Having indicated in the opinion survey held recently that I find
Patrick O'Donovan's "Charterhouse Chronicle" the most interesting aspect of the Catholic Herald, it is with some regret that I write to criticise him.
While accepting that journalists treat words rather as mad generals treat soldiers, I cannot but take exception to his description of James II as a "booby". Mr O'Donovan may know little about the history of 17th century England, but as a Catholic he ought to know that James II was a man of principles and of absolute belief in religious toleration.
He saw his central purpose as king in the lifting of vicious, punitive laws against his coreligionists. That he failed does not reflect upon his purpose, nor does it behove Mr O'Donovan to east is upon the memory of a man who attempted to do, and did. more for English Catholics than any journalist past or present. If the cause of Church unity is to be served by sneers at great Catholics of the past, then it is even more repellant than I had at first supposed. R. Newman University of York, Heslington, York.