the appraisal procedures,” MrRörig emphasised at the meeting.

Bishop Stephan Ackermann,who is responsible for abuse affairsin the bishops’ conference, wel-comed Mr Rörig’s suggestion.“Joint discussions are under wayand we hope to seal the cooper-ation in the coming year,” he said.

The head of the GermanConference of the Superiors ofReligious Orders (DOK), SrKatharina Kluitmann, also wel-comed Mr Rörig’s suggestion.“Without the appraisal of abuse,prevention of abuse is left hangingin the air,” she said.

The meeting was hosted by theGerman bishops’ conference,DOK, and by Mr Rörig.

Anti-abuse expert CharlesScicluna, Archbishop of Malta

ROME / Pope determined that the scandal needs to be addressed as ‘one Church’

Francis plans centralised response to abusePHOTO: CNS

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NEWST H E C H U R C H I N T H E W O R L D

BRAZIL / Christian evangelicals take precedence in president-elect’s new teamMYANMAR

Bolsonaro names his ‘Bible,beef and bullet’ ministers

MINISTERIAL appointments by the Brazil’spresident-elect, Jair Bolsonaro (inset), reflectthe range of conservative and Christian evan-gelical ideologies in his support base.

The economy will be in the hands of a teamof “Chicago boys”, disciples of the free-markettheorist Milton Friedman, led by PauloGuedes, a “super-minister”. He will head aministry combining what are currently theseparate ministries of Finance, Planning,Industry and Foreign Trade. Mr Guedes, whotaught economics in Chile during the Pinochetdictatorship, is expected to focus on reducingthe public deficit and privatising Brazil’sextensive range of public enterprises.

A different form of conservativeideology is represented by MrBolsonaro’s foreign minister-des-ignate, Ernesto Araújo. He hasargued that Donald Trump is thesaviour of Western Christian civilisa-tion from internationalism, and thatBrazil should return to its Western roots indefining its foreign policy. Mr Araújo has alsoinveighed against the left’s “criminalisation”of “the family, private property, sex and repro-duction, belief in God, red meat, oil or anycheap and efficient source of energy”.

The future education minister, RicardoVélez Rodríguez, has complained that thecurrent educational system seeks to “demolishsociety’s traditional values as regards thepreservation of life, the family, religion, citi-zenship – in short, patriotism”.

As Minister of Health, Mr Bolsonaro hasappointed the paediatrician and landownerLuiz Henrique Mandetta. One of the problemsMr Mandetta will face is the departure of the8,000 Cuban doctors working in Brazil underan agreement between Havana and formerpresident Dilma Rousseff. Havana cancelledthe programme after Mr Bolsonaro criticisedthe qualifications of the Cuban doctors and

the fact that part of their salary went tothe Cuban government. Their depa

will leave many remote rural com-munities without a doctor, asBrazilian doctors have been reluc-tant to work in such areas.

The Minister of Agriculture willbe the landowner and politician

Tereza Cristina, who put forward the so-called “poison law”, which relaxed controlson pesticides. Both she and Mr Mandetta aremembers of the congressional “Bible, beefand bullet brigade”, the bloc formed byPentecostal politicians known for its resistanceto environmental measures and land reform.

Bishop convicted in abuse cover-upFRANCE

A COURT in Orleans has handed down aneight-month suspended sentence to the city’sformer bishop, André Fort, for not denouncinga paedophile priest who was sentenced by thesame court to two years in prison for the sexualabuse of ten boys in 1993, writes TomHeneghan. Fort, 83, is the second Frenchbishop convicted for non-denunciation. Thefirst, Pierre Pican of Bayeux, was given a three-month suspended sentence in 2001.

Fort did not attend the trial, pleading healthproblems. The Orleans prosecutor had soughta mandatory one-year prison sentence, sayingthat the court should give “an electro-

shock” to the Catholic Church in France.The Orleans priest Pierre de Castelet, now

69, was sentenced to three years imprison-ment, with one suspended.

In the Diocese of Strasbourg, Fr RobertBonan, 60, was arrested for several cases ofaggravated rape after a three-month policeinquiry. The prosecutor gave no details of theabuse besides the fact that Fr Bonan met hisvictims through his pastoral work.

Strasbourg Archbishop Luc Ravel told jour-nalists that he knew nothing of the case andhad agreed to publicise it, so that any furthervictims could speak up.

Booking:

www.meditatiocentrelondon.org T: 020 7278 2070 E:[email protected]

This quiet and friendly day will give you time to reflect on the deeper mystical and spiritual

meaning of the feast of Christmas.

Please join us

Preparing for Christmas with

Laurence Freeman OSB

Sat 15 December 2018 10.30 am – 4.00 pm

St Mark’s Myddelton Sq London EC1R 1XX

Cardinal Bo elected to lead Asian bishops

CARDINAL Charles Maung Bo has beenelected president of the Federation of AsianBishops’ Conferences (FABC) as from 1January 2019, writes James Roberts.

The FABC voted to appoint the Archbishopof Yangon at a meeting of its central committeein Bangkok last week.

The Myanmar cardinal replaces CardinalOswald Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay, whoends his second term as head of FABC on 31December.

Born on 29 October 1948 in Monhla, a vil-lage in the Archdiocese of Mandalay, Bo wasordained as a Salesian priest in Lashio, inShan State, on 9 April 1976.

He was apostolic administrator in Lashiofrom 1985 to 1986 and apostolic prefect from1986 to 1990. When the prefecture was ele-vated to the status of a diocese in 1990, hewas made its first bishop.

On 13 March 1996, Pope John Paul IIappointed him Bishop of Pathein,Ayeyarwady. On 24 May 2003, he becameArchbishop of Yangon.

FRANCIS McDONAGH

nBELGIUM’S bishopspublished their first annualreport, which provides someinteresting statistics but fallsshort of an exhaustive survey ofCatholicism in the country,writes Tom Heneghan.

The report cited surveys

showing that 53 per cent of thepopulation identifies as Catholicand that 9.4 per cent attendMass regularly. The Church doesnot keep its own statistics forthe Catholic population. But itdid record the number of hostsdistributed on one Sunday in

2016, the base year for thestatistics, which showed that 2.5per cent of all Catholics tookCommunion that day.

On average, Belgium has oneparish for every 3,000 believers.In neighbouring France, oneparish services 5,000 Catholics.

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the PoPe started the week with aMonday morning meeting with theleaders of Vatican departments, anevent which comes ahead of the pub-

lishing of a new mission statement for theRoman Curia. For almost six years, Francisand his council of nine advisers (the so-calledC9) have been working on an updated apos-tolic constitution for the Curia, which willbuild on Pastor Bonus, published 30 yearsago by John Paul II. What the new constitu-tion hopes to achieve, according to varioussources, is a slimmed-down, mission-focusedVatican that will have serving the Pope andthe bishops as its central focus. The hope isthat “curial empires”, where prefects run theirdicasteries as their private fiefdoms and tellbishops how to govern their dioceses, will beno more. Instead, the Vatican will become acoordinating hub for the universal Church,distilling and sharing the work of the bishops’conferences from across the world. Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, the

linchpin of the C9, says the Roman Curia canno longer be a filter between bishops and thePope and must work to ensure “open and fullcommunication”. The new constitution, hetold an Italian news site, La Voce e Il Tempo,last week, is due to be issued by Easter 2019,after approval by episcopal conferences. But reforming the Curia, as the 81-year-

old Jesuit Pope is often quoted as having said,is a bit like cleaning the sphinx of Egypt witha toothbrush. One of the difficulties will bein slimming down the staff – the Vaticanemploys 4,500, many of them lay people –and bringing in new blood with the rightskills. While no details of Francis’ meetingwith the curial leaders on Monday have beenofficially released, the word in Rome is thatthe management of human resources was topof the agenda. Two reports were presented:one from Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, pres-ident of the Governatorato, the body whichruns the Vatican City State, and one fromCardinal Giovanni Becciu, prefect of theCongregation for the Causes of Saints, whountil the summer had served as sostituto, theequivalent of the papal chief of staff.Under discussion was the need to reduce

costs and staff headcount: no one is going tobe fired but neither will staff be replaced afterretirement. The Pope also wants transparentand clear recruitment processes and greaterpastoral and spiritual care for those who workin the Vatican. A number of departments,such as the Secretariat of State and theDicastery for Promoting Integral HumanDevelopment, have already embraced thePope’s vision and now place a heavy emphasison service and working with local bishops.There is still a long way to go, however, and

don’t expect the reform to be completed inFrancis’ pontificate. The new constitution willlay down the foundations for future pontifi-cates to build on.

anyone looking to future papalelections should note that theCardinal Archbishop of Yangon,Charles Maung Bo, has been chosen

to lead the Federation of Asian Bishops’Conferences. The 70-year-old Myanmarprelate, a Salesian, was elected by his peersfrom the continental episcopal body, whichincludes 19 Asian bishops’ conferences alongwith eight associate groupings of bishops. Bowill take over from the Cardinal Archbishopof Bombay, Oswald Gracias, 73, one of themost respected figures in the Asian church,and a member of the C9. As well as showing that he can command

the respect – and the votes – of his peers, thecardinal has impressed in Rome with his han-dling of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar. Bohas balanced compassion for the appallinglybadly treated Rohingya Muslims with cautioussupport for the embattled Aung San Suu Kyi,while keeping channels of dialogue open withthe Burmese military. It was an approach fol-lowed by Francis during the first ever papaltrip to Myanmar earlier this year. Amiable,energetic and pastorally savvy, the cardinalimpressed during the recent youth synodwhere, as one of the president-delegates, hemoderated debates and led bishops in prayer. Bo’s new role will give him greater visibility

at a time when there is an increasing focuson the Church in Asia, particularly followingthe Holy See’s agreement with the communistregime in Beijing. It’s worth rememberingthat Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio had beenelected by his peers in Latin America to draftthe 2007 Aparecida document and had alsoimpressed when stepping in to act as relatorat the September 2001 general synod in Rome.

on the International Day for theElimination of Violence againstWomen, Filomena Lamberti readout a letter from the Pope on the

Italian state broadcaster, Rai One. Lamberti,58, has been severely disfigured since her nowex-husband threw acid on her face six yearsago. She had been asleep in bed at the timeof the attack, the culmination of a troubled35-year marriage which had included boutsof violence at the hands of her husband. “I ask your forgiveness,” Francis had written,

explaining he was asking forgiveness on behalfof a humanity that has forgotten how to doso. He went on: “I pray that the courage whichhas given you a unique beauty, will becomea slap in the face of indifference.”

VIEW FROMROMEChristopher lamb

For daily news updates visit www.thetablet.co.uk

rome

Pope emeritus Benedict XViaffirms dialoguewith JewsPoPe emeritus Benedict XVI hasemphatically rejected accusations that,in an article published in Communio inSeptember, he had spoken out in favourof missionising the Jews and calledJewish-Christian dialogue into question,writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt. “Any such assertion is plain and

simply wrong,” he states in an articleentitled “Correction” and signed “JosephRatzinger – Benedikt XVI” in theDecember issue of the prestigiousGerman theological monthly, HerderKorrespondenz .He was advocating dialogue and not

mission as “Judaism and Christianitystand for two ways of interpretingScripture”, he explains. For ChristiansGod’s promises to Israel were the hope ofthe Church and whoever believed thatwas in no way calling the foundation ofJewish-Christian dialogue into question.Christ’s mandate “to make disciples of

all nations” (Mt 28:19) was universal –with one exception, namely the Jews, heaccepted. “Missionising the Jews was notforeseen and not necessary for thesimple reason that they already knew the‘unknown God’. As far as Israel was andis concerned, not mission but dialogueon whether Jesus of Nazareth is ‘the Sonof God, the Logos’ for whom ... the wholeof humankind is waiting” is appropriate.

aboriginalsuicides risingthe CatholiC body that addresses theneeds of Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander peoples is trying to find newways to support rural and regionalcommunities to prevent suicide byIndigenous youth, writes Mark Brolly.The national youth councillor of the

National Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander Catholic Council (NATSICC),Sabrina-Ann Stevens, said after thecouncil’s recent assembly in Perth thatthe suicide rate of Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islanders is more than twice thatof non-Indigenous Australians.“There are a lot of young people taking

their lives and they are getting youngerand younger,” Ms Stevens said.

australia

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Heythrop flats planThe former site of HeythropCollege (above) in Londoncould be transformed into aluxury retirement village if theRoyal Borough of Kensingtonand Chelsea approves plans fora proposed £600-milliondevelopment this week. Flats in the development on

Kensington Square in Londonwill cost up to £3,000 a week torent, and will include access toon-site nursing, a spa, a yogastudio, cinema and wine room,as well as gardens designed byChelsea Flower Show winnerAndy Sturgeon. The Jesuits soldthe property to developerJohnny Sandelson in 2017 for afigure reportedly in excess of£100 million. The college closedat the end of the 2017-18academic year. Hundreds of thousands of

theology books formerly housedat the college library, includingbooks dating back to thecollege’s foundation in what isnow Belgium in 1614, are now

available to readers at SenateHouse Library at the Universityof London.

Ged Clapson, Catholicjournalist and formercommunications officer for theBritish Jesuits, has died age 63.Mr Clapson, who was diagnosedwith terminal cancer last year,began his career at the BBCbefore moving to London towork with Cafod in the 1990s.He worked for the CatholicCommunications Centre inLondon, and provided mediatraining to seminarians inEngland and Wales beforeworking full time for the Jesuits.

A Scottish branch of theinternational peace movementPax Christiwas launched inCoatbridge last weekend. PaxChristi Scotland was establishedearly in 2018 and has beenfunctioning under the aegis ofJustice and Peace Scotland sincethen. The event at the ConfortiCentre in Coatbridge saw itemerge as an autonomous armof the Pax Christi movement.

George Weigel, a senior fellowof the Ethics and Public PolicyCenter in Washington DC andauthor of Witness to Hope: TheBiography of Pope John Paul II,is to speak at St Dominic’sPriory, Belsize Park, London,on Wednesday on “Democracyand its Discontents:Catholicism and Public Life inTurbulent Times”.

Row over accused priests’ ritesThe Association of CatholicPriests in Ireland has raisedconcerns over the Churchauthorities’ handling of funeralsfor priests accused of abuse atits annual meeting this month.The National Board for

Safeguarding Children in theCatholic Church in Ireland(NBSCCCI) has publishedguidelines on the conduct offunerals of clerics against whomallegations have been made. However, according to the

ACP, some dioceses andreligious orders are operatingtheir own guidelines. The ACPsaid that one diocese’sguidelines included a directivethat funerals take place in aprivate chapel, that no deathnotice be published, that thedeceased priest be referred to byhis Christian name throughoutthe funeral rites, and not beburied in his vestments. Thefuneral Mass is not to beconcelebrated and no vestmentsare to be worn by priestsattending the funeral.

The Catholic Church in Irelandis facing its “gravest crisis incenturies”, the Bishop ofOssorywarned a conference forlaity and priests in his diocese atSt Kieran’s College Kilkenny lastweekend. Bishop DermotFarrell told delegates that hewanted to create a culturewhere laity are encouraged andempowered for ministry. “We have fallen off a cliff edge

in regard to vocations to thepriesthood,” said Bishop Farrell.“We cannot remedy this byclericalising good lay people.Crisis demands creativity. Thistime of reduced numbers maywell afford us an opportunity tobe creative and to reimagine theinstitutional church.

Environment secretary Michael Gove (above) paidtribute to Pope Francis’encyclical, Laudato Si’, in alecture in London this week.“The encyclical is remarkable

for the depth of thought whichgoes into addressing the twinchallenges of climate and socialjustice,” said Mr Gove, who gavethe annual address for thereligious think tank Theos. Headded that the encyclicalcontained “critical lessons” andwarned: “Never have we treatedour common home as badly aswe have in the last 200 years”.(See James Roberts, pages 10-11.)


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NEWSF R O M B R I TA I N A N D I R E L A N D

PERSON INTHE NEWS

Bishop Terence Drainey, launching CSAN’s report on the housing crisis: “For Christians, a crisisis an opportunity. It nudges us to renew our mission … and to learn to love with fewer conditions.”

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM / report warns of ‘significant’ global increase in persecution

MILLIONS OF people around the world livein constant danger because of their faith, areport by the charity Aid to the Church inNeed warned this week.In its survey of religious freedom, launched

in London at the House of Lords, the charitysaid there had been “significant religious free-dom violations” in 38 countries in the pasttwo years, and the situation for minority faithgroups has deteriorated further. Especiallyserious decline was noted in China and India.In many other countries – including NorthKorea, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Eritrea –the situation is already serious.The report described how “aggressive

nationalism” is now so bad it can be describedas “ultra-nationalism”, involving violent andsystematic intimidation of religious minoritieswhere they are branded as disloyal aliens anda threat to the state. It illustrated how manyfaith minorities exist behind a “curtain of

indifference”, their sufferings largely ignoredby a “religiously illiterate West”, as the issueof religious freedom is eclipsed by issues ofgender, sexuality and race.It warned that many violations are a result

of action by authoritarian regimes, a trendthat the report’s editor in chief, John Pontifex,said was set to continue. During the launch at the House of Lords

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, an AhmadiMuslim who is the prime minister’s specialenvoy on freedom of religion and belief andwhose own faith community has sufferedmuch persecution especially in Pakistan,acknowledged: “The report … makes for grimreading. We would rather we weren’t here tosee a report like this being produced.”He said he had travelled to countries where

religious persecution is all too common. “Iget great strength from my own faith becauseit inspires me to do that much more. WhenI talk to persecuted minorities their requestis simple – to be a citizen of their country.”

1 december 2018 | THE TABLET | 29

Violence against faithminorities escalating

THE CHURCH in England and Wales has beenforced to defend a tweet it published onTransgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR)last week that said: “All people are loved byGod and valued in their inherent God-givendignity,” writes Liz Dodd.In the tweet sent by @catholicEW, the offi-

cial Twitter account for the Church in Englandand Wales, the Bishops’ Conference said: “Wepray for all people who are ill at ease withtheir gender, seek to change it, suffer for itand have been persecuted, and also killed.”It ended the message with the hashtag

#TDOR, the official tag for RemembranceDay tweets. The annual observation com-memorates trans people who have died as aresult of transphobia.The bishops’ tweet was liked 3.4k times,

more than any other from the bishops thatweek, but it provoked complaints. Fr Marcus Holden, parish priest of St Bede’s

Church in Clapham Park, south-west London,

said: “Transgender Remembrance Day is partof an ‘ideological colonisation’ which Catholicscannot support. I’m surprised to see this here.”In a response seen by The Tablet the Bishops’

Conference said that the purpose of the tweetwas not to promote transgenderism but topromote prayer. It said the views of the Churchon gender ideology were well known, andpointed out that it had in a previous statementsaid it was “deeply concerned that this ideologyof gender is creating confusion”. The statement noted that the Church was

also committed to the pastoral care of “peoplewho do not accept their biological sex”. “Through listening to them we seek to

understand their experience more deeply andwant to accompany them with compassion,emphasising that they are loved by God andvalued in their inherent God-given dignity,”the statement said. The TDOR website lists 310 victims of fatal

transphobic violence in 2018.

RUTH GLEDHILL and ELLEN TEAGUE

Church defends tweet sent insolidarity with transgender people

GENDER IDENTITY / ‘All people are loved by God,’ affirm bishops

A number of speakers from the floor chal-lenged Lord Ahmad over the case of Asia Bibi,a Catholic woman who has been seeking asy-lum in the UK after her death sentence forblasphemy in Pakistan was overturned. Among them was Rehman Chishti, the

Conservative MP who is the prime minister’strade envoy to Pakistan and who resignedearlier this month as the party’s junior vice-chairman, citing the Brexit draft agreementand the handling of the Bibi case. He said atthe event that the Pakistani government can-not legally stop Bibi leaving Pakistan, and hecalled on the British government to put intopractice the high regard it claims to have forBritish values and offer her asylum. LordAhmad insisted the British government isdoing all it can to ensure the safety of Bibi.The launch of the Religious Freedom in

the World Report came as landmarks in coun-tries around the world were bathed in redlight to highlight the persecution of faithgroups on “Red Wednesday”. In Irelandchurches in Armagh, Galway, Waterford andCobh took part, as well as Knock Basilica. InLondon a torchlit procession was due to takeplace on 28 November from ParliamentSquare to Westminster Cathedral.

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NEWSF R O M B R I TA I N A N D I R E L A N D

OVERSEAS AID / Former Progressio head Christine Allen to lead charity in the spring

Cafod director appointmentprovokes controversy

CAFOD, THE international devel-opment charity, has appointedChristine Allen, former directorof Progressio, as its new head.Ms Allen, currently director of

policy and public affairs atChristian Aid, will replace ChrisBain in the spring. Mr Bain hasdelayed his retirement until then,although a Mass of thanksgivingto mark his retirement is plannedfor 5 December at St George’sCathedral, Westminster. The appointment follows a

lengthy recruitment process.While Mr Bain’s resignation wasannounced in May, a spokesmanfor Cafod told The Tablet in midOctober that it still had “notimescale” for the appointment.At Christian Aid, where she has

been since 2012, Ms Allen lobbiedpolitical and private sector leaderson issues such as taxation and cli-mate, held leadership roles onglobal and UK bodies, and hasbeen involved in supporting trusts,foundations and donor initiatives. Before that she was Progressio’s

executive director for 11 years andprior to that was head of public

affairs at the National HousingFederation. Her career began asa field worker with the Justice andPeace Commission in theArchdiocese of Liverpool, and shealso had a period working asCafod’s campaigns coordinator.Ms Allen said that the appoint-

ment “feels like coming home”. “Iam immensely proud of Cafod, itswork and its role in the globalCatholic family,” she said.As head of Progressio, Ms Allen

oversaw the evolution of the char-ity’s stance on HIV prevention,which included condoning the useof condoms to tackle the HIV pan-demic. “In certain circumstances,”

the charity said in 2011, “the useof condoms is a life-saving option.”The charity came under fire dur-

ing her tenure for changing itsname from the Catholic Institutefor International Relations. JohnSmeaton, chief executive of theSociety for the Protection ofUnborn Children, complained thatunder Ms Allen, Progressio “hasa simply appalling record”. Responding to complaints

about the appointment, Cafod’sboard told the Catholic Herald:“Christine Allen has been askedher views as part of Cafod’s duediligence process and has satisfiedthe trustees that she will upholdCatholic teaching and values.”The board subsequently wrote

a letter of complaint to the news-paper, objecting that it hadportrayed its comments as“defending” its choice. Bishop John Arnold, Cafod’s

chair of trustees, wrote: “Quitethe opposite. Cafod’s trustees fullyendorse Christine Allen’s appoint-ment, which has been greetedwith joy by Cafod staff and sup-porters.” Sarah Teather, head ofthe Jesuit Refugee Service, calledthe appointment “cracking news”.

LIZ DODD andRUTH GLEDHILL

EUROPE

Church leadersfrom all Irelandmeet todiscuss Brexit

CHURCH LEADERS in Irelandcalled on politicians to “weightheir words carefully” as initialnegotiations for the UK to leavethe EU drew to a close, writesSarah Mac Donald. Representatives of the

Catholic, Methodist, Church ofIreland and PresbyterianChurches from the island ofIreland met at the PresbyterianAssembly Buildings in Belfastlast week to discuss how torespond to the challenges posedby Brexit. A joint statement issued after

the meeting warned it wasimportant to acknowledge thelegitimate aspirations of thosewho voted to leave the EU andthose who voted to remain.They prayed that inevitable

Brexit tensions would not beallowed to undermine thequality of relationships andmutual understanding thatenabled them to work togetherfor the common good.Relationships between the

people of Ireland, North andSouth, and between theRepublic of Ireland and theUnited Kingdom, have“improved and deepenedimmeasurably” over the past 30years, they said. This atmosphere of mutual

respect had been the positivebackground against whichmany significant developmentshad taken place includingceasefires, politicalaccommodation, increasedconnectedness and risingprosperity for many. “Regardless of the outcome of

this process, as peoples andcommunities who share thisisland, we will remain closelyrelated and will have to both getalong together and worktogether in this changing andsomewhat uncertain world thatlies ahead,” they pledged. Bishop Noel Treanor of Down

and Connor told the meeting:“Churches share a responsibilitywith society to recognise and topromote an appreciation of thepublic good that is theEuropean project.”

THE BISHOP of Argyll and theIsles has called on parishes to helpresolve the diocese’s “dire and per-ilous” financial situation, writesBrian Morton. In a letter and leaflet distrib-

uted last week, Bishop BrianMcGee said that the diocese hadbeen obliged to draw on capitalto address a deficit of £90,000in the accounts. While individual parishes were

doing well, the cost of running avery scattered diocese was veryhigh. Income across the diocesewas audited as £207,883, whileprojected costs for the year wereestimated as £296,118, leaving asubstantial shortfall for 2019. Bishop McGee said: “We have

more churches per head of pop-ulation than any other diocese,which are often battered by theinclement weather, and our priestshave more ground to cover.” Additional costs specific to

Argyll and the Isles include ferry

journeys and flights, but the dio-cese is also supporting sick orretired priests, two studentpriests, as well as making a con-tribution to the Scottish Bishops’Conference.From 1 December, the diocesan

levy for each parish was set toincrease, but the situation couldbe rectified if each family wereable to contribute an additional£1 per week. “We felt it was essential that

our parishioners were madeaware of the financial situationwe find ourselves in,” said BishopMcGee. “It’s their money that goesinto the collection each week andthese documents will clearly out-line where the money is spent.”

Scottish diocese turns to parishionersfor help with ‘dire’ finances

Christine Allen

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“GANNETS”, the man with the telescopeannounced. Standing on the crumblingmud cliffs, trying to keep my footing in thegale, I searched the vast grey of sea and sky.We visit Holy Island every summer but havenever been here in November before. “Pairdiving at twelve o’clock,” the expertcontinued. “In the offing.” Then I saw them.The birds flashed like phosphorous as theyplunged into the wild North Sea, half a mileaway. Gannets are dazzling animals.Bobbing in a little fishing boat last June, Iremember seeing how their white heads are

suffused with a warm yellow glow, and theirblue eyes ringed with a dark, Cleopatraeyeliner. But they are at their most strikingwhen seen from a distance on grey, dank

days, when their scintillatingly whiteplumage sparks like a rocket. Northerngannets grow up to a metre long, with theirblack-tipped wingspan stretching almostdouble the size. Diving after fish, they canhit the sea at upwards of sixty miles an hour.More than two-thirds of the world’sNorthern gannet population live in ourwaters, and their glittering brightness hasevolved so they can spot each other in thesegrey seas. Anglo-Saxon poets also lovedwatching them fish; naming the North Seain their honour, the gannet’s bath.

Glimpses of EdenJONATHAN TULLOCH

THE ETHICAL KITCHEN

Political mincemeat

STIRRING TOGETHER the fruityand aromatic ingredients that willbe this year’s mincemeat, I amaware that it also has hidden

among its glossy depths an uninvitedingredient. Mincemeat could be ametaphor for the part geo-politics playsin food: the currants, raisins, brownsugar and spices represent the whirl ofthe global market; the tangy gratings ofapple embody the long struggle borne byBritish orchardists against cheaperimports. And then there is the beef suet.Out of tune with moves to make cows thescapegoat for global warming, as greatwasters of water and polluters of theatmosphere, many question their futureexistence. Who knew a mince pie couldcontain such a hotchpotch of trouble?Perhaps only the brandy is innocent …

This Advent, these matters seem to becoming to a head. The drop in the poundhas put the price of food, especiallyimported food, up. Whichever way weemerge from Brexit, it is unlikely thatprices will drop for many years. Thosegolden sultanas and other vine fruits,dried in the warm winds of the blessedMediterranean and used in BritishChristmas cooking for centuries, willonce again be expensive luxuries. Whenthe trade deals are renegotiated, not justwith Europe but other supplying nations,too – the USA, China – who knows howviable a mince pie, even a Christmaspudding, will be for the home cook?

As for the real “meat” in the pie, the

beef suet, I intend always to use it. It addsto the pool of fruity flavours in a way novegetable oil-based equivalent can.Vegetable oils, usually the product ofseeds from non-eco-friendly crops likepalms and rapeseed, are themselvesecologically problematic. It is right to saythat there is a problem with the highnumbers of cattle being farmed on theplanet and the consequences of theirmeat being the mainstay of fast food.

Recently an academic suggested thatbeef should be subject to tax – paid bythose who consume it. This idea fails onevery level. It would be better to convincethose who eat beef to choose to pay moreand eat only premium meat: from cattle

which are fed on grass in an eco-responsible way and not wastefully fed oncereals. Shoving a tax on all beef wouldpunish consumers who want toparticipate in a more ethical approach.Were it to happen at the same time as theanticipated revolution in the UK’s tradedealings, it would doubly penaliseconsumers and farmers.

The best present any of us could havethis Christmas would be for those thatgovern us, and the food industry, toreform their ways – and to stop piling thecosts of their mistakes onto revellers.

HEDGEROW MINCEMEATMAKES 4 JARS

2 British apples, peeled, cored andgratedZest of 1 lemon2 tbsp. rosehip syrup225g beef suet100g candied citrus peel120g currants225g sultanas450g dark brown sugar4 tbsp. damson or sloe gin

Mix all the ingredients together,making a good wish as you stir, thenspoon into jars, seal and store. For arich shortcrust pastry that rolls outbeautifully thin, use a ratio of 375gplain flour to 250g butter, with about75ml water. Makes 24 small pies.

The best present thisChristmas would be for

those that govern us,and the food industry, to

reform their ways

ROSE PRINCE

Publisher’s Sworn StatementAverage circulation per issue of The Tabletfor print and digital issues distributed between1 January and 31 December 2017 is 17,455

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the catholic imaginationenzo bianchi born 1943, castel boglione, monferrato, italy. lay monk and...

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