Another voice
Lay apart all filthiness
Auberon Waugh
If the Pope dies, or is seriously reduced in his pontifical function by the wounds he received last Wednesday, then he will have provided the most glaring illustration of the inefficacy of prayer in the whole of human history. Those praying are not only the world's 700 million-odd Catholics but also, if we are to believe their protestations on the subject, Orthodox and Protestant Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and even the more moderate and ecumenical Muslims. People forget, and no newspaper has made the point, that when one talks of a right-wing Turk one is not necessarily talking of a Turk who wishes to preserve some Turkish equivalent of the House of Lords, or who favours an antiSoviet foreign policy, or monetarist economics, or who believes in the efficacy of capital punishment or the superiority of the-ah-Turkic races. One is talking most particularly of a Turk who wishes to reverse the social reforms of Mustafa Kemal Ata ftirk (1881 — 1938) and restore Turkey to all tile traditional horrors of an Islamic state.
The inspiration of the Turkish terrorist right is religious before it is political, although it may be hard for us to see how this cause will be advanced by the murder of a Pope.
Since, at the time of writing, it seems more likely than not that thePope will survive and recover, we may never learn. It was in the dark moment when it seemed more likely than not that he would die, or be left incapable, that one (or any rate I) suddenly recognised that Karol Wojtyla was the only beacon of hope left in Catholic Christianity. He may still die, of course. If so, as I say, the inefficacy of prayer will have been proved beyond any reasonable shadow of doubt. Christian apologists have the traditional defence, on occasions when prayer fails, of urging the faithful to accept the greater wisdom of God and submit to His will, but on this occasion, when the prayers of so many hundreds of millions are involved, many will be bound to conclude either that the will of God is defective, or that human beings have lost the ability to pray or, most likely conclusion of all, that the whole thing is a load of rubbish, there is no God and never was one, and the elaborate philosophical structure is a product of wishful thinking, of man's reluctance to contemplate his own extinction and that of his loved ones.
In the last decision, there might even be a certain appropriateness in the fact that Pope John-Paul was murdered in furtherance of some alternative perception of this non-existent God. Take God away, of course, and we are left with nothing but a dismal and implausible projection of social improvement to believe in, brought about by some ritual of devotional handclapping in unison. Take Pope John-Paul away, and one sees that the Catholic Church is already more than half-way there.
This goofy social welfare workers' version of the religious impulse is, of course, only one aspect of the Catholic religion as it has emerged since the last Vatican Council, but it is pervasive enough to make churchgoing a horrible experience for all who are not, by nature, frustrated social workers, Wolf Cubs or Little Brown Owls. On Good Friday I was in hospital, but my wife, as a conscientious Protestant mother of Catholic children, took them to Stations of the Cross in a local Catholic church. To Protestant readers, I should explain that this is a devotion of no great antiquity — probably invented by the Franciscans at the end of the seventeenth century — but of some solemnity, nevertheless, in which the faithful are encouraged to meditate on the final agony and death of Christ. When they reached the eleventh Station, the Crucifixion, the priest read from his manual words to this effect: 'How can we take this thing in, what it must have felt like to be nailed to the cross in this way, and how can we use it to help us to be better citizens and show greater consideration to our fellow men and women in the community, particularly other road users and pedestrians at this time of year when the safety of all road users may be endangered by our impatience or discourtesy?'
In this respect, as I say, the posture of the Catholic Church in Britain would appear reptilian enough. Possibly it is even worse in other countries, but I had hoped and continue to hope that the Pope, in the course of his visit to England next year, will read the Riot Act to the Catholic bishops as he did to the Dutch bishops in January last year. Cardinal Hume of Westminster may look well in the part, but on closer inspection he proves to be a weak, vain man of silly opinions on every subject while his opposite number in Liverpool, Mgr Derek Worlock , seems to combine all the least amiable characteristics of the old-style Vatican careerist — a sort of unctuous deviousness — with an almost fanatical enthusiasm for the new progressive orthodoxy. The former, as I constantly urge, should be sent back to Ampleforth, the latter retired as titular Archbishop of Ulan Bator in partibus infidelium and appointed chaplain to a convent in Caithness.
I do not know the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Glasgow, Mgr Thomas Winning, while suspecting he may be the worst of the lot in this respect. But it is the fourth British primate, the Primate of All Ireland whose seat, for some perverse reason, is in Armagh, who represents the other aspect of modern British Catholicism, and it is an aspect which does not seem to call for a reading of the Riot Act so much as a full-blooded Papal Interdict on the whole accursed province of Ulster.
Cardinal Fee (or Cardinal O'Fiaich as he prefers to call himself, although I would not care to try to pronounce it) has denounced terrorism on several occasions, of course, and has even extended his denunciation to cover acts of violence by both sides. More recently, he has urged Mrs Thatcher to change her policy of refusing to accept the demands of terrorists and murderers in the Maze who threaten to commit suicide.
But it is not that part of the Catholic Church's activity in Northern Ireland which is particularly noteworthy. Last week there were two funerals, among the many in the province, attended by armed IRA terrorists who shot off their illegal guns as part of the ceremony. One was the funeral of Emmanuel McLarnon, who was shot dead in a gun battle with troops shortly after the murderer Francis Hughes died. Masked men in military uniforms fired nine revolver shots outside St Peter's Cathedral in Belfast. The other, in Bellaghy, was the funeral of Hughes himself, where six riflemen fired over the grave.
One reason why the Ulster constabulary do not dare move in and confiscate these weapons, so flagrantly carried, is that the presence of a priest on these occasions adds a sanctity to them which would add further strength to the terrorists' case. By canon law, neither suicides nor excommunicates are permitted ecclesiastical burial, and while the Church has tended to a lenient judgment in the matter of a suicide's intention, there can be no possible excuse for leniency where the last conscious intention was unmistakable, as 4 was with Sands and Hughes, or where a lenient judgment will encourage others to follow suit, as it has and was bound to do.
Before wondering why the despicable Cardinal Fee has so far neglected to excommunicate not only the IRA but all who succour them, remembering that wilful murder (along with the sin of sodom) is one of the four sins crying out to heaven for vengeance, let us reflect on the Epistle of St James appointed to be read in all churches last Sunday (although no longer in the Roman Catholic travesties): 1.19 'Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: 1.20 For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. 1.21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your But while esWojtyla lives, there is still a glimmer of hope.
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