SIR – Of course David Mills (“We shouldn’t be ashamed of the Index”, June 17) is right. Today’s media, the internet apart, exercise a censorship of political heresy as rigid as the Index ever did; the more rigid because the censorship is unspoken. It was not unreasonable in the 16th century to protect the unwary faithful from the sudden flood of heretical books. Although St Peter Canisius, appalled by the ferocious Paul IV Index (it even outlawed maths textbooks if the author was a heretic), laboured successfully to moderate Trent’s version. But it was Canisius’s own Catechism that actually halted the spread of heresy in Germany – the same power of literacy used positively, to educate, strengthen and equip the faithful in the faith.
Anti-Modernism’s abuse of the Index last century stunted Catholic thought for decades. Leo XIII, near death, had refused to condemn the arch-Modernist Loisy; Loisy was on the Index before the year was out. If Modernism did exist, the unifier was scholars’ acceptance of The Idea of a University. Indeed, if Leo hadn’t made Newman a cardinal, would the Idea’s strong case for academic freedom have escaped the Index then? Negative, timorous, inward-looking Catholicism persists. Most people take their ideas, spoken and unspoken, from television – BBC documentaries’ partial account of the Middle Ages, priests as depicted in late Midsomer. What Canisius of the media will make us into positive, well-informed, outward-looking evangelists?
Yours faithfully,
Tom McIntyre
Frome, Somerset
SIR – Today (June 24) is a day as significant in the annals of history as the fall of the Berlin Wall or Constantine’s crossing of the Tiber.
We are entering, in these days, one of the most momentous and historic periods in the long history of our island.
We must pray that “cometh the hour, cometh the man”, and that statesmanship and magnanimity will bring us together in a new vision of what, by God’s grace, our future as a united island can be, for “without a vision, the people perish”.
We must pray that the undoubted turbulence and uncertainty of the coming days and months will provide the catalyst for a new evangelisation, and that God will raise up men and women, in this our hour of need, to powerfully bear witness that Jesus is the One in whom all national desires and cultural longings are fulfilled and in whom all our hopes are satisfied.
Yours faithfully,
Fr Neil Evans
St Joseph’s, Neath, South Wales
SIR – The Catholic Church knows what it means to stand by its spiritual leader. In our country there is a crisis in politics. The referendum left an unpleasant effect in that the leaders of political parties have to fight to survive. Mr Cameron is stepping down. Mr Corbyn is being urged to do the same.
Mr Corbyn has been blamed for not persuading party members to support the remain people. Most voters who went to the polling station last Thursday understood the issues and voted according to their beliefs. Shouting a message louder does not make people change their minds.
If the message has no popular appeal it will not make any difference who is your leader. Both Conservatives and Labour should understand this.
Yours faithfully,
David Aitcheson
By email
SIR – Now that the common people of this country have expressed their view of the European Union can we hope that those bishops and archbishops (in particular Cardinals Murphy-O’Connor and Nichols) who urged us to vote to remain will reflect that their opinion was much closer to that of the liberal metropolitan elite than to that of the majority of their own flock? A little soul-searching on their part might be a good thing.
Yours faithfully,
John Hoar
South Molton, Devon
SIR – With reference to Jonathan Luxmoore’s excellent article on communist-era martyrs (Cover story, June 10), surely Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko should have been included.
During the years of martial law in Poland his sermons gathered and inspired many thousands, whose main source of hope in the years under the communist regime was what they heard from Fr Popiełuszko – in support of Solidarity and against the communist system. He was thus someone the security services wished to eliminate. Attempts were made to achieve this. At the third attempt, in October 1984, he was ambushed and murdered, suffering unspeakable torture in the process.
His church of St Stanislaus Kostka in Warsaw became a place of pilgrimage, with many visiting the Blessed’s grave and the museum built as a memorial to him. It’s well worth a visit to learn about the life, work and eventual brutal murder of a young priest, a martyr under communism.
Yours faithfully,
Elizabeth Barzycka
By email
SIR – There is a pressing need to explore alternatives to the dearth of priests and the consequent closure of parishes. This need is obvious to those in rural areas like the parts of Wrexham diocese that will be severely affected by the proposed closures.
There is a pressing need for urgent creative thinking to address the priest shortage so as to avoid the large-scale dismantling of our Catholic heritage, in rural areas particularly. This should involve considering both married priests and how married men or women can be paid a stipend to run parishes as centres of evangelisation, notwithstanding priests visiting occasionally.
Let us actually listen to what the Holy Father is saying when he calls, in Evangelii Gaudium, for “an ecclesial renewal which cannot be deferred” and when he invites “everyone to be bold and creative in this task of rethinking the goals, structures, style and methods of evangelisation in their respective communities”.
The hierarchy need a plan and don’t seem to have one at present. For all the words of Evangelii Gaudium 33, it seems we are not brave enough to heed the Holy Father’s words.
Yours faithfully,
Christopher Brooks
Isle of Man
SIR – Like Fr Storey (Letter, June 24), I am unmarried, but would not presume that a married couple’s act of sex was never “an act of love” if not open to new life.
Reasons for not being open could include risk to the health of the woman or to the couple’s ability to cope with another baby. Love comes in different forms and we can never judge other people’s expressions of it.
Yours faithfully,
Deborah Jones (Dr)
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
SIR – The Japanese Carmelite priest Fr Augustine Okumura tells the story in his devotional book Awakening to Prayer of Genza, a pious Buddhist, falling asleep before the family altar. When someone reproaches him about this, Genza replies: “Before one’s father it does not matter, but if I were in a law court I certainly would not allow myself to fall asleep.” Fr Okumura is showing that we should have a simplicity of faith before our father which is not bound by societal codes of behaviour. Before the Queen at the palace (Letter, June 17), I would certainly wear a morning suit, but all our Lord in the Eucharist requires is a faithful heart.
Yours faithfully,
Jeff Smith
Tilehurst, Berkshire
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