27 JULY 1985, Page 8

ANOTHER VOICE

Must A. N. Wilson suffer the eternal torment of hell fire?

AUBERON WAUGH

As a small Catholic boy of about ten or eleven years old, being instructed in my religion, I, too, had Doubts, just like the Bishop of Durham. We were taught that not all Protestants were bad and some — the good ones — could even get to Heaven. This doctrine was thought to comfort a child who had non-Catholic friends, but it did not comfort me at all. It seemed patently illogical and wrong. If Protestants could go to Heaven, what was the point in being a Catholic?

It was not until I was some years older that I learned of St Thomas Aquinas's distinction (Prima Secundae bocvi 2) be- tween ignorance and mere nescience, the former being culpable, the latter not. Vincible ignorance divides into that which is simply vincible, where a man may have used some but not enough industry to remove his ignorance, and that which is 'crass', where he has taken practically no pains to remove it. Finally, and worst of all, there is 'affected' ignorance, where a man has positively chosen to remain in ignorance so that he may sin more freely.

Reading the words of that angelic Doc- tor, whose gigantic intellect rolls like thun- der through the centuries reducing the tentative speculations of our modern theologians to so many squeaks on the margin, I find myself drawn to the chilly and unwelcome conclusion that if there is any truth in the Christian religion at all, then fewer Protestants will get to Heaven than it is at present fashionable to believe. Where the Divine institution of an univer- sal, teaching Church is acknowledged, the deliberate preference for a schismatic, dissident national Church (whose chief appeal is its lack of dogma) would seem to steer rather a hazardous course between the Scylla of intellectual Pride and the Charybdis of wilful ignorance. A few may get through on grounds of non-culpable or invincible ignorance. But to steer such a course on grounds of intellectual freedom would seem to require a massive and unbudgeable conscientious objection to some specific aspect of Catholic doctrine or practice. I shall discuss the general point of intellectual freedom later. First let us look at Mr A. N. Wilson's specific objections (v. Spectator, 20 July) to Catholic doctrine, as he claims to understand it.

'It is, however, binding on RCs to believe that Our Lady did not have a normal death (as all ancient traditions in the Church say she did) but was taken up into the skies body and soul.' On the contrary, the natural death of Our Lady has always been accepted. A little inquiry would have taught him that the Feast of the Assumption was already being celebrated in both Western and Eastern Churches (where it is called Metastasis) in the sixth century. There may be reasons for disbe- lieving in the Assumption — unnecessarily defined in 1950 — but lack of ancient tradition is not one of them.

Next, Mr Wilson objects to 'almost magical gifts' apparently claimed by the Pope in knowledge about such unknow- ables as the Future Life, with particular reference to Limbo and Purgatory. No such knowledge has ever been claimed. Purgatory seems to me a logical necessity, given the absolute dichotomy between Heaven and Hell. It seemed a smart thing for English Reformists to repudiate in the 16th century in the light of current abuses — most particularly the sale of indulgences — but it is absurd to pretend that the Anglican tradition for denying a belief which precedes even the New Testament, in the Jewish habit of praying for the dead, has any special validity or interest today. The existence of Limbo has always been conjectural and its nature open to debate. To announce, as Mr Wilson does, that Catholic doctrine insists 'an unbaptised baby will be separated through all eternity from its baptised mother' is a classic example of theological pilgerism.

Finally he complains about Catholic annulments. I agree that there is frequent abuse in practice, but so far as theory is concerned the only difference between Catholic and Anglican doctrine on mar- riage is that the Anglicans are stricter.

But Mr Wilson seems to deny that the Church of England has any doctrine on any subject: 'There was never any suggestion that the Monarch, or the Archbishop of Canterbury. . . . were "Guardians of the Faith": Has he never looked at any coin of the realm? He compares the Pope un- favourably with the Bishop of Durham because in Pope John Paul II 'we hear again the unmistakable tones in which Pius X condemned the Modernists'. Of course we do. By the grace of God, it is the same voice. I wonder if Mr Wilson has ever read Pius X's decree of 1907, Lamentabili, condemning 65 Modernist propositions and defining Modernism as 'not a heresy, but the summation and essence of every heresy'. It is a restatement of Pius IX's 1864 encyclical, Quanta Cura, to which was appended the famous Syllabus of Errors in 80 articles, of which the 80th pronounced as error the view that 'the Roman Pontiff can and should reconcile himself to and agree with progress, liberalism and modern civilisation'.

This seems to me not so much a matter of faith as of common sense. Does Mr Wilson seriously disagree? But his greatest objection to Catholicism would appear to be on the matter of 'intellectual freedom': The sort of balance we want, between the requirements of orthodoxy and the need for intellectual freedom, has been more and more apparent in the pronouncements of Dr Runcie.

This seems to spring from a genuine misunderstanding. Intellectual freedom is not something which the Church can either bestow or deny. It is a natural condition, part of God's creation. No Church can impose belief, it can merely teach the Truth as it sees it and insist that no individual, in exercising this freedom, should teach something different as if it were the teaching of the Church.

When Christ founded his church (Matt- hew xvi 18-19) he told the first Pope (or possibly the first Archbishop of Canter- bury): 'I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsover thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' His last words on earth were: 'Go ye therefore and teach all nations Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have com- manded you; and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.'

Are we to suppose that these words were addressed to a united, apostolic and uni- versal Church, with all its human faults, or to a dissident national Church which cer- tain Englishmen happen to find more congenial? But the reaching requirement is unassailable. After reading Dean Bridge's newly published autobiography — One Man's Advent (Granada £8.95)— I confess I felt myself caught by the charms of the English Church. Andrew Wilson CI am glad to number myself among the wishy- washies who. . . are attempting to worship in spirit and in truth') has cured me. He may have saved my soul, but what of his? In a week's time I will be making my annual pilgrimage to the tomb of St Tho- mas Aquinas in Toulouse. I will light a candle for him there.