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THE TABLET THE INTERNATIONAL CATHOLIC WEEKLY FOUNDED IN 1840 ‘WIDOWS AND ORPHANS’ SACRIFICED THE PAIN FALLS ON THE POOR The party that is said to owe “more to Methodism than to Marxism” seems to need a little help getting back on the paths of righteousness. One of the paths that needs straightening is the one that leads to social justice. Labour was founded 124 years ago by, among others, a Methodist lay preacher called Keir Hardie, who went on to lead it. His present successor in that role is Sir Keir Starmer, who was indeed named after him – though not himself a Methodist. Were he one, he would know that the biblical tradition – in the Hebrew Bible as well as in the gospels – does not paint social justice as an option, but as an obligation, an imperative. Woe to those who disregard it. Divine reprobation awaits them. From Exodus to Isaiah to James in the New Testament, “widows and orphans” are a perennial concern. Deuteronomy even pronounces a curse on those who neglect them. “Widows and orphans” in modern terms means any child, or elderly or vulnerable person who is afflicted by poverty, which manifests itself as not enough money to buy wholesome food and keep winter chill at bay. Social justice says this is an affront to society that cries out for correction. Food, clothing, warmth and shelter are necessities, not luxuries. Society has a solemn duty to provide them where they are lacking. How has it come about that a Labour government has forgotten this? equally their brothers and sisters. Nobody now defends the reason initially given for this policy, which it was said would encourage mothers to return to the workforce, because it has had no such effect. Official figures show that 1.6 million children have suffered from it, and abolishing the two-child cap has been identified as the single most effective measure available to any government for reducing child poverty. But on taking office, the Labour government said the state of the public finances prohibited such a move, as if it had no other Food, clothing, warmth and shelter are necessities. How has a Labour government come to forget this? choice. Of course it had. It pleads it must make “painful and difficult choices”. But the pain falls on the poor. The same has to be said for the other group that the Labour manifesto congratulated itself on benefiting as an example of its commitment to social justice, the million-plus pensioners it had “lifted … out of poverty”. The winter fuel allowance – £300 for the oldest, £200 for the rest – turns out to have been singularly good value in keeping the nation’s 11 million pensioners warm in winter. More than nine million of them will now lose this benefit, as it will be meanstested. A minority, those receiving a top-up to the state pension called Pension Credit, will still receive it. But millions more will now struggle to choose between heating and eating. The government will save itself £1.4 billion a year. Search engines can be powerful forensic tools, and applied to the Labour manifesto for the 2024 general election they reveal 12 mentions of the word “justice”. But 11 of them refer to errors and flaws in the criminal justice system, which may be an excusable priority for a party led by a former criminal barrister and Director of Public Prosecutions. Yet it indicates a dangerous narrowing of focus just where a strong and exciting vision needs to be. Justice means much more than this. The manifesto’s solitary reference to “social justice” as such comes in a backward glance at Labour’s history, not as a binding commitment for the present and future. “The last Labour government lifted more than half a million children and more than a million pensioners out of poverty,” it says. “The next Labour government will build on that legacy of pursuing opportunity and social justice.” But the manifesto does not say what it means by that, or how it will achieve it. What an opportunity has been missed. What a failure of political imagination. Labour should have announced its return to government with an emphatic gesture signifying its core values. Social justice should have been top of the list, not some accountancy-driven obsession over the public sector borrowing requirement designed to damage the reputation of the previous government (even if such an attack was justified, as it appears it may well be). But that is the thin gruel on offer. In order to address an inherited £22 billion deficit in the government’s budgeting arrangements, due to some lax accounting by its predecessor, Labour has decided to sacrifice the welfare of widows and orphans. One of the Conservative government’s meanest policies, the limiting of child benefit to two children per family, was left in place when Labour came to power, not just continuing thereby to impoverish third or subsequent children but The political miscalculation here is the assumption that the public will blame the Tories. Hence the endless repetition of the “£22 billion black hole” they left behind – rather as the Tories tried to blame Labour for the austerity policies of the David Cameron-led coalition government. In both cases, the recently defeated former governing party had become too preoccupied with finding a new leader to mount much of a defence. But these party political manoeuvres are miles from the social justice agenda Labour ought to have made its own. More than one theory of social justice is available, including the Methodist teachings attributed to John Wesley, the Anglican version clarified and promoted by William Temple and the entire body of Catholic Social Teaching which continues to have resonance in the modern Labour movement. The secular enlightened tradition of the “politics of the common good”, as expressed by the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel, is also relevant. The Beveridge Report of 1942, which became the bedrock of Labour policy after 1945, identified the “five giants” of misery which stalked the land: “idleness, ignorance, disease, squalor and want”. Temple called it a true expression of Christian socialism. The promotion of the common good is a thread running through all of them. Yet it is mentioned only once in the Labour manifesto, and this in connection with international affairs. Flaws and errors in the criminal justice system of course must be addressed, as Labour has promised. Injustice in the courts is never excusable even in the name of some higher good. The same intolerance of injustice at the social level ought to be engraved on Labour’s soul. Anybody without adequate means for fulfilling their security and subsistence – in whatever form – has a claim, as of right, on society. That largely means the state. And any failure to meet such a claim is a miscarriage of justice. 2 | THE TABLET | 14 SEPTEMBER 2024 For more features, news, analysis and comment, visit www.thetablet.co.uk
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PHOTO: ALAMY/AP, YASUYOSHI CHIBA Catholic faithful wait for Pope Francis to celebrate Mass in Dili, Timor-Leste 29 COLUMNS Liz Dodd ‘The nuns and bruvs of the UK and Ireland were taking social media by storm’ / 5 Kamara Katama Atkinson ‘David had become resigned to the idea he would end up either dead or in prison’ / 15 REGULARS Letters 18 The Living Spirit 19 Word from the Cloisters 21 Puzzles 21 CONTENTS 14 SEPTEMBER 2024 // VOL. 278 NO. 9569 FEATURES 4 / Out of shame, into the light Contemporary Irish fiction has become explosively popular, and its authors are feeding, in part, on the decline of the Catholic Church / BY MARY KENNY 6 / The disruptor Pope One of Canada’s leading Catholic writers portrays Pope Francis as both a disruptor and a healer and unifier / BY MICHAEL W. HIGGINS 8 / On the side of the Tiber Though he loved the Church and taught many of its leaders, Gerald O’Collins SJ had a complex relationship with the Holy See / BY MICHAEL WALSH EDUCATION 10 / It’s time to judge fairly Parents broadly support the government’s scrapping of single-word Ofsted judgements for state schools / BY CARINA MURPHY 12 / Enlightened attitudes When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the English convent at Liège was already a major centre for progressive female education / BY CORMAC BEGADON 14 / Growing closer to Jesus The central purpose of a Catholic school is Christian formation. A teacher and a lay chaplain consider how to realise this / BY HELEN PEPPER AND GABRIELLE FOSTER NEWS 28 / The Church in the World / News briefing 29 / Pope condemns child abuse on arrival in Dili 30 / Postcard from Budapest 31 / View from Rome 32 / News from Britain and Ireland / News briefing 33 / Buildings still death traps, says priest COVER: ALAMY, ALESSIA GIULIANI ARTS / PAGE 22 Music Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River MARY COLWELL Theatre Shifters MARK LAWSON Cinema Lee ISABELLE GREY Television The Perfect Couple LUCY LETHBRIDGE BOOKS / PAGE 25 John Cottingham Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment CHARLES TAYLOR Oliver Letwin Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the Wo r l d ANNE APPLEBAUM Guy Stagg Mr Geography TIM PARKS For more features, news, analysis and comment, visit www.thetablet.co.uk 14 SEPTEMBER 2024 | THE TABLET | 3

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PHOTO: ALAMY/AP, YASUYOSHI CHIBA

Catholic faithful wait for Pope Francis to celebrate Mass in Dili, Timor-Leste 29

COLUMNS

Liz Dodd ‘The nuns and bruvs of the UK and Ireland were taking social media by storm’ / 5

Kamara Katama Atkinson ‘David had become resigned to the idea he would end up either dead or in prison’ / 15

REGULARS Letters 18 The Living Spirit 19 Word from the Cloisters 21 Puzzles 21

CONTENTS 14 SEPTEMBER 2024 // VOL. 278 NO. 9569

FEATURES

4 / Out of shame, into the light Contemporary Irish fiction has become explosively popular, and its authors are feeding, in part, on the decline of the Catholic Church / BY MARY KENNY

6 / The disruptor Pope One of Canada’s leading Catholic writers portrays Pope Francis as both a disruptor and a healer and unifier / BY MICHAEL W. HIGGINS

8 / On the side of the Tiber Though he loved the Church and taught many of its leaders, Gerald O’Collins SJ

had a complex relationship with the Holy See / BY MICHAEL WALSH

EDUCATION

10 / It’s time to judge fairly Parents broadly support the government’s scrapping of single-word Ofsted judgements for state schools / BY CARINA MURPHY

12 / Enlightened attitudes When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, the English convent at Liège was already a major centre for progressive female education / BY CORMAC BEGADON

14 / Growing closer to Jesus The central purpose of a Catholic school is Christian formation. A teacher and a lay chaplain consider how to realise this / BY HELEN PEPPER AND GABRIELLE FOSTER

NEWS

28 / The Church in the World / News briefing 29 / Pope condemns child abuse on arrival in Dili

30 / Postcard from Budapest

31 / View from Rome 32 / News from Britain and Ireland / News briefing

33 / Buildings still death traps, says priest

COVER: ALAMY, ALESSIA GIULIANI

ARTS / PAGE 22 Music Benjamin Britten’s Curlew River MARY COLWELL Theatre Shifters MARK LAWSON Cinema Lee ISABELLE GREY Television The Perfect Couple LUCY LETHBRIDGE

BOOKS / PAGE 25

John Cottingham Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment CHARLES TAYLOR Oliver Letwin Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the Wo r l d ANNE APPLEBAUM Guy Stagg Mr Geography TIM PARKS

For more features, news, analysis and comment, visit www.thetablet.co.uk

14 SEPTEMBER 2024 | THE TABLET | 3

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