SIR – It is disappointing to see Melanie McDonagh fall prey to the new theological sentimentalism in claiming (Charterhouse, May 19) that “The requirement to forgive sinners is not contingent on them being repentant.” The whole of Scripture, Old Testament and New, is against this view, and it is surely a perverse twisting of the Lord’s Prayer to suggest that in asking for God’s forgiveness “as we forgive those who trespass against us” we can think of ourselves as not repentant. Similarly, it is no good her citing Our Lord’s prayer to his Father to forgive his executioners, since he says that “they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34) – that is, they acted as they did not out of conscious, deliberate wickedness but from the (mistaken) belief that they were doing God’s will. The same applies to the stoning of Stephen, which she also cites; surely Saul would have said (in repentant tears, later) that he thought he too was doing God’s will.
Now, arguably, some of the jihadists of ISIS believe likewise, and would deny that they execute their victims for the pleasure of it; but Ms McDonagh is mistaken to conflate Ian Brady with such people. The evil he did cries out for fit punishment, and she does a disservice to the true Christian sense of justice and the testimony of Our Lord’s teaching to suggest that “the Moors murderer has gone to God who made us all, and who hates nothing he has made”. Of course, it is not for us to know the limits of what the Scholastics called God’s potentia absoluta. But within his potentia ordinata, his revealed will, we know what the Commandments teach and what Our Lord says about the Last Judgment. It is vital not to trivialise evil by allowing emotions to prevail over reason.
In conclusion, I would strongly recommend that Melanie read Crime and Punishment to the end. She will discover that Dostoyevsky’s book is very far from being soft on evil, and has some interesting things to say on both justice and repentance.
Yours faithfully,
Dr Carl Schmidt
Emeritus Fellow, Balliol College, Oxford
SIR –I read with sadness Sister Rachel Duffy’s challenging letter, “Jesus would have agreed with Corbyn” (May 19). In it, she defends his opposition to using nuclear weapons by asking if Jesus were to come back as Labour prime minister, would any Catholic believe He would disagree with Corbyn and order the indiscriminate destruction of millions of people?
The irony of this speculation was demonstrated in the recent Birmingham March for Life, which I attended. Many of the anti-life, pro-choice opposition, who hurled abuse at us and tried to disrupt the march (though prevented by the police), were carrying Labour Party placards, some picturing Corbyn.
Abortion has already sent millions of unborn children to their deaths and, as reported in your issue of the same date, Labour’s election manifesto states that, if elected, the party will continue to ensure a woman’s legal right to abortion and work to extend that right to women in Northern Ireland.
Would Jesus agree with this?
Yours faithfully,
Felicity Smart (Mrs)
London SW14
SIR – Mary Kenny (Comment May 19) recalled that her uncle was taught by Blessed John Sullivan at Clongowes college. It was on May 13 in Gardiner Street Jesuit Church, Dublin, that the beatification of Fr John Sullivan SJ took place. This was a major event for the Irish Church and the Archdiocese of Dublin in particular. The two Archbishops of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin and Michael Jackson (Anglican), were present.
There was thus an important ecumenical aspect to that joyful celebration. Fr Sullivan, having spent the early part of his life as an Anglican and the latter as a Jesuit priest, is respected and his beatification celebrated by both Christian communities.
Yours faithfully,
David J Murnaghan
By email
SIR – So much has been written about Medjugorje since Our Lady first appeared there, on June 25, 1981. In thousands of books and magazines world-wide there have been millions of words written on this subject, I’m sure.
A booklet I have from 1995 names the 11 cardinals and 160 bishops who have been there to pray (and, indeed, live the message). That number would easily be doubled now, some 22 years later.
To date, almost 40 million Catholics have been to this unique town in Bosnia. All of them go in good faith. We know also that Pope John Paul II (now a saint) certainly believed in the apparitions of Medjugorje.
Against all of this evidence, all of the good fruit, what value can the negative words of Pope Francis (World News, May 19) have? Comments to journalists on a plane are certainly very far from being ex cathedra. So let us put everything in its proper context, please. Our Lady, who is the Queen of Prophets, would never deceive all these faithful cardinals, bishops, priests and lay people.
Yours faithfully,
DP Collins
London N22
SIR – Laura Cathcart (Feature, May 26) is correct that men should take off their hats indoors, but this is a very recent custom. Prints and paintings confirm that men of the 18th and even 19th centuries thought nothing of wearing hats in coffee houses. Hat-wearing in the Houses of Parliament was so widespread it became part of procedure. Only the Highest Anglicans took hats off to visit churches; earlier, Puritans had doffed them to pray, but replaced them to hear the sermon. The general rule of no men’s hats indoors may owe something to the end of the “Little Ice Age”, which lowered temperatures from the 16th to 19th centuries, with a number of consequences for fashion.
The principle that men should not wear hats during worship (even outside), was established in the primitive Church (see 1 Corinthians 11:4) as a deliberate reversal of Jewish custom, in which men’s head coverings during prayer are far more emphasised than women’s. Indeed, in most cultures men cover their heads to show their respect: the magnificently attired Tuareg in the same edition would cover his face more completely the greater the prestige of the individual he was addressing.
With the decline of hat-wearing for both sexes, it is a historical irony that women covering their heads in church, as many do when attending the Traditional Mass, as well as at the society weddings Laura Cathcart refers to, stands out as a greater counter-cultural gesture than men taking theirs off.
Yours faithfully,
Joseph Shaw
Chairman, The Latin Mass Society, London WC2
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