Letters | 18 September 2010

The ventures of faith

Sir: Peter Hitchens eloquently describes the moral vacuum created by the permissive society, and suggests recourse to the Book of Common Prayer (‘In the shadow of the Pope’, 11 September).

The world, however, will never be saved by beautiful prose. Indeed, aesthetic indulgence may all too easily substitute for moral rigour. ‘We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings,’ we Anglicans pray; ‘the remembrance of them is grievous unto us; the burden of them is intolerable.’ How glorious to surrender to such seductive self-flagellation. And then we go out and sin again.

The Christian message is that we can overcome sin only through suffering. This principle, however, can hardly be voluntarily entertained without a strong conviction that we may be rewarded or condemned in another life. Yet how many, today in England, truly believe in either heaven or hell? Who is prepared to risk what Newman called the ventures of faith? ‘After two thousand years of Mass,’ wrote Thomas Hardy, ‘we’ve got as far as poison gas.’ After four hundred years of Cranmer’s prose, we’ve got as far as Dawkins Knows.

Thomas Furber
Kent

Sir: I wonder if Peter Hitchens is reading too much into the Archbishop of Westminster’s decision to distance himself from the comments of Edmund Adamus, who described Britain memorably as ‘the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death’. I suspect that, when his spokesman said Mr Adamus’s interview ‘did not reflect the Archbishop’s concerns’, he was not proclaiming the Archbishop’s opposition to the teaching of two popes, but trying to keep the Archbishop out of what Mr Hitchens concedes was a naked attempt to stir up controversy ahead of the papal visit.

It is well known in Catholic circles that Archbishop Nichols is in fact a strong supporter of Mr Adamus’s efforts to promote marriage and family life within his Archdiocese of Westminster.