Sir: I read with some surprise Damian Thompson's article on
the styles of worship favoured by the Royal Family CA service fit for the Queen', 5 May). As a Roman Catholic himself Mr Thompson can be excused for possibly not knowing that Anglicans are required to communicate only three times in the year, of which Easter be one. The fact that many Anglicans communicate very much more frequently does not nullify the rubric setting out the extent of their actual obligation.
Whether the presumption in telling the Prince of Wales he should visit Tetbury parish church rests with Mr Thompson or the turbulent vicar there I do not know. If the ASB is all that the Reverend Mr Hawthorne and his Parochial Church Council care to offer then I would remind them that the Alternative Service Book is supposed to be an alternative to the Book of Common Prayer and not a replacement for it.
It is the brutality of spirit and the unfeeling way in which modernistic uni- formity is imposed which has alienated so many Anglicans. They feel like second- class citizens in the household of faith when denied a Book of Common Prayer that theoretically at least remains the offi- cial Prayer Book of the Church.
One understands Mr Thompson as a Roman Catholic quoting 'experts' who want to reach back behind the Reforma- tion to fragments of early liturgy; but many will think the process highly selective and certainly no resulting liturgy needs to be as crass and banal as that to be found in the ASB.
Anthony Kilmister
The Prayer Book Society, St James Garlickhythe, Garlick Hill, London EC4
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