Christian values
Sir: I have no inside track on the organisational perils of the Pope’s visit described by Damian Thompson (‘Spinning the Pope’, 5 June) though, as a career civil servant, I am more inclined to the cock-up than to the conspiracy theory of government and see no reason why Church affairs should be any different.
The issue about whether the Pope should address himself while in Britain to global issues rather than to specifically Roman Catholic preoccupations is more germane. There are still millions of Catholic faithful in the UK. But there are even more millions of non-Catholics and non-Christians for whom the Pope’s relevance, other than as a VIP, is a case waiting to be made. The temptation for a Church with a huge credibility problem is to preach to the converted. But that risks turning off all those who, as in politics, occupy a sceptical, but not invariably hostile, middle ground.
Our recent general election showed that the middle ground in Britain encompasses concern for the less well-off, compassion and commitment to a kind of society which still owes a lot to Christian values. So here’s hoping the Pope might focus more on what we are doing right than what we might be doing wrong and on the Christian Church’s still vibrant place in delivering values we share.
Sir Stephen Wall
By email
Turkey in the middle
Sir: When Stephen Pollard blames Europe (and its refusal to admit Turkey into the EU) for pushing the AKP-led Turkey into the arms of the Middle East, he is undermining the role of Islam in Turkish politics (‘The end of Israel?’ 5 June).
Turkey, ever since its inception in 1923, has suffered from an identity crisis, the result of an internal battle between a secular elite and the Islamic masses.
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