Letters: The Church of England’s Covid shame

Paradise lost

Sir: After reading Jonathan Beswick (‘Critical mass’, 16 January) I am writing to express the shame I feel as a lifetime member of the Church of England at our Church’s attitude to this pandemic.

Here was the greatest opportunity in 70 years to demonstrate care for our fellow people, to advertise our faith and love and to keep the Church in the public eye. I hoped that there would be thousands of Church members flocking to help the lonely and the isolated. But I find my local church locked. This was the chance for the Church to show commitment and sacrifice for the good of the community, to cast aside timidity and get on with normal life, as does the postman, the milkman, the parcel delivery brigade, the health service and many others. Why are our priests so timid and frightened? They are supposed to be our leaders and consolers in times of crisis. The very people who believe death holds no fear for them seem afraid to open their own doors, let alone the doors of their empty churches.

If that had been Jesus’s attitude there would have been no Christian culture for the past two millennia. There may soon be no C of E after this exhibition. What a tragedy. What a disgrace.
Peter Laverick
Poling, West Sussex

Legging it

Sir: I loved Simon Barnes’s article on the magnificence of octopuses and the ethics of eating them (‘Brain food’, 16 January).
I was first put on to this issue by the story of Inky the octopus, kept as an exhibit in the New Zealand National Aquarium. One day he managed to escape. He had worked out that there was a pipe that he could get down if his keeper forgot to seal it after feeding him.