LETTERS
Missal discussion curtailed In the third part of Robert Mickens’ account of how the new translation of the Missal came to be adopted (“A war of words”, 2 July), he mentions the 2002 meeting of the presidents of episcopal conferences of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (Icel) with Cardinal Arinze in which “they acqui- esced in the Congregation for Divine Worship’s claim that the Holy See alone had the right to create mixed commissions” and “Not a single bishop raised his voice in protest”. While it’s water under the bridge now, it may be of historical interest that it wasn’t as simple as that, at least in my memory. The meeting comprised, besides the con- ference presidents, a considerable number of the Congregation with their president together with some of the Vox Clara members and some Icel members, including Fr Harbert. A pre- liminary agenda had been sent to participants beforehand and it contained an item that would allow for discussion of Liturgiam Authenticam and its statutes. Arriving at the meeting, Archbishop (later Cardinal) Napier of South Africa, Bishop Cullinane of New Zealand and myself from Australia noticed that the agenda item had been deleted from the revised meeting agenda, presumably because in the meantime the Holy Father had signed off on the statutes. We expressed our disquiet to Cardinal Arinze and he restored it to the meet- ing agenda. When this agenda item came around, we
three presidents voiced our concerns and in particular about the Holy See’s right to approve the statutes contrary to Sacrosanctum Concilium. After we spoke, Cardinal Arinze called a canon lawyer presumably from the Congregation to respond to our concerns. We did not believe that he had in fact refuted our arguments but there was no further dis- cussion. Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor thanked us for airing the matter and the meeting moved on. It was apparent that the fact that the Holy Father had approved the statutes, including the offending one, had closed the question, one might say definitively. (The Most Rev.) Francis P. Carroll Emeritus Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn, Wagga Wagga, NSW, Australia
Care of the elderly Yvonne Roberts’ reflections on care for the eld- erly (“Out of the picture”, 9 July) focus on the shift of “the duty to care” from families to the state. She rightly stresses the need to find pat- terns of “mutuality and reciprocity” that meet the needs of the elderly and of carers. Our experience of dementia within our extended family is that whether a care home or a family is the primary carer, the goal is the same – to create a loving environment char- acterised by security of relationships and avoidance of anxiety. Any activities that cause
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each adult member of the congregation should try to give an extra £5 per month and that all who could should gift-aid that contribution. Our priest explained what we were going to do and why. A member of the finance com- mittee answered questions and handed out gift-aid and direct-debit forms. There has been an almost 100 per cent response – and the weekly collection has almost doubled. (Mrs) Isabel White Northampton
‘During the early stages of dementia, prayer creates calmness that encourages personal security’
insecurity or anxiety inevitably lead into uncharted territory in which the person with dementia feels less of a person, while the carer too feels increasingly inadequate to find the “new eyes” of which Marcel Proust wrote. Unfortunately, the drugs available at this time are of minimal value. However, the com- bination of prayer and exercise is a sound foundation that can empower healing patterns that do change lives. During the early stages of dementia our experience is that prayer cre- ates the calmness and patience that avoids anxiety and encourages personal security, while exercise keeps the cardiovascular system operational when it would otherwise decline. We should never mould our relationship to
God into something that we can use or con- trol, but God does intervene, at times subtly, at times powerfully, in all our lives. Perhaps the most important trait both the elderly and carers need to develop is love – further love of God, further love of each other, and fur- ther love of those around us. Bob and Sylvia Kahn Warrington, Cheshire
Fund-raising: better ways I have friends whose parish has taken part in fund-raising similar to that discussed in your recent Letters columns (2, 9 July). They were perturbed at being written to, and tele- phoned, more than once, asking in each case for pledges of different sums of money. They felt that what they were being asked to pledge appeared to be based on some assess- ment of their church contributions, something they had always felt was confidential. They were also taken aback that their contact details had been given out to strangers without their express permission. Having given their details and signed their pledges, are their names and contact details now on a database to be used at a later date? Our parish finance committee has gone down a different route. It calculated that all that was needed to meet our target was that
Sue Oakley (Letters, 2 July) seems well able to defend herself from high-pressure fund- raisers, but many are more vulnerable. Parish priests can testify to their distress. However, they have a friend in the Information Commissioner, who has ruled in one case that it is a breach of the Data Protection Act for a diocese to obtain a database for further fund-raising by consulting the list of those who have already made covenants or gift-aid declarations in favour of their parishes. Sadly, no such help is available against many other practices. As a parish priest in Leeds Diocese, I crossed swords with American fund- raisers who quoted the injunction “you have freely received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8), as though it were telling the laity to give money to the clergy, when in fact it is forbidding the clergy from taking money from the laity. It comes as no surprise to learn from one Westminster parish that they have been advised to populate their church with statues that will consume candles and generate money, when Vatican II wanted to cull statues. Basil Loftus Braeval, Helmsdale, Sutherland
Murdoch’s impact on the press Your leading article about the morality of the media is spot on (“Scandal beyond words”, 9 July). The hacking scandal is the most extreme example of the general coarsening of private and public life since Rupert Murdoch’s incursion here 42 years ago. But didn’t this give you cause to reflect on your previous editorial statement that “jour- nalism and broadcasting owe [Murdoch] a lot” (“News and the public interest”, 29 January)? Thomas Headland Aldeburgh, Suffolk
Homosexual marriages In his column (9 July) Clifford Longley writes: “The argument in favour of gay mar- riage is a disguised form of the argument that gender is socially conditioned.” This may be an association he makes, but it is one without foundation, and one which I have not hitherto seen advanced. There may be people who see those separate issues as inex- tricably bound up with each other, but I have not heard or read any of their arguments. A
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