The fault line

The fault line

The parishes that had been preparing Remembrance Day and postponed First Holy Communion services for this weekend have had to change their plans. The bishops of England and Wales reacted with anguish and dismay to the government’s announcement that public Masses must stop for at least four weeks. No evidence has been forthcoming that this would have public health benefits, and no-one was consulted; as our leader points out, the government is not interested in any opinion but its own. On our website, Ruth Gledhill reports that Cardinal Vincent Nichols and Archbishop of Liverpool Malcolm McMahon OP have sharply criticised the ban and lament the “fundamental lack of understanding of the essential contribution made by faith communities to the well-being, resilience and health of our society”. They have nevertheless urged Catholics to respect the regulations, and called on them to join a “national shared moment of prayer” at 6 pm each day during lockdown. On the other side of the Irish Sea, Ireland’s four archbishops have so far failed to persuade the Taoiseach Micheál Martin to revoke the current blanket restriction on public worship, reports Sarah Mac Donald. 

It may cause terrible suffering but the Covid-19 pandemic has also drawn out “a social type of love”, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, president of Caritas Internationalis, told Catherine Pepinster in advance of the talk he gave to the Westminster Abbey Institute on Tuesday. In the magazine this week, Nina Mattiello Azadeh looks at the impact of a second lockdown at parish level, where a digital divide has opened up between those who are flourishing in the world of livestreaming and social media and those who are floundering. And in View from Rome, Christopher Lamb writes that the Pope sounded relaxed when he was asked if he feared that Catholics might not return when the churches are open for Mass again. “Believe me,” Francis replied, “the faithful will be truer believers and more authentic.”  

Jonathan Luxmoore reports that priests and lay Catholics in Poland have urged the Church to distance itself from the governing Law and Justice party, as mass protests continued against a high court judgment that further tightened the country’s abortion laws; the government has now announced a pause in the implementation of the ruling. Fr Stan Swamy SJ, a prominent human rights activist in India, has been arrested for alleged Maoist links. In our latest podcast, Fr Damian Howard, provincial of the Jesuits in Britain, tells Ruth Gledhill why Fr Stan's incarceration is unjust. Catch up on past Tablet podcasts here. We are now on eight digital platforms, including Google and Apple podcasts, and Spotify. 

L’Arche communities hold out a promise of growth and maturity for people with disabilities and those who live with them. Those who, like Ronan Sharkey, thought they knew the movement’s charismatic founder Jean Vanier have been wrestling with a sense of confusion and betrayal since it was revealed in February that he had had manipulative sexual relationships with women over several decades. He exposes the fault lines that are now beginning to emerge.  The conquistadores and the missionaries who followed them are among history’s most notorious villains. But Mexican scholar Fernando Cervantes argues that it is time to re-write this chapter in the history of Latin America. Joanna Moorhead was asked to write a book for girls about women saints – and discovered that they were all, in their own way, innovators, trailblazers, and rebels. Cornelius Sim, the apostolic vicar of Bruno, who has a flock of 20,000 Catholics and three priests, tells Christopher Lamb of his astonishment at learning he was to be made a cardinal.

Eight Ryeland sheep were delivered in May to papal biographer Austen Ivereigh’s farm in Herefordshire. Caring for them has turned Austen vegetarian so they won’t be fattened and sold. “They’ve become part of the family”, he writes. Johnny Cash, former Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Lang, and Ferdinand Mount’s eccentric Aunt Munca rub shoulders in Christopher Howse’s Notebook. And Tom Holland points out that while hostility to same-sex relationships reaches back to the beginnings of the Church, Catholic teaching on homosexuality is less than two centuries old. 

Coventry is the UK’s City of Culture for 2021. Mark Lawson asks theatre director Erica Whyman why she is putting the city’s faith communities at the heart of the drama that will take centre stage during the festivities. D.J. Taylor enjoys an absorbing half hour listening to Elizabeth Alker’s radio documentary exploring the links between water and spirituality, and Lucy Lethbridge is jolted from her complacency by disabled film-maker Richard Butchins’ luminous BBC Four film about sight-impaired visual artists. In his new book, Steve Bruce rehearses his familiar argument that Christianity has for decades been losing power, popularity and plausibility. Stephen Bullivant agrees – though he isn’t as sure it’s heading for extinction. Ian Thomson is enchanted by Christopher de Hamel’s latest exercise in biblio-sleuthing; Lucy Popescu enjoys a new novel by Elena Ferrante that perfectly captures teenage girls’ rebellion; and Terry Philpot rounds up three books on Nazi resisters and collaborators. 

There’s lots of Brian Morton this week: in Books, he wonders if the revered environmentalist David Attenborough might not be part of the problem as well as part of the solution; in Arts, Morton salutes an elegiac masterpiece from Bruce Springsteen; and in Word from the Cloisters he shares the moment when he thought Sean Connery was about to batter him. 

We ended our annual summer readers’ appeal last week, but the cheques are still coming in. The bit of The Tablet that every donor tells us they like is Letters to the Editor: the bit of the paper that's your work rather than mine. As usual, it’s full of intelligent disagreement this week: on the lockdown, on tackling Islamist terror, on women’s ordination, and on “reluctant guru” Timothy Leary. 

November, Jonathan Tulloch writes, is a good month for tucking into honeysuckle berries, at least if you’re a squirrel or a vole. They’re toxic for humans. And finally Guy Consolmagno reveals what happened when a spacecraft launched four years ago landed last month on asteroid Bennu, expecting to meet a rocky surface …  instead, in this year of sharp shocks and bruising encounters, it had an unexpectedly soft landing. 

I hope you enjoy this week’s issue. 

Brendan Walsh
Editor of The Tablet