Edmund for England

Edmund for England

St George’s Day is coming up next Tuesday, 23 April. Do you care? Margaret Hebblethwaite suggests in this week’s print edition that those that do, and mark the day with Morris dancing and other fooleries, are celebrating pride in being English rather than pride in the saint. She argues that it’s time for George to make way and for King Edmund the Martyr, the ninth-century Christian king who gave his life for the faith, to be restored to his rightful place as the patron saint of England. When the rapacious Viking invader Inguar demanded that Edmund surrender, he refused, firmly rejecting the advice of his appeasement-minded bishop (a student of just war theory by the sound of it). Inguar had Edmund tied to a tree and punctured with arrows: the scene on the cover of this week’s issue. Then something astounding happened. The Danish kings who succeeded Edmund were converted to Christianity. 

Commentators continue to mull over last week’s report by Hilary Cass into the care of children and young people who are confused over their gender identity or experiencing gender dysphoria. In an editorial, we suggest that in her admirably calm and balanced investigation Dr Cass has exposed a much wider culture of confusion among young people, with poor mental health treatment a common factor. Dr Cass published her review the day after the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith had released Dignitas Infinita, which threaded together a seamless defence of the inalienable dignity of every human person. In an unbroken chain of people whose dignity is under threat in the modern world stretching from children living in poverty, refugees and asylum seekers, and families displaced by war, to those at the end of life and the unborn, it was a cameo appearance by gender theory that made the headlines. One of Dr Cass’s findings was that “thousands of young people are experiencing confusion and distress around their gender identity, and the NHS is falling short”. Into this, Liz Dodd writes, “the Church ought to pour compassion, curiosity and Christ-likeness”. Instead Dignitas Infinita clumsily lumps gender dysphoria alongside genocide in terms of moral weight. “No one who has accompanied a person questioning, or transitioning, their gender, would write like that.” In Letters, an appalled Tina Beattie points out that yet another magisterial pronouncement on sexual difference and gender has appeared without referencing a single scholarly source written by a woman. Sebastian Milbank was struck by the negative reaction to the document from both progressives and traditionalists: the concept of divine dignity is profoundly unsettling to both, he writes, because “it unseats both the sovereign individual and the sovereign ruler; the two bases of modern politics and public life”.

Last weekend’s improvised coalition formed by various air forces, including Britain’s, to thwart Iran’s attack on Israel confirmed that there are regional alliances, official or unofficial, waiting to be brokered. In our other editorial this week we argue that if Israel decides it must respond to Iran’s attack, it would be wise to retaliate in a way that does not jeopardise these opportunities. 

In the eighteenth century, it was confidently reported that there were no papists on Orkney. But as Peter Marshall explains, the fragile Catholic thread in the islands’ story has never quite been broken. Elena Curti writes that archaeologists investigating a churchyard and crypt in Liverpool are making remarkable discoveries about the way Catholics buried the dead two hundred years ago.

Patmos has the perfect blue skies and white painted houses of a typical Greek island but it is also where John wrote the Apocalypse, one of the strangest and most argued-over sacred books. Natalie Watson, who is leading a Tablet pilgrimage to Patmos in May, describes a place of mystery, wonder, ouzo and grilled octopus. There are still a few seats free on the bus if you might like to join her. 

In this week’s education special, Francis Campbell recalls a personal pilgrimage from childhood on a farm in Northern Ireland via Downing Street and the Vatican to his current role as Vice Chancellor of Notre Dame University in Australia. Peter Tyler tells us why St Mary’s University in Twickenham decided to establish its own publishing press and Chris Chivers reflects on the role teachers can play in modelling good behaviour at a time when preventing fighting, pushing and shoving in the classrooms is a “never-ending battle”. 

Ahead of the unveiling of Antony Gormley’s Time Horizon at Houghton Hall in Norfolk this weekend, Peter Stanford speaks to the sculptor about his diverse religious background and the shaping of “spirituality from within” as he urges us to “embrace something more enduringly human and hopeful”. Elsewhere in Arts D.J. Taylor gets the inside story of the break-up of Dr Feelgood from Kitty Perrin’s Split Ends on BBC Radio 4 – it wasn’t just due to musical differences and titanic egos but something “much more nuanced”. Lucy Lethbridge revels in melancholy, magical Pompeii and follows a team of archaeologists making “fascinating” new discoveries in a three-part BBC Two documentary series. Mark Lawson hails 85-year-old Ian McKellen’s performance as Falstaff in Robert Icke’s Player Kings as “one of the greatest achievements of his remarkable career”. 

In Books, Rachel Mann finds hope and beauty in four new poetry collections which explore the “fragility of being human in a fickle world”. Jonathan Keates is fascinated by Harry Freedman’s lucid and readable portrait of Venice’s Jewish ghetto. John Quin reckons Catholic-born Vietnamese-American writer Viet Thanh Nguyen’s A Man of Two Faces is “one of the angriest memoirs you’ll ever read”. Marcus Tanner admires Christopher Phillips’ “concise and dispassionate” autopsy on the Middle East’s “chaotic mess”, concluding that “our fingerprints are all over it”. And Ariane Bankes is moved by Sunjeev Sahota’s new novel, The Spoiled Heart, a “toxic cocktail of class politics squared up against racism, misogyny, bullying and naked lies”. 

There are as usual seven pages of news stories from our correspondents in Britain, Ireland and across the world, and updates and new stories are added to our website several times a day, giving readers an unrivalled overview of what is happening in the Church in Britain, Ireland and across the world. Tom Heneghan and Patrick Hudson report that Patriarch Kirill’s declaration that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a “holy war” has been condemned by western religious leaders, while the government in Kyiv is coming closer to banning the Moscow-aligned Ukrainian Orthodox Church. Patrick Hudson writes that Cardinal Louis Raphaël Sako, who angrily left Baghdad last July following a dispute with the government, returned to Iraq’s capital last week after receiving a personal invitation from the prime minister. In View from Rome, Joseph Tulloch explains why the Pope’s adoption of the moniker “Patriarch of the West” may be motivated by his desire to deepen relations with the Orthodox Churches

A series of episcopal changes and the merging of dioceses in the west of Ireland has been described as the most significant reform of the structure of the Irish Church since the twelfth century, reports Sarah Mac Donald. In Scotland, Fr Martin Chambers, the bishop-designate of Dunkeld, died suddenly on 9 April, aged 59, reports Brian Morton. In Wales, Bess Twiston Davies reports that the Cistercian Abbey of Caldey Island has commissioned an independent review into historical claims of child abuse by some of its monks. And Ellen Teague writes that 15 London clergy of several denominations have written to their MPs to oppose proposed changes to the criminal justice bill that would criminalise people sleeping on the streets of their parishes. 

This month we have had three webinars in which experts introduce the ways in which Catholicism has influenced art, music and literature. We began with an exhilarating picture show presented by the priest and former Sotheby’s auctioneer Patrick van der Vorst; this week, Stephanie MacGillivray discussed music and on 24 April the poet Sally Read will speak about literature. Tonight, the Pastoral Review team presented a webinar on Catholics and the general election with Raymond Friel, Clifford Longley, Anna Rowlands and Jenny Sinclair. This month the Church marks 10 years since the canonisation of St John XXIII and St John Paul II. On 25 April I will discuss the impact of these remarkable figures with Margaret Hebblethwaite and Edward Stourton. On 30 April, deputy editor Maggie Fergusson will host a webinar on Catholic universities with Dame Helen Ghosh, Maureen Glackin, Renee Kohler-Ryan and Thomas O’Loughlin. Full details of timings, speakers and tickets for all our events and webinars are available here. Finally, on the back page of the magazine, our wine writer N. O’Phile champions Crémant as an economical alternative to champagne and Jonathan Tulloch thrills to the richly melodious sound of a blackbird.

I hope you enjoy this week’s Tablet. If you are not a subscriber but would like to give it a whirl, you can try five issues for £5 and get a free copy of a book by Pope Benedict XVI or by Timothy Radcliffe thrown in. Visit checkout.thetablet.co.uk/MTABBL24 or calling 01858 438736 quoting promotional code MTABBL24.

Brendan Walsh
Editor of The Tablet