assuming without question that human per- fectibility was plausible. I imbibed the notion that we are moral agents, free to exercise our will; our fate is not predetermined and our lives not subject to the whims of a divine pup- peteer. Trained as an historian, I noted the evidence of human suffering but I set it aside: I did not pretend to understand the mystery of evil in the world. Stuff happens. My world view absolved me from the responsibility to under- stand why. My outlook has developed over the years,


but undoubtedly my Catholic-Fabian inher- itance encouraged me to embark on my hopeful journey. I can trace the origin of that journey back to its source, but that does not help to assess its merits, nor does it explain why I continue on this course. For that, I have first to tease hope and optimism apart. The second may be understood as a lens, through which we view and understand our experience of the world.


Optimism, as Ehrenreich argues, is a cog-


nitive stance, an expectation of a positive future. Hope is the desire for things to come to pass in a particular way. Pessimists may be hopeful. The early Christians grew pessimistic about the early realisation of Christ’s promises, but they retained their hope of his ultimate triumph. I happen to subscribe to both hopefulness


and optimism. Those choices – and they are choices – bear the imprint of my upbringing, but I could not have sustained them if I had not felt them confirmed by experience. I do expect a positive future – for myself, my fam- ily, my community. Nor is that evidence of a lazy utopianism: my father’s injunction to work for a better tomorrow remains with me. To paraphrase Orwell, the key is not to make the world perfect, but to make it better.


attachment to hope is at once innate and inalienable. My optimism might, I suppose, succumb in the face of overwhelming evidence that all shall not be well. But I would still con- tinue to hope. Not simply to hope for better outcomes for those around me, but to hope that meaning can be found even when our experience of the world gives us least reason to be confident in tomorrow. To hope that we may divine a purpose and


I


a pattern to our lives that transcends the daily reckoning of opportunities taken and chances missed. In the last few weeks, I have been reminded that I have the courage to hope. After a stumble, I find myself confirmed in my defiance. Yes, I am a fortunate man. A hopeful man.


■ Andrew McDonald gave the Cure Parkinson’s Trust lecture this week (see www.cureparkinsons.org.uk). He wrote under the pseudonym Patrick Chivers about the discovery that he had Parkinson’s disease in The Tablet at Easter 2008 and he reflected on it again at Easter 2009.


see evidence all around me that such progress is attainable. Nurture, experi- ence and reason bring me to this conclusion. So far, so rational. But my


SARA MAITLAND


‘What seems to me to be the issue here is a hatred of feminism’


It has been a while since I have had a good feminist rant; there are not many occasions for it here on my Scottish moor, but its peace has been disturbed by a voice from afar. How can the Church appoint as


chairman of a liturgical translation committee – in this case, Vox Clara – someone who is as “fiercely opposed to inclusive language” as Cardinal Pell is? This must mean that he is in favour of exclusive language, which hardly seems “catholic” in the proper sense of the word. You might imagine the Church


would look for someone who, as well as being orthodox theologically and a good Latinist, was sensitive to the nuances of language and generous-hearted and courteous enough to want to avoid offending people wherever possible. Such people do exist, and if there are none in the ranks of senior English-speaking clergy around the globe it is extremely worrying. We are not talking here about


non-sexist language, which prefers justice to literalism; we are not talking about changing what the liturgy says or means. We are talking about translating a text using a vocabulary that does not unnecessarily alienate or exclude. The Vatican wants a “formal equivalence” that more fully reflects the nuances of the Latin; and, interestingly, that is what inclusive language would provide in some instances. Latin has two different words that


have, in the past, both been translated as “man”: homo, a human being, and vir, a male human being. A translation that was both precise and well-mannered would rejoice at the opportunity to improve the older translations by using something that made the same distinction as the Latin makes.


English rejoices in the largest


vocabulary that any language has ever had. There are plenty of choices: propter nos homines, for example, could be translated as “for us people”, “for everyone”, “for us all”, “for humanity”, “for us human beings”, and lots more. Nor can this really be about the so-called “sacral vocabulary”: there is nothing


particularly elevated or holy (or Latinate) about the word “men”. It’s a solid Anglo-Saxon word and is firmly embedded in contemporary spoken English and in various slang expressions too. What seems to me to be the issue


here is a hatred of feminism. It is as simple as that. Like most prejudice it is made up of a combination of fear and ignorance. So deeply entrenched is this view that when four weeks ago in The TabletDr John Casey wrote warmly supporting the Cambridge chaplaincy’s women servers at a Tridentine Rite Mass, he felt obliged to say that the two were “sensible”, devout and reliable women driven by “no ideological fix”. What I inferred was that they were not nasty women’s libbers, who would not be fit to serve at any Mass. This is the first time I have ever heard that a person’s political belief was a relevant consideration when selecting altar servers. I’m afraid I can’t do much about


any underlying fear; but can I address the ignorance, albeit briefly? There are as many brands, types and sorts of feminism (some pretty antithetical to Catholicism and some definitely not) as there are of any other worldwide ideology, including Christianity. Underlying them all is the observation that women are discriminated against in unjust ways, and that this is maintained culturally as well as structurally. Any Church that claims a bias to the poor should support a basic feminist position because gender is, globally, the single strongest indicator of poverty, after living south of the equator. As Catholics we believe that language matters, that it forms hearts and makes truth possible. That is the argument for inclusive language. But I’ll tell you what really makes me cross. When it comes to the fairly rare explicit presence of women in the sacred texts, there is a very ready acceptance of “inclusive language”. Ancilla is the Latin word for a maid. It is a feminine word; it is not even derived downwards from a masculine noun. But in the translation of a woman’s great hymn of praise, the “Magnificat”, it is airbrushed out into the inclusive “servant”, thus breaking from the Latin and from the biblical roots as well. The Magnificat celebrates God’s reversal of human power structures – so Mary’s gender is key to the meaning and the “inclusive language” here is unfaithful to the text.


■Sara Maitland is a novelist and writer, whose works include A Book of Silence (Granta, 2008).


16 July 2011 | THE TABLET | 15


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