Letters Extra

In addition to the letters published in this week’s issue of the The Tablet you can find more correspondence here, available free.

What if we just took stock?

Many of us have been highly critical of the new translation of the Mass in recent months, both of the process of preparation of the new texts and of the outcome from those deliberations that has brought us to this point.

This is where we are; the New Translation is in use. Now, how do we manage?

May I suggest a possible way forward? An announcement should be made that the New Translation will be in use for the next five years. During this period, the bishops in the English-speaking world will listen to the objections of everyone involved, both clerical and lay, and accept positive suggestions for improvements, based on experience. A revised translation will be undertaken at the same time, using the three texts we now have available: the one that we had been praying over the last 40 years, that proposed by ICEL in 1998, widely acclaimed, but never introduced and finally the most recent translation now in use. This should be possible in this time span given all the textual material that already exists.

The resultant text would then be published and offered for discussion and final debate by all before it is approved by the Bishops and then by Rome. This would re-introduce the principle of waiting for informed comment before acceptance, a suggestion first aired by Fr Michael Ryan in his article in [i]America[/i] back in 2010.

I would suggest that now we must have a concrete programme that would serve to allay the fears that we will be stuck with this translation for decades or that there might just be another such imposition on us at some time in the future. It would acknowledge, in a positive manner, that all is not well with the new translation and it would bring together the many divergent opinions being expressed into a common cause, unity in our Eucharistic prayer. Is it too much to ask?

The Latin Mass Society, by sheer dogged perseverance, has had remarkable success in bringing about a resurgence of Latin in the liturgy. What we now need is an English Mass Society whose only purpose would be to return to the translation of the Mass that we have lived with and loved for several decades. No doubt the new translation is a more faithful translation of some original universal Latin version but it isn't anything like as good and clear as the version it has replaced. One wonders if the "experts" responsible for the revision have any understanding of clear English or, if indeed, English is their native tongue.

If the celebrant were to greet us with the words "The Lord be with your spirits" then "And with your spirit" would be an apt response. Similarly, before Communion, we used to say: "Say but the word and I shall be healed". "I" has now become "my soul" as if my soul and I are different entities. Furthermore, as a child, I used to think that "my roof" must refer to the roof of my mouth as this was the only roof I owned!

It is baffling that our hierarchy ever agreed to have such linguistic oddities imposed upon us. Something must be done now before we're told that the new translation is "definitive" and therefore irreversible.

Wanted - the British voice of dissent

Why is it that in this country we do not appear to have a vocal group of priests similar to the Austrian "rebels" in their demand for reform? (The Tablet, 11 February). The requests made by the Austrian priests seem to so many of us to be perfectly sensible and acceptable and have been discussed in this country for the past 50 years or more. Most relate to the lack of credibility that exists in the Church over issues such as contraception (98 per cent of practising Catholics in the USA use it to plan their families), celibacy (not necessary as a condition of priesthood and often a liability), treatment of the divorced and remarried, same-sex relationships, married priests (already accepted in this country) and women deacons and priests.

The Austrian priests are wise in refusing to spend their weekends moving around from one parish to the next delivering "superficial rituals". In the UK parishes continue to merge and dissolve into huge "pastoral areas", while the few priests who are left rush from one church to the next, often becoming little more than "itinerant celebrants" with no time to talk to anyone. Their lives often become quite intolerable. As a psychotherapist I see excellent priests becoming worn out, stressed out, highly anxious and finally sinking into depression through being asked to work under intolerable conditions without the help, support and supervision required for such a role. I wonder how many bishops have been responsible for parishes in recent times and can therefore fully understand the workload their priests now have to undertake, and empathise with them?

Meanwhile many lay people, including those on the fringes desert these large, impersonal pastoral areas to search for that authentic welcome, peace and sense of real community that often can only be found in sacred places such as the chapels of small convents and monasteries around the land.

How did Morris' removal benefit the Church?

In his article "Rites and Wrongs" (The Tablet, 21 January), Fr Ian Waters is quoted as saying that the Holy See had departed from earlier precedents in the removal of Bishop William Morris and could have a designed a process that would have shown "procedural fairness and natural justice consistent with the Code of Canon Law. This was not done." Fr Waters appears to have been in agreement with William Carter QC, who nominated 14 points where Bishop Morris had been denied natural justice.

Yet in last Saturday's Sydney Morning Herald, Denis Hart, the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne writes: "Fr Waters is misrepresented by the statement that the Pope has breached Canon Law and exceeded his authority. In the final analysis, the Pope always has the freedom to act for the good of the Church in the appointment and removal of bishops."

What many bemused Catholics are wondering is how Bishop Morris's removal was for the "good" of the Toowoomba diocese and for the Catholic Church in Australia in general. Certainly the whole episode has shown the weakness of the present Roman system and calls for a re-think on how such situations should be resolved.

Onward, Christian soldiers

Wherever is this country heading for, with prayers during Bideford Council proceedings now being declared "unlawful"? It appears that some "do-gooders" in our society are hell-bent on destroying our rich Christian heritage which has sustained us in good times and bad. It is encouraging to see that the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles appreciates the role Christianity plays in the culture, heritage, and fabric of our nation. As Christians, at times like these, we need to stand up and be counted.

Selling off Catholic treasures

Omitted from Sam Adams' article "Heritage for Sale" (The Tablet, 11 February) was the sale of the St Cuthbert Gospel for a reported £9 million last year by the English Province of the Society of Jesus. Purchased in part by public subscription, complementing established funding sources and grant schemes, it was acquired by the British Library. So it is in safe-keeping, and accessible and viewable as occasion merits and is planned.

Seemingly, the sum raised part-funded the conservation and refurbishment of the recently re-opened chapel/parish church at Stonyhurst, strengthened the funding of two Jesuit-run schools in London and Glasgow, and built a new school in Africa.

The Gospel-book is an extremely rare item, easily qualifying as a national treasure. Other items of historical interest may be less qualified, but nevertheless be worthy of the concern of the wider Catholic community, so much so that they are not to be disposed of willy-nilly to inappropriate new owners, or for questionable new purposes, or by demeaning means.

No doubt some of those who have already disposed of such portable historic items, or are contemplating doing so, or certain of their advisers or just onlookers have adopted the defensive riposte that those concerned about such material heritage of the Church are concerned only with worldly valuations.

In which case, why are the items being put up for sale? Is selling better than giving away?

But is it better to neither sell nor give away, but to retain? By what criteria and by what mechanism are judgements to be made and implemented about what should be retained, sold or given away? And what about ownership; who are the real owners? Who those with a self-given and seemingly unaccountable "right" to dispose of such heritage, and who the custodians with a moral responsibility to care and conserve, and even continue using, where possible, in perpetuity?

Down's Syndrome, Communion and mystery

The recent decision by a priest in the diocese of Leeds to initially refuse a boy with Down's syndrome admission the right to make his First Holy Communion course (The Tablet, 28 January), barring of the lad purely because of his disability, looks like a resurrection of the Jansenism heresy that Holy Communion is a reward for perfection as opposed to a remedy for human fragility and frailty - of course one must be free from mortal sins in receiving Holy Communion, but not perfect.

Pope St Pius X taught that all that is needed is for the child to understand that the host at Holy Communion is different from the unconsecrated host. They do not need to understand the words consecration, transubstantiation or consubstantial. They just needed to know that Jesus is hidden within the small host for us.

The Gospels teach us we should allow little children to come to Christ and not put unnecessary barriers in their way. St Pius X knew this when he said that those who know the child well should decided when First Holy Communion is appropriate - not a bureaucrat in a liturgy commission making the rules.

Some years ago while working in a retreat centre, we welcomed a group from Faith and Light for the weekend. It was mainly a weekend of training and reflection on their ministry, but they brought with them several adults with varying disabilities. One of these was a man with Down's Syndrome who could not speak. When the priest at Mass held up the Host after the consecration, and again when he held up the chalice, this man gave a slow respectful hand-clap.

I have no way of knowing how much he understood of what had just happened at the consecration, and in any case he could not have explained it. But I was very moved by witnessing his "proclamation of faith". Who was I (I have often wondered since) to judge his faith?

Released into adulthood by the Church

Clifford Longley (The Tablet, 28 January) wonders what sort of freedom the Cardinal of Vienna can have been thinking of in a recent address. He suggests the freedom to follow the Holy Spirit, who "bloweth where it listeth". This would be in harmony with the culture in which we live and seems to receive support from the Vatican II document Lumen Gentium.

It would certainly be in harmony with Christian mystical thinking through the ages and with the Neo-platonic doctrine of emanation, in which we all tend to divine union. Through the writings of that modern disciple of Meister Eckhart, Jean Sulivan (1913-80), we can discern the need for a new sacrament of maturation, release or liberation to reflect the state of equanimity (Gelassenheit) or divine entrustment necessary for union with God. Our Mother Church would release us out of the coercive guidance of youth into the freely chosen guidance of adulthood. The lack of such freedom is an enemy of truth. And the knowledge of truth is a precondition for authenticity, which in turn is necessary for effective evangelisation.

Only by the institution of such a sacrament can the Church step beyond the Counter-Reformation model and follow Pope John XXIII in throwing open the windows to the modern world.

Mrs Thatcher's costly Falklands victory

Further to Clifford Longley's summary of Argentina's claims to The Falklands (The Tablet, 11 February), in addition to "running down the Navy in the South Atlantic", when Mrs Thatcher came to power in 1979 she opened discussions with Argentina about a joint Government, which would see UK and Argentine flags flying side-by-side in Port Stanley. This helped to convince Argentina that we had no future interest in the Falklands. So, they invaded and it cost 255 British lives to win back the islands. Mrs Thatcher's triumph was built on her earlier, costly mistakes.

Spiritually fallen - but not physically immortal either

In his letter (The Tablet, 21 January), David Andrews refers to God's punishment after the Fall as the spiritual death of the soul rather than the physical death of the body. Although this debate may still be alive among some, whatever may be in contention it is not the death of the body as we know it.

We may be as near to certainty as any scientist will allow, that there has not been a time in the earth's past when by direct divine intervention the planet's natural evolutionary processes have been suspended, in whole or in part, temporarily or potentially permanently.

God created us to be rational creatures and it defies rationality to suppose that a human body existed that could not be crushed, drowned, torn apart, burnt, struck by lightning and so on. Or are we to imagine that the protective energy shield beloved by science-fiction writers is based on a primeval memory?

Seaside city reborn

The book review entitled "Elegy to a Seaside City" (The Tablet, 11 February) indeed paints a mournful picture of Falmouth. Such an impression is outdated and misleading, for the town is a bustling academic, cultural and tourist centre, hosting the most comprehensive and vibrant events in Cornwall, including its annual Spring, Sea Shanty, Fal River and Oyster Festivals.

Falmouth is the first and last port in Cornwall, framed by Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and having some of the most beautiful gardens in the world. As one of the UK's premier sailing destinations (Robin Knox-Johnston and Dame Ellen McArthur set forth from and returned to Falmouth), it hosts the renowned Henry Lloyd Sailing Week. Its creative heritage (Picasso, Scott Tuke, Hemy) continues to inspire and the town's family-friendly art gallery has been nominated for 18 major awards.

The Falmouth and Penryn Churches Together Forum is actively involved in with local community, for example at street parties, through the Food Bank and Poverty Forum. As one resident recently put it, "Falmouth is the best place in the world to live".

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