THE TABLET

THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY FOUNDED IN 1840

UNANSWERED

QUESTIONS

THE HUMAN DAMAGE OF LOCKDOWN

With one “steamy clinch”, as the tabloids put it, Matt Hancock has ended his career as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. But he has left the

room with a lingering smell. How he came to be secretly filmed in his ministerial office embracing his lover is an intriguing detail of this story, as it suggests a conspiracy by some members of his staff to eject him. There are questions being asked about his integrity, not least in employing a woman he was in an intimate relationship with as a key adviser, but also about his use of private emails to conduct government business. Contracts worth billions of pounds of public money have been arranged with various of his friends, contacts and relations, without, it is alleged, the scrutiny or record that government regulations require. Hancock has resigned, and already media attention has moved to focus on the new health secretary. But these more important questions about the honesty and integrity of this government still remain.

All this has happened as the government faces up to one of the most vital decisions of the whole pandemic: when to bring to an end the regime of lockdown that still reigns throughout the United Kingdom. It was largely Hancock’s call. Now it falls to his successor, Sajid Javid, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer until February last year. He has to balance the risk of allowing further spread of the virus against the damage done to society and the economy by extending restrictions to some later date.

Hancock’s undoing is a stark reminder of how unnatural life has become for everyone, when hugging and kissing – outside the familial bubble – are banned by law, as are many other expressions of friendship and affection. Covid has been a devastating scourge but also a great teacher of the importance to human wellbeing of everyday human tenderness. Physical and mental health suffer in its absence; atomised individualism is not only unnatural but harmful. This basic truth about humanity runs counter to ideologies which treat individualism as the norm, including some forms of free-market economics such as that advocated by libertarian conservative guru Ayn Rand, who actually wrote a book called The Virtue of Selfishness. Covid-19 could almost have been designed to prove her wrong.

The data must be scrutinised, the risks must be assessed. The latest, more virulent form of the disease, the Delta variant, has killed few people in Britain so far, and vaccination seems to have it under control. And Britain has to have regard to the safety of people in other countries too, where vaccination is less well advanced and health services are reeling under the strain. But the human damage done by continuing lockdown must also be given due weight.

These are moral decisions as well as political and economic ones. Morality is not Boris Johnson’s strong point. It is unfortunate that Britain has a government at this time that cannot be trusted to tell the truth or to act in the public – as distinct from its own private – interest.

SENSUS FIDELIUM

ROLE OF THE CATHOLIC

MEDIA

The coronavirus pandemic appears to have killed off three out of the four weekly national Catholic newspapers: The Universe, The Catholic Times and the Catholic Herald. Like many newspapers and magazines – The Tablet included – they were already not finding survival easy when the collapse of a crucial source of income, backof-church sales, struck the final fatal blow. The Catholic Herald continues as a lively monthly magazine and website, and the proprietors of The Universe are said to be hoping to find a buyer so it can be revived. But even such glimmers of light cannot disguise the fact that this is an exceedingly grim picture.

As the Catholic paper least reliant on the tradition of after-Mass sales as a source of income, and with a subscription list that is creeping upwards, The Tablet, through its print and online platforms, now has a greater responsibility to try to serve the range of opinion in the Catholic community. It is all the more important, however, that the bishops’ conferences of England and Wales and of Scotland move in the direction urged on them by Pope Francis, towards putting in place synodal systems and structures through which the laity can be properly involved. A Church where the only opinion that matters is the opinion of the bishops is a bird with one wing.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, in his message recording his sadness at the fate of The Universe, recognised that Catholic journalism has a role to play

in the affairs of the Church. He is not the first. Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, when a priest in the Westminster diocese, purchased The Tablet in 1868 because he realised the importance of Catholic journalism, not least to advertise to a sceptical world that there was a vibrant intellectual life in the Catholic community. John Henry Newman himself briefly edited The Tablet’s contemporary rival, The Rambler. He quickly got into hot water but left as his parting shot his memorable essay, “On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine”. It has become something of a Magna Carta for freedom of speech in the Church. It is not just unconventional or challenging ideas that have to be given a voice, however, but mainstream Catholic opinion, rooted in an age-old orthodoxy and a deep and enduring love for the Church even when things go badly wrong, for instance over the sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy, or, even today, in its failure to recognise fully the gifts women bring to the Church. As Newman reminded his readers, the sensus fidelium is fundamentally loyal to the truth; it is wrong to treat it as something to be afraid of.

The expression and sharing of the experience of faith has always been the lifeblood of the Christian community. But blood has to be allowed to circulate. The diversity of the Catholic media was more than a safety valve, though it served that purpose too. It was a source of energy and inspiration, as The Tablet evidently still is for its many loyal readers. It mourns the loss of its contemporaries and rivals.

2 | THE TABLET | 3 JULY 2021