LETTERS Siding with God
Sir: I can well understand Paul Johnson's annoyance (The media, 16 February) at the report that a Christian priest addressed the moral problem of the Gulf war in his homily on Peace Sunday, especially when the priest advanced views with which Mr Johnson disagrees.
The list of 'cheap quotations' used by the priest included statements by Presidents Bush and Hussein, King Fahd and Mr Major and, believe it or not, Paul Johnson! The priest left it to the ingenuity of the audience to guess which of the protagonists claimed to have God on his side.
Special attention was given to the Gulf statements of the Pope, whose understand- ing of the gospel is not corrupted by militaristic and xenophobic nationalism. It was the Pope who said, 'We pray that God may show those responsible that they should abandon immediately this war which is so unworthy of humanity', and not a mere priest 'treating the pulpit as a political soap-box'. There is a precedent for the kind of rabble-rousing which Mr Johnson suggests should confront a priest who does not preach 'smooth things' to people of 'sense and moderation'. On one occasion the preacher was taken to the brow of the hill on which the city was built — he escaped that time. Later on he was crucified.
I confess to having a special interest in Mr Johnson's plans. I was the offending priest.
Michael Prior
St. Mary's College, Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, Middlesex
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