Another voice
Man for all observances
Auberon Waugh
Like Dr Paisley, I was profoundly shocked that Cardinal Hume should choose the crypt chapel of the House of Commons to conduct his new form of service — call it People's Meal, Quiet Moment or what you will —and even more shocked that he should choose to link this mildly fatuous .gesture with the name of St Thomas More, whose fifth centenary is being celebrated this year. While I would probably not go so far as the learned doctor in describing the new Pauline service, in the words of the ThirtyNine Articles, as a 'blasphemous fable and dangerous deceit', it certainly has less apparent resemblance to the Mass established for all time in 1565 by St Pius V than the Anglican Eucharist Service has. Under the circumstances, to talk of Mass being celebrated in Westminster Palace for the first time since the Reformation is not only offensive to Anglican susceptibilities but may also be judged slightly absurd. For the Cardinal to choose the spot in Westminster Hall where More was sentenced to death to prattle about Church unity strikes me as showing an extraordinary degree of insensitivity to the memory of that holy man, which will be as distressing to thoughtful Anglicans as it will be to adherents of the old religion which More died to defend.
While it is true that the Queen remains titular head of the Church of England (and inherits with her job the formal excommunication imposed by St Pius on the first Elizabeth and all her descendants — as well as the title Defender of the Faith awarded to Henry VIII in 1521 for his pamphlet against Luther), her sovereignty has long since been usurped by Parliament. To the extent that More was fighting against the allpowerful modern state, introduced by the Tudors, with its ambitions to encroach on the spiritual Kingdom, there can be no doubt that Parliament, and not the Queen, is the inheritor of any odium attaching to his martyrdom. The spectacle of Cardinal Hume bobbing and genuflecting under the Houses of Parliament may be seen as something altogether more abject, when one reflects that this same Parliament continues to preside over 200,000 abortions a year. Perhaps it is the familiar sight of the dog licking the hand that chastises it, reminding me of nothing so much as the spectacle of Mr Kingsley Amis as he appears in advertisements for W. H. Smith and Son, lending his face and name to proclaim what a good bookshop it is. Perhaps the money he received for that should be seen as a touching gesture of reconciliation by the firm which has done so much to destroy the English book trade and book-buying tradition and which appears to staff its shops with half-wits and illiterates as a matter of policy. But at least one must assume that Mr Amis waspaid to abase himself and his profession in this way. Cardinal Hume had no such inducement, and must have decided that this was a useful or endearing thing to do. But I wish he could have refrained from linking his behaviour with the name of St. Thomas More.
Since Robert Bolt's admirable play and film A Man for All Seasons Thomas More has been accepted in England as a good sort. He may not have founded Eton but there is a feeling that he would definitely have approved of detente with Russia, Blue Peter, television generally, Concorde and, if he were alive today, would have campaigned fiercely for higher compensation to be paid to the parents of thalidomide victims. As a matter of fact, his name is to be found on a plaque in Red Square, Moscow among the Heroes of the Russian Revolution although I dare say that honour preceded Mr Bolt's play. One day he may yet appear on the Bruce Page/Sunday Times list of models for good English prose, although most of what he wrote was, of course, in Latin. Of all the indignities heaped upon his poor, decapitated remains, the title Father of the Oecumenical Movement may seem a fairly harmless one. We all believe in unification of the Christian Churches, do we not?, just as we all believe in better safety provisions on hang-glider aircraft. Come to think of it, if I were chairman of W. H. Smith and Son I might easily use his portrait by Holbein in the Frick collection to advertise my smutty magazine and greetings card chain — the saint has a handsomer, more interesting and even possibly more trustworthy face than Amis. But I still jib at his being adopted by oecumenical enthusiasts as their patron saint and champion. Let us examine his record in that field.
A cursory reading of Utopia might leave one with the impression that it is a blueprint for religious tolerance, as well as advocating a primitive socialist society. Anyone attacking the religion of his neighbour will be held guilty of sedition and banished • from Utopia, he suggests— a forerunner, perhaps, of our own beloved Race Relations Act. However, when one looks more closely, one sees that this tolerance is only relative. Belief in the existence of God and the prospect of eternal salvation is an essential qualification for holding any civic post in his Utopia. At one stage, More expressly rejects the communist proposals of his narrator, Raphael Hythlodaye 'I am of a contrary opinion' — averring that bloodshed and sedition must follow from the abolition of private property.
His true attitude to religious dissidence must be found elsewhere in his writing, as well as in his recorded acts. In the summer 01 1533 he wrote to Erasmus (Epist:466) of his hatred for heretics; as a judge, he was famous for his old-fashioned views on the subject. The porter's lodge at his home in Chelsea was used as a prison for them, from which unrepentant heretics would be sent for racking in the Tower. One does not have to rely on such soubtful sources as Foxe and Froude for this, but on More's own writings, as when he greets the burning of John Tewkesbury, a leather merchant whose views on purgatory were unsound, with the comment: 'There never was a wretch, I own, better worthy' (English Works p.348). On another occasion he personally searched the house of a friend, John Petit, for heretical books, committing him to prison where he died before being brought to trial. But the dearest statement of More's attitude to religious dissidence and Protestantism generally is to be found in his epitaph from the Apology. Where every effort had failed, he wrote, 'to put malicious folly out of a poisoned, proud, obstinate heart' the heretic's death was preferable to his 'continuous sojourn on earth with powers to disseminate pernicious opinions to the destruction of others'.
Perhaps 'Man for All Seasons' is the correct translation of Erasmus's description — `omnium horarum homo' —for this man who wore a hairshirt throughout his life and spent four hours a day on his knees. Certainly the Horae were used by pagan classical writers as goddesses of the seasons. But from the pen of Erasmus, I wonder whether it might not have been intended more as a pun oft the seven canonical hours of the Catholic liturgy whose prayer-book was still called the Book of Hours.
But for Cardinal Hume to suppose that St Thomas More would have approved of his present activities seems more than presumptuous; it illustrates the sort of bland historical manipulation one expects from Communist states.
The Prince of Wales thinks it 'worse than folly' that the churches should still argue about doctrinal matters which only cause 'needless distress to a number of people' and quite possibly Cardinal Hume is tempted to agree. But the Prince at least does not suggest that this was the line taken by his illustrious forebear King Henry VIII and there is no need for the Cardinal to pretend that this was the line taken by
Thomas More. If he wants to pray to someone in order to advance his oecumenical enthusiasms, he might pray to St Ber
nadette of Lourdes or St Theresa of the Little Flower, but I think he should leave St Thomas More alone — unless to ask forgiveness.
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