SIR – Canon David Cotter (Letter, March 17) queries my account of JF Powers’s decision to sit out of earshot of Mass (Cover story, February 24). Canon Cotter says it was “not from distaste over the post-Vatican II liturgy itself, but because he, the most careful of wordsmiths, disliked homilies with a particular intensity”. I sent the passage in question to Powers’s daughter Katherine, and asked her if I was right or wrong. I reproduce her reply:
“You are correct. He actually didn’t mind the homilies so much – or as much, especially if they were short – though sometimes they astounded him for their awfulness. They were often difficult to hear because of the infamous acoustics. But he tried to listen to them, not perhaps as a guide to life and prayer and so on, but as a connoisseur (of good and bad). He found the liturgy simply unbearable – the language, its bathos and cloddiness and lack of resonance with the KJV/Douay. (His retreat to the balcony was in part to escape hearing the liturgy and in part – great part – to escape the handshake business which was far less aggressive up there and sometimes absent.)
“When we lived in Ireland, at the time the vernacular Mass was introduced, he went to the 9:30am as that was in Irish, which he could not understand – and so preferable as an alternative to being subjected to the English version. This meant he had to get up early, than which few things were more painful – the Mass in English being one of them. On the other hand, I don’t think he was really outspoken about the horrors of the English Mass, not wanting to give comfort to the ‘enemy’ – perhaps in the shape of Anglican High Churchmen. I should also say that he really loved and appreciated St John’s community (a word he loathed), warts and all.
“Very interesting article (yours). I was not aware of those statistics, but I absolutely believe that the abolition of ritual and Friday abstinence played a part in declining church attendance and affiliation.”
In a letter sent in 1947 (and collected by Katherine in the delightful book Suitable Accommodations), JF Powers writes of the nascent liturgical reform: “I am only slowly getting the idea that I am surrounded by people who are working night and day for things like the dialogue Mass. Imagine my dismay at the discrepancy between the party line and my own feelings in these matters. However, it’s only feelings with me, not theory.” In short, though it would be gross to view Powers as a determined traditionalist bristling with arguments, he did indeed loathe the liturgical reform.
Yours faithfully,
Matthew Schmitz
New York
SIR – John Cornwell republished Hitler’s Pope in 2008, hardly revised in spite of devastating criticism. Now he repeats his thesis (Letter, March 17). He reminds me of Lewis Carroll’s Bellman in his nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark:
“Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: / What I tell you three times is true.”
But it isn’t. John Cornwell makes no response to the main thrust of my article (Cover story, March 10). Instead he persists in disinformation, the agenda of the Kremlin and Hochhuth. The BBC has rejected the received view that this embodies. Pius XII’s actions and attitude saved hundreds of thousands. Now we know that of the Houses of Life, “the overwhelming majority” were connected to the Catholic Church.
Rabbi David Dalin, Ronald Rychlak and Martin Gilbert bring together the best research. Of the eminent historians John Cornwell quotes, only Professor Chadwick could claim close knowledge. He admired Pope Pius, as did contemporaries, from diplomats to prominent Jews.
I gave just one, accurate, example of John Cornwell’s prejudice against Pius XII. His translators had the Italian gruppo as “rabble”. The neutral rendering is “group”. Another example: the cover photograph of his book is a misrepresentation. The caption has Cardinal Pacelli leaving the presidential palace in 1939. Actually, he never met Hitler. The photograph was taken as he was leaving a reception with President Hindenburg in 1927. The soldiers have 1918 pattern helmets.
No contemporary regarded the Reichskonkordat as an endorsement of the regime. The Zentrum had already been dissolved when it was signed in July 1933. The Concordat was a pragmatic defence of Catholic rights; the Nazis broke its terms as Pacelli knew they would. Catholic youth activity was virtually eliminated. Klausener and other Catholic lay leaders were murdered in the Night of the Long Knives, in 1934. Courageous Catholics, priests and people, young and old, continued their opposition in spite of intimidation, arrests and killings. Scandal lay with the Nazis, not with Pacelli.
Yours faithfully,
Fr Leo Chamberlain OSB
St John’s Priory,Easingwold, North Yorkshire
SIR – I entirely support John Cornwell in his view about Pius XII. I believe that in the 1930s the then Cardinal Pacelli’s views were highly suspect in his approach to fascism, Mussolini and Hitler. His approach may have been influenced by the views of Pius XI, who only when dying realised how the Church in its detestation of communism had been led down an equally terrible path. Nevertheless, in the 1930s Cardinal Pacelli’s conduct towards anti-Semitism and its increasing pursuit as government policy by the fascists in Italy was unworthy of any Christian, let alone a cardinal. Those in the Church who did protest were generally silenced. This when Jews in Italy, as a result of the racial laws, lost jobs, property and status – all with the Church remaining generally silent, although Mussolini well knew that an outspoken Church could and would have made a difference.
It is Cardinal Pacelli’s acceptance of fascism and all that it entailed during the 1930s, particularly in his homeland, that makes his Cause for canonisation unworthy of the Church, as well as causing scandal to some such as myself. I fully understand the Church’s intense concern at that time about communism, but that was never an excuse to embrace fascism, and certainly never to embrace the consequent racial laws as the inevitable part of that package.
The evidence of all this indifference, if not acceptance, by the Vatican during the 1930s is overwhelming, but despite that it is generally ignored or overlooked.
Yours faithfully,
Sir Anthony Holland
London EC2
SIR – The tributes to the late Bishop Eamonn Casey, who fathered a child in 1974, and accounts of the conditions in homes for unmarried mothers in Bessborough and the Magdalene Laundries at the same time (and in Tuam, earlier), show in stark contrast to recent attitudes to and treatment of men and women in the Church. Such double standards are being eroded, thankfully, but not quickly or thoroughly enough to impress the younger generation of the Church’s good faith in human equality.
Yours faithfully,
Deborah Jones (Dr)
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
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