Sir: Further to Lord Greenhalgh’s timely remarks, (“Covid churches lockdown was ‘outrageous’ says ex-minister’, December 2023) it is unfortunate that the UK Covid inquiry is ignoring the baleful effects of lockdown altogether. Equally outraged are the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice campaigners, who are furious about the way they suffered under rules ignored by those superintending them.
We should reserve at least some of our ire for the Sage committee, because the suffering was caused by the rules and not the hypocrisy of “Partygate” and the like. The hypocrisy is certainly contemptible but it is not materially relevant to what happened: ministers and civil servants were frightened and bullied by the Sage committee into taking the catastrophic decision to implement a national lockdown, on the grounds that failure to do so would result in the collapse of the National Health Service and the deaths of thousands of people. Thousands of people died anyway, but the Covid inquiry is not addressing any of this; it is merely deliberating on whether lockdown should have been done “sooner” or “better” – coincidentally rehashing the same futile questions bellowed by over-excited journalists at the daily Covid briefings. The two statistics we needed then, and need now, are how many excess deaths occurred (and continue to occur) as a result of lockdown compared with how many people would have died of Covid-19 anyway – and how much it cost to kill all these extra people.
Martin Kennedy London, UK
Ukrainian Orthodoxy
Sir: Robert Amsterdam criticises Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s intention to outlaw the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (December 2023). As to international and domestic law, he makes a persuasive case. As to the facts, however, he presents a distorted view. This is not just about a beleaguered politician lashing out at “real or imagined” enemies. It is about a people which, fighting for its life, is seeking through its parliamentary representatives to render harmless an organisation, many of whose members – as Tetyana Derkatch and others have documented – have been working against Ukrainian independence since the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014. In fact, the name “Ukrainian Orthodox Church” was assumed in 1990 by the Ukrainian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in an attempt to co-opt the movement to restore Ukrainian church independence. The Moscow Patriarchate itself had been revived by Stalin in 1943 effectively as an arm of the state – a function it continues to perform. Thus, the UOC is more than just a “religious denomination”. Nor has it “been around” for 1,000 years. And it is surely not “the home of Orthodoxy in Ukraine”. That honour is arguably due the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, established in 2019 in the same way that the Metropolia of Kyiv was established a millennium ago – by the Patriarch of Constantinople. I would urge readers to apply a little Catholic realism and look beyond legal abstractions to the factual context. Andrew Sorokowski Sonoma, CA
King of kings
Sir: I am always moved by accounts of the death of Louis XVI – the holiest king of France after St Louis – and am grateful to George Young for his expression of the king’s sentiments at that moment (“Christmas commitment of a Catholic king”, December 2023). However, I cannot understand why Mr Young refers to Queen Marie-Antoinette as “deluded”. Deluded by what? The “daughter of the Caesars” and of the Empress Maria Theresa was well prepared by her firm but kind mother for any eventuality that life might throw at her. But surely neither mother nor daughter would be prepared for the accusation at Marie Antoinette’s “political” trial for the charge of having had sexual relations with her children!
An acceptable account of King Louis’s last minutes tells us that when the executioner tried to bandage the King’s eyes, Louis pulled the bandage off, saying: “No-one will treat the King of France in this way!” But his Irish confessor, Fr Henry Edgeworth, who was at his side, said: “Your Majesty, a King greater than you allowed himself to be treated worse at His execution.” Louis replied: “In that case, I shall drink the cup to the dregs (je boirai le calice jusqu’ à la lie) .”
I recommend to readers Vincent Cronin’s double biography Louis and Antoinette (Collins, 1974) as an excellent source of information about the couple.
Stephen de la Bédoyère London, UK
Knock, knock
Sir: In the January edition Serenhedd James described Knock Airport as “a couple of runways and sheds in a field”. Is he in earnest? In fact, Knock has one runway and at 2300m it is longer than that at Bristol. Sheds? What did Mr James have for breakfast? When referring to the airport as having a “rather grand title” he should at least have got that title right. It’s not “West Knock International Airport” – it’s “Ireland West Airport”, sometimes refer red to as “Ireland West Air port Knock”, or “Knock Air port”, and by some airlines as “Ireland West International Airport Knock”.
It was thanks to the pastoral concern for the people of the West of Ireland having lost generations of youth to emigration that Knock’s then parish priest, the late Mgr James Horan, achieved the impossible: an airport on a boggy fog-bound hillside. It’s a story worth telling.
(Fr) Martin Queenan Warminster, UK • Sorry! SJ
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Photo: A person wears a facemask as he sits in a bus shelter with NHS signage promoting “Stay Home, Save Lives” in central London, as England entered a third lockdown due to Covid-19, 8 January 2021. (Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images.)
These letters originally appeared in the February 2024 edition of the Catholic Herald magazine. Subscribe here.
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