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Letters

Wednesday, 12th September 2007

Critical mass
Sir: Damian Thompson, in his excellent article (8 September) on the Pope’s motu proprio, which has restored the right to celebrate and attend the liturgical form previously known as the ‘Old’ or ‘Tridentine’ Mass, comments that ‘it is an exciting time to be Catholic’. He is absolutely right, for more than one reason. Firstly, as he says, because by his action the Pope ‘has indicated that the entire worship of the Church — which had become tired and dreary since the Second Vatican council — is on the brink of reformation’. The next stage in this process for us will be the promulgation of the more faithful, and less dogmatically banal, translation of the English version of the ‘new mass’ which has now been completed.

But there is an even more fundamental reason to be thankful for the motu proprio: that it sweeps away what the Pope has called the ‘hermeneutic of rupture and discontinuity’, a way of interpreting the Second Vatican Council as an event which destroyed the entire preconciliar Catholic tradition. By insisting that the ‘old rite’ and the ‘new rite’ are simply different forms of the same liturgy, the Pope has done much to re-establish the essential continuity of the Catholic tradition, and with it the necessary condition for the growth of unity between the growing number of young ‘traditionalists’ in the Catholic Church, and the now ageing ‘liberals’ who have dominated it in recent years.
William Oddie
Oxford

We knew him as Emily
Sir: I read with interest the meeting between Mary Wakefield and Clarissa Dickson Wright (‘A pin-up for Scottish pensioners’, 8 September) and was touched by her appeal to Spectator readers who might know more about the ‘Miranda’ legend.

Alas, I was not at the Bar with Mr Blair, so cannot vouch for the truth concerning his nickname and the reason behind it. However, I was at Fettes at about the same time as one Tony Blair, albeit a few years older than him. I can remember him as a rather obsequious junior and even then, in the mid- to late Sixties, he had acquired a similar nickname to the one that was to be bestowed upon him at the Bar. His Fettes nickname was Emily.
Cameron Lees
Stirling

TV tricks
Sir: I was pleased to see from Rod Liddle’s piece that David Kermode at Channel 5 is banning a string of ‘hackneyed TV news tricks’ (Liddle Britain, 8 September). Would he please add to his list the irritating reporter as driver? This procedure involves the reporter/journalist addressing his audience while driving a car. The camera is on the seat beside him and from time to time he turns to face the viewer. Of course, all this could be a clever and pointless fake. In the absence of trickery, however, to describe it as driving without due care and attention seems an understatement!
F.G. Lane
Chislehurst, Kent

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