Phantom 'certitude' of Mr. Johnson

MISS E. D. TURBIN'S letter (January 20) claiming that the CATHOLIC HERALD
was not intellectual enough to stand up to Paul Johnson
made me smile. I don't know about the CATHOLIC HERALD. but the New Statesman cer
tainly seems unable—or should one say unwilling— to answer criticisms of Paul Johnson's article.
I sent them a courteous letter pointing out two of the larger fallacies in the article; they did not print this or any other reasoned reply to the article, though they found space for an effusion from one of those curious Catholics who hate the basic structure of their Church but do not take the obvious step of leaving it.
Perhaps Miss Turhin would like to save Mr. Johnson's silence from being misinter preted and deal with these points herself. First, Mr. John son gives as an example of the general disillusionment with the Church the fact that the present Pope has made no infallible pronouncement on the birth control issue. The whole world waits for an answer (he writes) and there the Pope sits with a "hot line" to the Holy Spirit but he cannot make up his mind to pick up the receiver.
This conception that the Pope can call on the oracle at any given time and get an infallible answer to any ques tion—what Mgr. Knox called "keeping a Urim and Thum mim in the Vatican"—is one of the hoariest anti-Catholic fallacies. Leaving aside the question of whether an "in fallible" pronouncement is appropriate to the birth control issue, the true position is as stated by Hans Kiing (not a reactionary theologian) when
he says "The Spirit exercises His guiding and counselling power where and when He pleases". So the criticism of Pope Paul for "not making up his mind" is uninformed as well as unfair. Does Miss Turbin defend Paul Johnson's version?
Secondly, after lambasting the Church in the rest of the article, one would expect Mr.
Johnson to call for it to be scrapped as soon as possible.
But no—he wishes it to continue in a somewhat subfuse form after having altered itself into a democratic body with priests elected and decisions taken (on doctrine and morality) by a majority vote.
It is not clear what attractions this body would have over the many Protestant communities which cater for the Christians who feel the only approach to religion is through private judgment. The reason given by Mr Johnson for retaining the Church is very strange : the world, he says, needs certitude. But a democratic body of the kind he describes would never, of its nature, achieve certitude, since any decision taken might later be reversed by another majority decision.
The basis of democracy, and this works well enough in politics, is that current decisions are always "the best we can do now." It is really rather pathetic to find Mr. Johnson and those who think like him frantically trying to cling to a phantom "certitude" but rejecting the mechanisms of Supernatural Authority which alone can imbue a humane institution with such certitude.
C. W. S. Goodger Gerrards Cross, Bucks.
MISS TURBIN'S letter raises an important point: if the Church of Christ is not to be known as the Church of the Cretins, then why does the Catholic Press not respond more intelligently and vigorously at a time when hosts of our intellectuals are running amok amidst vast blazes of publicity?
One of our influential members hurls insults at "Montini," as he so rudely calls him, and publicly demands his abdication. The secular Press and television are "knocking" the Catholic Church as hard as they can go.
Are we going to fiddle while Rome, in the public image, burns desperately? Simply to ignore or mock at these scandals is no answer. Many are having their faith shattered by these disturbances. Where are our serious thinkers, our brilliant apologists, our stalwart defenders of the Faith? Not, it seems, in the Catholic Press.
(Dr.) Margaret Maim' Radlett, Herts.
A FTER listening to Paul -r‘Johnson on television and and hearing about his article in the New Statesman—also reading Mrs. E. D. Turbin's letter in the CATHOLIC HERALD —one is more than ever convinced that your editorial of January 20 requesting humility and loyalty is just what is needed these days.
Christ left the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to Simon the fisherman and his successors promising to be with His Church until the end of the world. This being so, in questions of doctrine the Church cannot teach falsehood. Do we sometimes forget this, and are our "intellectuals" not in danger of setting themselves up as little Popes!
Gertrude McVeigh (Mrs.) Reading.