Letters
It passeth all understanding
Sir: The Ecumenical Movement has always left me pretty cold, perhaps as a result of the influence of a Jesuit priest who taught me religious doctrine in the Fifties, and replied to my innocent inquiry about the spiritual authority of the Church of England with the fizzing assertion that `Henry VIII's church has as much spiritual authority as British Railways'.
Despite the locomotive force of this observation, which has always struck me as conclusive, the Reverend Peter Mullen's hilarious revelations (22 January) about the Church of England's recent descent to a `throwaway culture' certainly indicate a sense of historical values and aesthetic pro- priety which is almost entirely lacking in the Catholic Church today, to which his appall- ed strictures equally apply. Indeed, in the Roman liturgy Catholics had even more to lose than the Anglican tradition, and lost it more comprehensively with Vatican 2's wholesale substitution of the vernacular for the Latin mass — a totalitarian takeover of quite Stalinist dimension, never before or since discussed with the paying public, formerly known as the Faithful.
Can I suggest to Revd. Mullen that the real solution for the national Church might be to have the C. of E. proscribed? Not necessarily for three centuries, as with the Roman canon, but for long enough to silence the twanging guitars, anaesthetise the revivalist hokum and bring back the habit of plain prayer. Repression has always been a great forcing ground for unadulterated faith.
Personally, I find the Catholic Church's strikingly successful attempt to empty its assorted premises quite helpful. It at least guarantees plenty of vacant pews for those like me, fearful of herpes, whooping cough or the clutch of a remittance man, in which to evade the gratuitous and totally unwelcome Handshake of Peace.
Stephen Dillon Malone
Starve Lark Cottage, Compton Martin, Bristol, Somerset
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