the spiritual meaning they are designed to impart. On the other hand I was delighted to read Sr Moira O’Sullivan’s letter (3 September) pointing out that such a “sacrifice” can be seen not only as a spiritual exercise but as a very practical one. We all eat too much meat and the impact on the environment is immense. But my biggest concern is that people will turn to fish on Fridays. Apart from being con- siderably more expensive and luxurious (so much for solidarity with the poor), the world’s fish stocks are under unbelievable pressure. We simply cannot catch enough to feed growing demand. Efforts have increased year on year, fishing vessels travel further and fur- ther afield, but global catches have not increased for 15 years and most are declin- ing. European vessels are now mining the once productive stocks off west Africa and driving local near-shore fishers out of business and out of food. Farmed fish is only sometimes okay – farmed salmon are fed a diet of wild- caught fish and pollute our native rivers with chemicals; farmed shrimp often come from converted mangrove forests, with thousands of local fishers put out of work by the loss of the rich forests and their riverine networks. The solution: please don’t use this as an


excuse to eat more fish. If you want fish at all, please look for fish that is certified as sus- tainably caught. But for me it will either be vegetarian Fridays, or perhaps a deliberate re- interpretation of the bishops’ words: no fish-meat on Fridays, perhaps making a point by eating local and free-range meat instead. Mark Spalding Conservation Science Group, University of Cambridge


Limits of just war Your editorial (“Let the carnival be over”, 17 September) exposing Britain’s dependence on the arms trade is welcome. However, on what basis do you judge the Nato operation in Libya as being within the limits of the just war cri- teria of proportionality? Nato has not been measuring the civilian death or injury toll; they are still to be revealed. Within the first 90 days of action in Libya, Nato reported 4,963 strike sorties which included air strikes and the use of drones. The list of what they have damaged and destroyed is long, but nowhere is a single human death mentioned. As a chal- lenge to this silence, an initiative was recently launched, the Charter for the Recognition of Every Casualty of Armed Conflict. It demands that all states take full responsibility to record, correctly identify and publicly acknowl-


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


edge every casualty of armed violence. Human beings matter. If the real truth were told about war, tak-


ing account of the human, community, environmental, social and economic costs, we would move beyond the language of just war to actions for conflict prevention and peace. Pat Gaffney


General Secretary, Pax Christi, International Catholic Movement for Peace


Can I question your use of the single word “pacifist” to describe Pax Christi in your edi- torial. Pax Christi’s work internationally is based on three core Gospel-based values: peace based on justice, reconciliation and non-violence. Within its membership there are some who would describe themselves as pacifists; oth- ers who would not. All, however, would agree with Bishop Thomas McMahon’s description of Britain’s deep involvement in the arms trade as “scandalous” and nothing for Britain to be proud of. Anne Dodd Chair, British section of Pax Christi


Credible doctrine of the Eucharist Our medieval forebears did not only believe in transubstantiation (Michael Brendan Brett, Letters, 17 September). They also believed in the live cremation of the heterodox and were sure that the Sun and stars orbited a static Earth. Just because a belief or teaching is old does not make it right; a certain amount of discernment is required. As far as I am aware, Christians believed Christ to be truly present in the consecrated eucharistic elements long before the doctrine of transubstantiation was thought up. That teaching was an attempt to define Christ’s eucharistic presence in terms of a contemporary, scientific belief in the nature of matter, a belief that is no longer accepted. Any physics student, even at a Catholic sec-


ondary school, who answered GCSE questions on the nature of matter in terms of “substance” and “accidents” would get a dusty response from the examiners and from his or her teach- ers. It is, I suggest, time that the Church produced a definition of Christ’s presence in the eucharistic bread and wine that is not incompatible with what is now known and accepted in the sciences. Patrick Bryan Wolverhampton, West Midlands


Job’s right John Morrish (The Language Game, 17 September) might care to add to his under- standing of the word “job” a phrase from the Cornish dialect, “proper job”, which, roughly translated, means “satisfactory”. Kevin O’Connell Bude, Cornwall


The living Spirit


It is neither theology nor history which has won me to Christianity; but just this, that, when 50 years old, having questioned myself, and having questioned the reputed philosophers whom I knew, as to what I am, and as to the purport of my life, and after getting the reply that I was a fortu- itous concatenation of atoms, and that my life was void of purport, and that life itself is evil, I became desperate, and wished to put an end to my life. But after recall- ing to myself how formerly, in childhood, while I still had religious faith, life pos- sessed meaning for me; and that the great mass of men about me, who hold to faith and are uncorrupted by wealth, possess the meaning of life: after all this I was brought into doubt as to the justness of the reply given to me by the wisdom of men of my own station, and I tried once more to understand what answer it is Christianity gives to those men who live a life with meaning.


Leo Tolstoy The Gospel in Brief (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2010 )


I think it helps one to go on if one remem- bers that one’s true relation to God is not altered by the fact that one has ceased to be aware of it. Other things being equal, you are just where you were before, but are temporarily unable to see the Light. And the use of the disability, just like the use of any other sort of suffering, is to pre- vent you from identifying fullness of life with fullness of comfort. Evelyn Underhill


A Deep but Dazzling Darkness: an anthology of personal experiences of God Edited by Lucy Lethbridge and Selina O’Grady


(Darton, Longman and Todd, 2002)


The statue of Our Lady of Walsingham, present here, lifts our minds to meditate on our Mother ... Faithful at the foot of the Cross, she then waited in prayer for the Holy Spirit to descend on the infant Church. It is Mary who will teach us how to be silent, how to listen to the voice of God in the midst of a busy and noisy world. It is Mary who will help us to find time for prayer. Pope John Paul II


Mass at Wembley Stadium Saturday, 29 May 1982


Today is the memorial of Our Lady of Walsingham


24 September 2011 | THE TABLET | 19


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