The successor

The successor

It seems strange to think of Gerard Manley Hopkins as a late-Victorian poet. Where Matthew Arnold deafens us with his “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar”, and Tennyson often stifles with settled mournfulness, Hopkins, for the most part, is driven by a boisterous gladness:

“Nothing is so beautiful and spring –

When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush

Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush         

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring         

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing…”

It’s good to think of him as we emerge from winter, and as we search for reasons to believe that grace prevails, despite everything.

Because much of our news is grim.

This week’s leader argues that, incredible though it might have seemed in the wake of 7 October, Hamas and Israel are now spoken of in the same breath as perpetrators of intolerable atrocities. Leviticus enjoins us to “Love thy neighbour as thyself”, but Deuteronomy limits this to Hebrews. Can Israeli Jews regard Arab Palestinians as “neighbours”? If not, the outlook is bleak.

A second leader argues that Sir Keir Starmer’s “cozying up to the memory of Margaret Thatcher” in the hope of winning over Troy voters should take into account how badly wrong Thatcher’s privitisation – of the railways, energy, water – has gone. Labour must commit to giving employees equal weight to shareholders, recognising how wealth creation involves collaboration between labour and capital – as Catholic Social Teaching requires.

Austen Ivereigh believes that a new book by Javier Martínez-Brocal, The Successor: My Memories of Benedict XVI (so far only available in Spanish), will be seen as one of the publishing events of the pontificate, a necessary counterbalance to Archbishop Georg Gänswein’s “catty memoir” Nothing But the Truth: My Life Beside Benedict XVI, which attempted to show that Benedict disapproved of his successor. Benedict had professed obedience to whoever was chosen at the 2013 conclave, and the Pope is clear that “he fulfilled that vow”, despite intense pressure from groups opposed to Francis. Benedict, Francis observes, was “gentle, delicate and humble”, choosing not to assert himself, and this was taken advantage of by certain people in the Curia who “limited his movements” and “fenced him in”, causing him great suffering. Martínez says that the key to understanding the relationship not just between the two pontificates, but between all pontificates, lies in a “dynamic, unbroken tradition of authority” in which differences of emphasis are “not so much contradictions as dynamic polarities”: “Jesus gave the keys to each Peter to open access to the Kingdom of God, not to close it, and for each generation and each pontificate that will require a new kind of opening.”

Ahead of the election of 1945, the Financial Times declared that a victory for Churchill was “practically taken for granted” – the only question was the likely sum of the majority. But Winston Churchill, the great war leader who appeared to be at the height of his personal popularity, lost. As the country begins to gear up for the next election, Julia Langdon, The Tablet’s lobby correspondent, argues that the result will all come down to whom voters feel they can trust. Sir Keir Starmer is not a born politician, nor a natural leader, but because successive Tory governments have squandered public trust, he will almost certainly be the next Prime Minister.

For Pope Francis, synods, involving not just bishops but priests, religious and lay people – both men and women – are an acknowledgement of a fundamental aspect of our faith: “that the Spirit is present in and speaks to the Church through the lives and experiences of all believers”. If he is successful in making the Church more synodal before his papacy ends – either in retirement or death – it would be a remarkable legacy. But, argues Tony Flannery, an Irish Redemptorist priest suspended from public ministry by the Vatican in 2012, priests are often “the biggest block in implementing this new way of being a Church”.

On 25 March, the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) at the Tavistock Centre in north London finally closed, after years of criticism of its treatment of children and young people with gender dysphoria. At the same time, the NHS confirmed that puberty blockers – drugs which act on the pituitary gland to stop the development of secondary sex characteristics like breast and facial hair – would no longer be routinely prescribed for the treatment of gender-related distress. But Hannah Barnes, who has followed this story closely for more than five years, tells Maggie Fergusson that she is not optimistic about the new services now on offer, or their ability to deal with the enormous waiting lists they have inherited.

After spending Holy Saturday aware of “the despair and bleak disappointment” of Christ in the tomb, Anne Booth argues that we need to recapture a sense of unease and powerlessness, ask urgently for God’s help and wisdom, and resist the temptation to “see Easter a bit too much like the inevitable Happy Ever After of fairy tales”.

In his new book, P is for Pilgrim, the 65-year-old Anglican Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, examines basic tenets of Christianity – A is for Advent, Adventure, Alleluia, Apostle, Amen and Adam, for example – in a way that might be accessible to children, and appealing to adults. Interviewing him by Zoom, Joanna Moorhead finds him down-to-earth and straightforward: “neither a lofty academic like Rowan Williams, nor an establishment insider like Justin Welby”. Although there will – and should – be pressure to elect a woman as the next Archbishop of Canterbury, she thinks Cottrell would be perfect for the job.

One after another, England’s old blood sports – bear-baiting, bull-baiting, cockfighting, badger-baiting, rat-baiting and, most recently, fox hunting have been banned. But, Jonathan Tulloch argues, while soccer has moved from its blood-sports origins, rugby league hasn’t: “You still basically run at someone and knock them down.” While its physical excesses have been curbed to protect players, it is “still be a breathtaking pageant of skill and force”.

In Books, Christopher Bray has mixed feelings about Michael Taylor’s Impossible Monsters – and “exhaustive – and often as not exhausting” history of the defining intellectual battle of the Victorian era: the challenges posed by geological finds to biblical truths. The horrors of Charles Spencer’s prep school, Maidwell, recaptured “through the young eyes that saw it”, are spectacularly revealed by Patrick Hudson in his review of A Very Private School. Ariane Bankes is charmed by Gill Johnson’s reminiscences of a golden summer on the Grand Canal in Love from Venice. Mark Hudson praises Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov’s The Silver Bone, currently longlisted for the International Booker Prize.

In Arts, the critical links between sound and the visual arts are examined through the works of Mark Rothko and the composer Morton Feldman in Benjamin Poore’s review of the Manchester Collective’s exhibition “Rothko Chapel”. Laura Gascoigne reviews Italian Baroque painter Guercino’s “oddly prophetic” works, reunited at Waddesdon Manor. Mark Lawson expresses concern about the future of theatre in his review of Ivo van Hove’s “self-congratulatory” Opening Night. And, in Television, Isabelle Grey applauds the “hope in humanity” restored in two new films, The Beautiful Game and Io Capitano, each offering a timely reframing of the story of migrants.

In Letters, Professor Tobias Winright of St Patrick’s Pontifical University in Maynooth approves The Tablet’s editorial of 23 March in response to the escalation of violence in Haiti. He argues that those of us who reside in democracies should pay heed to the “Haitian meltdown” when the human rights and liberties we enjoy are under threat by authoritarians such as Putin and Trump. When fellow theologians and ethicists call for abolition of the police, he argues, they fail to consider that the likely outcome will be a “might-makes-right” world of lawlessness and disorder. What is needed is “just policing and just law and order”.

Fr Terry Tastard questions those who urge the Catholic Church to adopt a more liberal stance on contested social and ecclesial issues, believing that these reforms would attract many to the Church who are currently alienated. He points out that the Church of England which adopts many of these policies has seen a precipitous collapse in its membership.

In View from Philadelphia, Rocco Palmo reports on the travails of the Church in America. This paschal season sees parish mergers by dozens of the nation’s dioceses, as a result of declining attendance, ageing buildings and declining numbers of priests. Sexual abuse scandals are also to blame. Los Angeles and New York face a “combined tsunami” of nearly 4,500 lawsuits. The aftermath of the settlements and the parish closings could be “the most transformative moment the nation’s largest religious body has seen in nearly two centuries”.

In the news pages:

• In Jerusalem, Good Friday’s Stations of the Cross went off “quietly and prayerfully”, though with reduced numbers. On Good Friday and Holy Saturday Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, presided over celebrations at the Holy Sepulchre Church. A video message was sent to Gaza saying, “You are not alone”. On Easter Sunday, Fr Gabriel Romanelli, parish priest of the Holy Family Catholic Church in Gaza, sent a message on the hope for peace from “the Calvary of Gaza”. By Ellen Teague.
• Ahead of the Easter triduum, in a video posted on his social media site, Donald Trump urged Americans to get a copy of the “God Bless the USA Bible” ($59.99). By Michael Sean Winters.
• The Louisiana state Supreme Court has declared that a 2021 law lifting the statute of limitations for suits alleging sexual abuse of a minor was unconstitutional. By Michael Sean Winters.
• The Pope is planning to help Christians in Gaza find work after the end of the Israel-Hamas conflict. By Bess Twiston Davies.
• The first Post-Reformation Catholic church built in the Welsh valleys, St Illtyd’s, Dowlais, Merthyr Tydfil, has been saved from closure thanks to grants totalling nearly £1 million. By Elena Curti.
• In their Easter message, the Catholic and Church of Ireland primates said that meaningful reconciliation in Northern Ireland “is the unfinished work of peace”. By Sarah Mac Donald.

Guy Consolmagno SJ, director of the Vatican observatory, has been passionate about planets since he was a boy. But he fears that he won’t live to see the proposed next-generation telescopes which might reveal whether what we think about planets is actually true: “And reality has a way of surprising us. Just ask the Apostles trying to square their expectations with the reality of the resurrected Christ.”

Finally, Jonathan Tulloch introduces us to his favourite yew, a mere teenager growing above the A19. Associated with death, yews are, he says, “the tree of life”, their bark and needles providing us with one of our most powerful chemotherapy treatments.

Meanwhile, do check out our upcoming events. Our series of three webinars on “How Catholicism has influenced the arts, music and literature throughout the ages” starts on Wednesday 10 April with “How Catholicism has influenced art”. Our speaker will be Patrick van der Vorst, a priest of the Diocese of Westminster and former Sotheby’s auctioneer. Tickets and details here. “Music” presented by Stephanie MacGillivray, who works in Rome promoting women’s leadership for Caritas Internationalis, will be on 17 April, tickets available here.  “Literature” will be on 24 April with Sally Read, writer, poet and editor of 100 Great Catholic Poems (as well as a Tablet contributor). Tickets available here. Tickets can be bought individually or at a reduced price for all three, here. On 18 April, the Pastoral Review team presents a webinar on Catholics and the General Election. This will be presented by Raymond Friel OBE, CEO of Caritas Social Action Network, and speakers will include our Chief Leader Writer Clifford Longley, Anna Rowlands, Professor of Catholic Social Thought and Practice from the University of Durham, and Jenny Sinclair, founder and CEO of Together for the Common Good. Tickets available here. All webinars are from 6–7 pm BST.

I hope you enjoy this week’s Tablet.

Deputy Editor

Maggie Fergusson

Brendan Walsh
Editor of The Tablet