SIR – Is it fair to prejudge Pope Francis on controversial issues, such as Communion for remarried Catholics, before his apostolic exhortation on the recent synod has been published?
Ross Douthat (Feature, January 15) sees him as sympathising with liberalism to the detriment of the conservatism supported by the two previous popes, and thinks this has led to fears of “heresy and schism”. He believes “Francis is risking far too much that’s essential in his quest for new directions”, and that “sometimes Peter misspeaks or goes astray”. But is open debate to be discouraged as subversive?
Yet in assessing the possible relationship between Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, Damian Thompson (Cover story, January 15) opines that the former pope certainly believes that “the Keys of Peter were handed to Jorge Bergoglio by the Holy Spirit, in whom the faith of the Pope Emeritus has never wavered”.
Stuart Reid (Charterhouse, January 8) may still not know “what to make of Pope Francis”. We all just need to wait and pray.
Yours faithfully,
Felicity Smart
London SW14
SIR – Manchester city centre offers an insight into the society being created as a result of the inequalities of wealth recently identified in an Oxfam report (which showed that 62 people have as much wealth as half the world’s population).
There are incredible numbers of rough sleepers around the city centre. They huddle up in sleeping bags and cardboard boxes in street doorways, while the self-obsessed walk obliviously by on the other side, often absorbed in their own little mobile phone-dominated worlds. This is the Britain being created today.
Manchester is not alone with its growing population of homeless on the streets. Less visible are the million-plus going to food banks (no doubt including many of those rough sleepers). At the same time, the Government continues to cut away at what is left of the welfare net.
Surely it is time to take stock of the type of society we are creating in this country of the haves and the increasingly large number of have-nots. It is no answer from those who are fortunate enough to have homes and resources to shut their own doors and hope the growing chaos outside won’t affect them.
Yours faithfully,
Paul Donovan
London E11
SIR – Reading Damian Thompson and Ross Douthat’s searching analyses of the shifts in the tectonic plates underlying our Church following Pope Benedict XVI’s replacement by Pope Francis (Cover Story and Feature, January 15), I wonder how many of your readers were reminded, as I was, of the bolt of lightning which struck St Peter’s within hours of the Pope Emeritus’s stunning announcement on February 11, 2013.
Inevitably, when the same meteorological phenomenon set York Minster ablaze on July 6, 1984, just three days after David Jenkins’s archiepiscopal consecration, many people saw it as a sign of divine disfavour. Whatever interpretation one puts on the 2013 strike, for Catholics to dismiss it as mere coincidence would surely be tantamount to heresy.
Yours faithfully,
James Bruce
Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland
SIR – I believe that Fr Mark Drew’s article “The Pope’s agonising dilemma” (Cover story, January 8) highlights a very important element in the teaching of the Church. There is a wholeness (as well as holiness) and integrity to the teaching that makes it impossible to meddle with, or change, without inviting catastrophe on the Church. What else could we expect when such teaching comes directly from Jesus Christ himself?
Unlike his immediate predecessors, who handled this very same issue of Holy Communion for the divorced and remarried, Pope Francis seems to have painted himself into a corner. This is the Pope’s dilemma as outlined in the options described by Fr Drew.
There is no reason why Pope Francis should feel alone in making his decision. Pope Francis has said that he wants the Church to be more synodal. He called two synods so that, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, a consensus could be reached. There was overwhelming support from the synod fathers, at both synods, for the teaching of the Church. Why should Pope Francis feel alone when there is such support for the Church’s teaching?
Yours faithfully,
Tom Henry
Harlow, Essex
SIR – How welcome to read Melanie McDonagh’s article on Henry VI (Comment, January 15). “Tax not the royal saint with vain expense,” wrote Wordsworth, and even in the 1960s, in the afterglow of Anglo-Catholicism, there were attempts to raise him to the altars. Even today, I trust, his obit is celebrated on May 24, and the choir still sing “Rex Henricus, sis amicus, nobis in angustia”.
Yours faithfully,
John Russ
Breaston, Derby
SIR – Piers Paul Read (Charterhouse, January 22) cites the Parable of the Vineyard Tenants as an example of Jesus castigating his own people. This is a misreading of the parable. Mark locates it in a section of the Gospel in which his clash with the Jerusalem ruling class comes to a head. Thus the parable is better interpreted as a castigation of the ruling class and not of the Jewish people. There is no parable in the Gospels which can be regarded as hostile to the Jews as a people, though specific Jews may well be subject of a parable’s criticism.
Yours faithfully,
Francis Beswick
Stretford, Greater Manchester
SIR – A fixed date for Easter would be very convenient in many ways (Report, January 22). But liturgically and theologically Easter is linked to Passover and to separate Easter from Passover would separate the Church from its Jewish and Old Testament roots. This, I hope, will be borne in mind in the present discussions among the churches.
Yours faithfully,
Elizabeth Hardcastle
York
SIR – Pastor Iuventus (January 22) writes that “you should be able to hear a pin drop before Mass”. I’m sure it would please God greatly to hear the sound of the laughter and chatter of His children, literal and figurative, in His house.
Yours faithfully,
Chris Whitehouse
London SE11
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