Friendship changes everything

Letters to the Editor of The Tablet

In his article “In the service of the world” (6 September), Jean-Marc Aveline, Cardinal Archbishop of Marseille, writes that his many years of experience of interreligious relations in that city have taught him that the sterile opposition between dialogue and mission must be overcome: “Dialogue is more than a mere condition for making proclamation of the Gospel possible. Rather the point is to live the command of mission in the spiritual attitude of dialogue.”

He adds: “It is often because our theology is not sufficiently Trinitarian that our missionary activity lacks its dialogical dimension.”

In fact, the first official document, produced over 40 years ago, by the Secretariat for Non-Christians, which became the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and is now the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue – The Attitude of the Church toward the Followers of Other Religions: Reflections and Orientations on Dialogue and Mission (1984) – contains very helpful reflections on the Persons of the Holy Trinity. It appeals to the example of Charles de Foucauld, “who carried out mission in a humble and silent attitude of union with God, in communion with the poor and in universal brotherhood”.

The cardinal writes that the young people who for a few weeks come to Marseille from all over France to spend time in the city’s northern districts might arrive with preconceived ideas about Islam but “they leave with Muslim friends – and that changes everything”.

Pope Francis links dialogue and friendship in Evangelii Gaudium (251) when dealing with relations with Judaism, before declaring that interreligious dialogue in general should be “ever friendly and sincere”. The joint document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, released during his trip to Abu Dhabi in 2019, was a fruit of the personal friendship between Francis and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Dr Ahmad at-Tayyeb.

I wish Cardinal Aveline had spoken more about friendship as a way forward for interreligious relations. The document on human fraternity suggests action in many different directions; it is theologically based on faith in God, the origin and destiny of the whole of humanity. It bases fraternity not on religious belonging but on faith in God as Creator. It recognises the presence of conflict and injustice in the world.

Its co-authors recognise it is an invitation to engage in a work-in-progress: “… the adoption of a culture of dialogue as the path; mutual cooperation as the code of conduct; reciprocal understanding as the method and standard”.

The committee established to fulfil the aspirations of the Human Fraternity document includes a rabbi.

For a permanent peace, Israel must insert itself into the Middle Eastern world, rather than pretending to be part of Europe (taking part in European football competitions and the Eurovision Song Contest).

President Trump’s 20-point plan may have brought a fragile but welcome ceasefire to Gaza, but this is not enough. Real peace can only come from dialogue and fraternity. Rabbis for Human Rights have shown the way by helping Palestinians harvest their olives, establishing friendships as they do so.

Cardinal Michael Louis Fitzgerald M.A.fr
President Emeritus, Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue

Democracy and God

Clifford Longley’s article asking if the Pope could save democracy (25 October) is thought-provoking, but unconvincing. There is a contradiction at the heart of Longley’s argument: his understanding of conscience.

Personal responsibility, he rightly affirms, is at the heart of democracy and so elected representatives should follow their conscience. He mentions Cardinal George, who opined that the virtue which Catholic politicians should bring to public debate is obedience, not prudence. More precisely, they should obey their conscience: their instinctive consciousness of non-negotiable moral principles irrespective of the consequences.

Longley begs to differ, as would many Catholic moral theologians. For them, conscience is something purely subjective, a “prudential judgement”, based on a calculus of foreseen consequences.

Conscience is our God-given antenna for the true and the good arising from our being created in the image and likeness of God. The Church’s moral and social teaching, as it is inspired by God’s revelation, is an appeal to conscience, often darkened by personal weakness and society’s disvalues.

Pope Benedict XVI, Longley reminds us, argued for the need for moral principles outside the democratic sphere if society is to flourish. These are, in the final analysis, God-given principles, some of which are absolute and admit of no exception. There is a crisis in democracy today because there is no consensus that there are any such objective moral principles which transcend popular – and so transient – majorities.

Democracy can be saved – if and when politicians, Catholic or not, have the integrity and the courage to defend in public the primacy of God and the divine moral order written into our created being.

(Fr) Vincent Twomey SVD
Former Professor of Moral Theology, Maynooth, Ireland

Theology studies

Professor Faggioli (“Better in than out”, 1 November) spoke to my own experience as a student. I studied philosophy and theology at the University of Exeter (2014-18), and later studied philosophy at the Angelicum and theology at the Gregorian in Rome during my formation for the priesthood.

I found the pontifical academic system deeply frustrating in my theology studies. I enjoyed being in a truly universal institution in Rome (especially in the coffee bar at break time), but felt rather shackled after studying at a secular institution, because success in exams simply demanded parroting back what the lecturer said in lectures.

I agree that despite challenges we should strive to maintain theology faculties in secular universities. Indeed, it helps form people in the “promotion of social justice” and “fostering [of] moral and ethical values”. It also helps form genuine friendships with those from different backgrounds: much needed in our polarising world.

(Fr) Ryan Browne
St John’s Cathedral, Portsmouth

West Bank misery

I have been horrified by the suffering endured in Gaza (Letters, 25 October), but even more by the cloaked suffering of the people of the West Bank. The children arrested and detained, the families forced from burning homes, and beaten and refused succour by illegal settlers and the IDF.

All this is perpetrated with assured impunity. And Donald Trump will claim victory, despite the eradication of an entire nation, recognised by most of the world. Benjamin Netanyahu claims victory, too – but over an illusory foe, conjured for spectacle while the real victims are silenced. All the while killing yet more innocents.

Yet again, Isaiah’s prophecy comes true: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”

Judith Campbell
Portree, Isle of Skye

Old Testament roots

On the very day last week that The Tablet arrived, the first reading at Mass was from St Paul’s Letter to the Romans (9:4-5). Referring to the Jewish people he writes: “They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenant, the giving of the law … to them belong the patriarchs, and from their race according to the flesh is the Christ who is God over all for ever blessed.”

Surely, we cannot think it right to exclude from the liturgy the Old Testament, three quarters of our scriptures, because we think the New Testament contains all we need to know (Letters, 1 November). St Paul doesn’t think so. We would be severing ourselves from our roots in God’s chosen people and their history.

(Sr) Elizabeth Obbard
Carmelite monastery, Quidenham, Norfolk

Trans rights support

Thanks to Liz Dodd for her column (25 October) on positive allyship for LGBT+ people.

Tina Beattie’s response (Letters, 1 November), that lesbians are concerned about “lumping together” apparently conflicting rights in the “LGBTQ+ community”, is not borne out by evidence. Polling shows that the group most supportive of trans people’s rights are lesbian and bisexual women. Trans people’s alienation from rigid societal gender divisions echoes my experience as a lesbian feminist who is not trans. We, too, have been told we are not proper women.

Beattie dismisses Liz Dodd’s empathy with LGBT+ people by saying that it risks making us “a privileged placeholder for all the poor and marginalised”. What this shows is Beattie’s lack of empathy. She questions whether the community has ethical boundaries and implies that support for LGBT+ people’s interests slides into support for sexual violence, online pornography and abuse. This is prejudice in plain sight. At a time when hateful rhetoric against trans people is being amplified by the populist right, Beattie’s views are at the least reckless, potentially dangerous.

Maria Exall
London SE24

M. R. James defended

Like Michael Carter (“The full Monty”, 25 October), I first encountered the ghost stories of M.R. James as “an imaginative and impressionable teenager almost half a century ago”. Unlike Carter, I see very little anti-Catholicism in his work – indeed, the opposite.

The “pronouncedly Protestant type” (Colonel Wilson) in “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” is a figure of ridicule. When he discovers that the vicar (clearly High Church) was to celebrate the Feast of St Thomas the Apostle, it constitutes, in his view, “a strong presumption that the Vicar was a concealed Papist, if not a Jesuit”.

Here is the lunacy of a latter day Popish Plot, mocked by James. The thrust of the story is how a religious sceptic is moved towards an acceptance of the supernatural by a frightening and inexplicable encounter. It’s not anti-Catholic in the least.

James was a product of his time: a devout Anglican from a clerical family who lived long before ecumenism became the lodestone of modern Church relations. Also, quite frankly, I agree with his suspicion about relics, as they always arouse my inner Protestant.

(Fr) Julian Shurgold
Croydon, Surrey

CofE funding

Christopher Swift (Letters, 25 October) asks that I clarify how the government funds the Church of England.

The main grant is the Listed Places of Worship Scheme, which covers VAT on repairs to listed places of worship. This doubtless covers all religious buildings, but with assets of £11bn the CofE should not accept a penny of public money

Lester May
London NW1

Are bishops tyrants?

In Austria we have the Einheitsübersetzung, the Bible translation used in the Missal. I do all the things your unnamed writer (Letters, 25 October) does – change and drop words – and no one, including our bishops, really has a problem.

What astonishes me most is when your writer says: “So far I have got away with it.” Are your bishops such tyrants? What will they do to you?

(Rev.) Hans Bensdorp
Vienna, Austria