in the 1950s when the choir school was in the care of two paedophile priests for 10 years. In that time they abused many of the small boys who boarded there. One was discovered after several years of abuse and immediately removed by the then cardinal. The other was not discovered, and sexually abused me daily for the next three years. Eric Gill was a sexual monster; his activ- ities included bestiality, incest and the sexual abuse of his own children, a litany for which today he would be jailed. I am aware that some people (though probably not the victims of child sexual abuse) argue that a work of art should be judged not by the behav- iour of its creator but on its own merits. It is for the authorities at Westminster Cathedral to argue their case for keeping the Gill Stations. Those who can face their provenance are free to pray before them and they might remember also to pray for the vic- tims of child sexual abuse at the same time. Perhaps the cathedral could add a similar prayer whenever the Gill Stations are used liturgically. Westminster Cathedral has its own prob- lem because the Stations are already in place there, but The Tablet does have a choice as to whether or not it uses the work of this notorious man. As a victim of child sexual abuse I do not seek censorship, but I do ask for recognition of my hurt and a sensitiv- ity that does not force me to revisit my suffering. There are innumerable fine depic- tions of the Stations of the Cross that you could have used and which do not have the dark history of the Gill set. The editorial policy of The Tablet has always been sympathetic to the victims of child sex- ual abuse. I plead now for that sensitivity to be extended to your choice of pictures. Kevin Mayhew Buxhall, Suffolk


Selection hurts the vulnerable For many years, Catholic education has been considered to be extremely good: well balanced, academically sound and excellent, on the whole, for educating the whole person. But what has happened to our sense of mission? All these churchy hoops that must now be climbed through suggest that only the children of the most thoroughly committed parents can access our Catholic schools (Letters, 26 February, 5 March). My parents stopped practising their faith before a time that I can remember and only my grandfather, until his death when I was 12, ensured that I heard Mass on Sunday. The two Catholic schools selected for me both accepted me in full knowledge of this back- ground and, as my parents’ marriage broke up and my childhood became one of endless uncertainty, the one anchoring feature of this period was my time at these two Catholic


For more of your correspondence, go to the new Letters Extra section of The Tablet’s expanded website: www.thetablet.co.uk


22 | THE TABLET | 12 March 2011


schools. When my father could no longer afford to keep me at school, the nuns went to considerable lengths to persuade him to leave me at school for another year, free of charge. Only his pride ensured my early depar- ture. Self-education in young adulthood had to fill the gaps. In adulthood, my faith has remained secure within a Catholic marriage and family. It has led me to work for the Church, sometimes salaried but mostly on a voluntary basis. Without those Catholic schools, which did not insist upon practising parents but retained their sense of mission, I do not believe that this would have happened. Paddy Lark


Brockenhurst, Hampshire


Love without bounds The excerpt from Herbert McCabe’s bookFaith Within Reason (5 March) reminds us with beautiful clarity that our sinfulness does nothing to change God’s love for us. It is not, though, I believe, surprising that Christians continue to think of God as a God who would punish us for our sins, since our liturgy and theology still tend to promote this view. In the Mass we plead for God’s mercy, ask God not to consider what we truly deserve, state our belief that God will come to judge the living and the dead, and the dominant model of atonement in many Christians’ minds is still one in which Christ died in order to stop us receiving the punishment that justice demands.


I am much less concerned with discussion about whether the new translation of the Mass reflects the original Latin, than with the issue of whether our faith celebrates or distorts the central truth of God’s unconditional love for all people. Tim Gay Waterlooville, Hampshire


Herbert McCabe’s chapter gives a wonderful account of the younger son. However, every long-serving brother, priest and vowed Religious receiving neither calf nor kid, and maybe at times surly – in fact, Herbert’s “wage- earner” – is allocated a personal visit and perhaps the most beautiful speech in the Bible, Luke 15:31-32: “Son, thou art ever with me”… and inclusion in “we” with the father. These overwhelming words should encour- age our serving priests and Religious today. Marie Arnall


Ambleside, Cumbria His carriage awaits


I was truly inspired to read (News from Britain and Ireland, 5 March) that the new papal nuncio has set such a fine example of environmental awareness and austerity ( not least by avoiding congestion charges) by trav- elling to visit the Queen in a vehicle pulled by a horse. Thank goodness all those embarrassing manifestations of ecclesiastical pomp we used to see are now a thing of the past. John McLaughlin Birkenhead, Merseyside


The living Spirit


Those who fear the Lord do not disobey his words,


and those who love him keep his ways. Those who fear the Lord seek to please him,


and those who love him are filled with his law.


Those who fear the Lord prepare their hearts,


and humble themselves before him. Sirach 2:15-17


In Lent, if we let ourselves, we are called to travel back in time, back to first- century Palestine, where we walk with others along dusty roads and sit on dusty hills and listen again to the words of the Teacher. We are also called to travel forward in our imagination, to times and things we long for, to the brighter realisation of dreams and visions as yet unrealised. In Lent, if we let ourselves, we can splash in refreshing fountains and bask in the warmth of Divine love. We can allow the light of Christ to shine into the shadowy corners of our hearts and minds with its transforming, healing light. Christina Rees Feast and Fast


(Darton, Longman & Todd, 2010)


In our loud age of extroversion it is dif- ficult to impress on individual Christians the need for developing the requisite bal- ance of introversion in their lives. Everything in their busy world is geared to distract them from prayer, … and dis- traction has always been the worst danger to developing spiritual awareness, and the first thing warned against by all the great masters of prayer.


Addison Hodges Hart The Yoke of Jesus


(Wm B. Eerdmans, 2010)


Solitude refers to the time and space wherein a person is alone for the pur- pose of realising union with God. The example of Jesus seeking solitude for prayer shows the way we should move in our personal journey.


John O’Brien


Return to Gethsemane (Pen Press, 2000)


13 March is the first Sunday of Lent


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