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Letters to the Editor

by
06 December 2024

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MPs must now fix palliative care

From Mr Stephen Cooper

Madam, — Parliament has now voted in principle and by a significant majority to allow assisted dying. When this reaches the statute book, as it it likely to do based on that majority, it will become an issue which every frail elderly person nearing their life’s end, and every younger person with a terminal illness, will have to address, whether overtly or in the disquiet of their mind.

Whether one supports or opposes the Bill, it is important that Parliament will have amended it to include the statutory requirement that Government adequately resources both assisted dying and palliative care.

There needs to be a genuine statutory choice between assisted dying and properly resourced palliative care. Without this, all those eloquently made arguments for choice of end-of-life care for everyone will be an illusion, so much parliamentary hot air.

If Parliament fails in making this genuine choice possible, it will be failing to protect some of the most vulnerable people in the country, which will be a fundamental dereliction of its duty.

STEPHEN COOPER
Flat 15, 3 Addington Road
South Croydon CR2 8RE


From Bernard Cartwright

Madam, — Just after the time of the introduction of the Dutch euthanasia legislation, I was sent to Holland by the Royal Colleges of Medicine and the Churches to investigate the practice. Acting under the auspices of the then Churches’ Council for Health and Healing, I found a situation of confusion. Dutch doctors raised the obvious and vexed question of who is going to do all this killing?

Upon my return to the UK, Downing Street, under Mrs Thatcher, requested my research. CCHH also convened a major conference on euthanasia at the Medical Society of London with the participation of Archbishop Habgood and the noted surgeon Sir James Watt, plus some young Dutch doctors.

Afterwards, the matter was eventually cast aside because people here thought that the UK would never take such a drastic step.

BERNARD CARTWRIGHT
Former Director of the Churches’ Council for Health and Healing
30 Castle Grove
Stourbridge
West Midlands DY8 2HH


Welby’s resignation a miscarriage of justice

From the Revd Jonathan Aitken

Madam, — I write to congratulate the Church Times for publishing the authoritative and impeccably researched article by Francis Martin: “Makin erred, say retired detectives” (News, 29 November).

The only possible conclusion, on reading the comments by three detectives who knew that the Smyth case was referred to Cambridgeshire Police by Church of England officials in 2013, is that Archbishop Justin Welby has been forced into resignation for an alleged error of judgement he did not make.

Will any of the Archbishop’s critics now have the grace to admit their mistake?

JONATHAN AITKEN
83 Barkston Gardens
London SW5 0EU


From the Revd Robert A. L. Rose

Madam, — Your report on page 3 of last Friday’s issue was excellent. The information gleaned from the three retired officers of Cambridgeshire Police is extremely important. The statement, “I don’t know how much more of a referral you can get,” says it all.

I suggest that Keith Makin and his advisers must check the accuracy of your report as a matter of urgency. I think it both unrealistic and unreasonable to expect the Archbishop of Canterbury, having satisfied himself that the right steps have been taken, to follow up any matter. If they have not been taken, it is up to others to alert him. His is a massive job, and to be effective he must be able to trust his subordinates to have done what they said they would do.

If Keith Makin feels it right to withdraw his criticisms of Justin Welby, then he should do so. If he does, I hope the Bishop of Newcastle will withdraw her call for Justin Welby to resign.

Finally, but most important, I sincerely hope that Justin Welby will withdraw his resignation and make his own choice as to when he should retire.

ROB ROSE
47 High Street
Wickham Market
Woodbridge, Suffolk IP13 0HE


From Canon John Nightingale

Madam, I hope that at the age of 82 I will not, as an apologist for the Archbishop of Canterbury, be accused of seeking preferment. However, I feel that much of the criticism of him has been unfair and unkind.

I have some relevant personal experience. I attended one of the camps at Iwerne Minister in the late 1950s, which was enjoyable and without any trace of abuse. I did not continue with the camps, however, as I came to think the teaching fundamentalist and the fellowship a bit cliquey. Furthermore, I was then attending a major public school where I was beaten, once and mildly, but never abused.

I would like to make the following points:

Corporal punishment was widely used in schools, and was only in stages made illegal from the 1980s. Boys I knew would have been reluctant to “sneak” on a teacher who had gone too far, and there was no definition of what too far was. It does not surprise me that the victims kept quiet, whether or not they accepted Smyth’s warped theology.

Also, it was common practice for school staff to keep quiet about the specific failings of a deviant colleague. Better to get the offender to stop or be transferred, and in the mean time warn third parties against the offender without giving any specific details: “Not a nice person”.

I am not justifying such behaviour. It was and is wrong. But it was common then and I thereby have no reason to doubt Justin Welby’s ignorance of the abuse until he was told in 2013. A report of the abuse had, indeed, been written in 1982 for those responsible for the organisation of the camps, but kept confidential to just seven people. I blame them but not the Archbishop.

Investigating why the police in Ely and elsewhere were so slow in taking action may have been beyond the scope of the Makin report, but we need answers from the police. As a vicar, it was impressed on me that if I had serious concerns I should report them to the police. “Leave it to them and don’t get mixed up in investigating yourself.”

Did the police ever contact their colleagues in the part of Southern Africa where Smyth was then living? Maybe that was not common practice then, though I hope it is now. Throughout the last 50 years, standards of child protection have been rising, and we need to avoid anachronisms in any criticisms we are making.

JOHN NIGHTINGALE
19 Berberry Close
Birmingham B30 1TB


From Canon R. H. W. Arguile

Madam, — It is sad indeed that, when the Makin review was published, the media seized it and forced the resignation of the Archbishop, supported publicly, alas, by one at least of his colleagues.

When I read the review I was dismayed. It is a badly written, insufficient analysis which jumps to conclusions, many of which are inadequate. At so many points it demonstrates how little its authors know either about the Church or the police service. It is too late for the Archbishop to withdraw his resignation; but the silence of the hierarchy over what has arguably been a very serious miscarriage of justice I find deeply upsetting.

I have no brief for the Archbishop, some of whose actions I profoundly disagree with. That is irrelevant. By allowing the media to destroy a man, we have not shown the Christian courage and compassion which I believe is at the heart of the faith. I am glad to have seen your report of three former police officers who have, in my opinion, set the record straight.

R. H. W. ARGUILE
10 Marsh Lane
Wells-next-the-Sea NR23 1EG


Support for unwell pensioners

From Mr Tom England

Madam, — We are disappointed that the Pensions Board was not offered the opportunity to comment on the recent opinion piece “Unwell clergy deserve better when they retire” (Comment, 29 November) before publication.

Sadly, this piece contained several significant factual errors which give an incorrect representation of how we support those approaching retirement.

For clergy, ill-health retirement often requires huge adjustments, and represents a profound change to the way in which priestly vocation can be exercised. It rarely allows for pre-retirement planning and usually involves moving house. The Pensions Board takes its responsibilities to support those retiring early due to ill-health very seriously, working with them and their families to find the right retirement home. In most cases, this means a tailored solution that takes account of their individual circumstances.

We are currently supporting around 200 households who require retirement housing, of which around five per cent are ill-health cases. We seek feedback from residents and while this is overwhelmingly positive, when things do go wrong in specific cases, we seek to learn and further improve.

I would like to assure our clergy colleagues that we are here to help with their retirement plans.

TOM ENGLAND
Director of Housing
The Church of England Pensions Board
29 Great Smith Street
London SW1P 3PS


Misplaced indignation over Band Aid

From Sir Tony Baldry

Madam, — It has suddenly become fashionable to criticise Bob Geldof, Band Aid, and their 1984 Song “Do they know it’s Christmas?”

In October 1984, OXFAM asked me and two other Members of Parliament (one Labour and one Liberal) to go with them to Ethiopia because they were very frustrated that no one seemed to be taking seriously the extent and scale of the famine then raging in Ethiopia, with millions threatened with starvation.

As it happened, we landed in Addis Ababa just shortly before Michael Buerk and the BBC team arrived. This was way before social media, internet news, 24-hour news, online videos, but that notwithstanding, the BBC footage was shown by more than 400 television stations worldwide.

Quite rightly, people across the world wanted to help and Bob Geldof stepped up to the plate, got together some of the biggest names in music, created Band Aid and raised millions of pounds in much-needed humanitarian relief for Ethiopia at the time.

The lyrics may not have been perfect. But the situation in Ethiopia was far from perfect.

Perhaps rather than having a pop at Band Aid, its critics would do better to reflect on how it is that so many people today in Ethiopia still lack food security.

TONY BALDRY
Dovecote House
Bloxham OX15 4ET


Buddhist shrines

From Rohan Fernando

Madam, — William Dalrymple has provided a fascinating account in his book The Golden Road of how Buddhism and Hinduism spread from India in the ancient world (Books, 29 November).

After Buddhism disappeared from India, and Nalanda University was destroyed in the 12th century, Buddhist pilgrims were unable to go on pilgrimage to their holy sites for 600 years till the Archaeological Survey of India was founded in 1861 at the instigation of Sir Alexander Cunningham.

Then British archaeologists, including Cunningham and Sir John Marshall, rediscovered and restored these sites in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. This was the probably the only time in history that people of one major religion enabled another major religion to return to the land of its birth.

Cunningham is still remembered in India, and on the 200th anniversary of his birth in 2014, a conference in his honour was held at Benares University. He is virtually unknown in the UK, but deserves to be honoured here as prominently as in India.

ROHAN FERNANDO
19 Danetree Close
Epsom
Surrey KT19 9SU


A welcoming prod while on holiday

From the Revd Juliet Straw

Madam, — The Rt Revd Graham James’s heart-warming account of the welcome he received on a recent visit to Pershore Abbey (Diary, 22 November) reminded me of an experience I had a few years ago while visiting a church on holiday.

My husband and I tried not to interrupt the conversation of the two sidespeople who were on the door, one clicking the numbers and the other thrusting a bundle of hymnbooks, service sheets, and notices into our hands without a sideways glance.

We looked round for somewhere to sit, opting, in typical Anglican fashion, for a pew quite near the back.

As we sat down, we were poked from behind and greeted warmly with words of welcome: “It’s all right, you can sit there. They’re away.”

JULIET STRAW
68 Windmill Road
Mortimer, Berks RG7 3RL

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