the times | Saturday May 28 2011
97
New light shines in Soho’s heart of darkness
The parish priest of the
refurbished church of
St Patrick’s Soho talks
to Bess Twiston Davies
of engaging with the
faithful, the feckless
and the famished
Register
Oliver
Kamm
The pedant
Few London parishes could draw the
head of the Catholic Church in a country some 10,000 miles distant to their
reopening. St Patrick’s Soho, which
after a 14-month closure for redevelopment will open its doors on Tuesday
with celebrations including a Mass said
by Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, has
always been somewhat unusual.
Built on the site of a former music
hall, once the home of a society actress
who gave birth to a child fathered by
Casanova, St Patrick’s was first consecrated as a parish in 1792. A year
earlier, the Second Catholic Relief Act
had eased legal bans on Catholic
worship, and the property was then
leased to a Father Arthur O’Leary and
his prosperous Irish parishioners.
Today, though St Patrick’s has few
resident parishioners (many of the 700
or so attending Sunday Mass there
belong either to the resident Chinese
or Latin American chaplaincies), it
President Obama and David Cameron
wrote jointly on the Times Comment
page this week. They said this about
the Anglo-American alliance: “But the
reason it thrives, the reason why this is
such a natural partnership, is because it
advances our common interests and
shared values . . . And the reason it
remains strong is because it delivers
time and again.”
Presidents and prime ministers have
included some fine prose stylists.
Lincoln and Churchill stand out
(though Churchill’s florid prose style
can appear curiously empty when
expended on less important causes
than war against tyranny). Indeed,
Obama’s own book Dreams From My
Father is beautifully written. But the
passage I’ve quoted is no great example
of political rhetoric. My main objection
to it is the repeated phrase “the reason
is because”.
It’s a tautology. A reason is, by definition, an explanation why. You don’t
need to say “the reason is because . . . ”.
It’s enough to say “the reason is
that . . . ”. A similar objection applies to
the phrase “the reason why . . . ”. The
Prime Minister used it again this week
when commenting on the arrest of
Ratko Mladic: “There is a very good reason why the long arm of international
law had been looking for him for so
St Patrick’s is home to
the Chinese and Latin
American chaplaincies
The Charge of the Light
Brigade is to blame for
‘the reason why . . . ’
buzzes with activity. Volunteers serve
meals weekly to the homeless or man
the SOS prayerline, a telephone line
which attracts 20,000 distressed callers
a year. Their needs are noted by volunteers, who then pray for the callers in
front of the Eucharist, which in Catholic belief is through the celebration of
Mass transformed into the living
presence of Jesus.
For Father Alexander Sherbrooke,
the parish priest, the two activities run
in parallel. “We are called [by the
Church] to bring Christ, the real food of
life, into the lives of people,” he says.
“That means reaching out to those who
are poor, not just in need of physical
but of spiritual food.”
Sherbrooke has overseen, with his
team of volunteers, a £3 million restoration of the church, a Grade II* listed
building. When visitors walk through
the doors for the opening Mass celebrated by the Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, at
6pm on Tuesday, they will enter a
space of breathtaking splendour.
The walls, painted white and limestone, sparkle with panels filled with
gold leaf, while the floor (there is underfloor heating under the pews) gleams
with porcelain tiles and five types of
Italian marble in soft greens, reds,
greys, whites and ochres, shades matching the five hues of Italian Carrara
marble in the sanctuary.
Even this has an evangelistic purpose. “Beauty in our secular postChristian age is how people touch
God,” says Sherbrooke, who hopes St
Patrick’s, a towering red-brick presence
overlooking Soho Square, will attract
curious passers-by. “Soho is a place of
sophistication and money but the
Church would see it as a place of darkness, of the culture of death,” he says,
referring to its insalubrious repute.
The Italian look of the refurbished
church is a conscious attempt by the
architects Castanon Associates to
re-create and complete the neo-Renaissance designs used in 1893 by John
Kelly, the church’s original architect.
long.” It would have been better to say
“there is a very good reason that . . .”.
I know that Tennyson wrote in The
Charge of the Light Brigade: “Theirs not
to reason why,/ Theirs but to do and
die.” And it would have ruined the
scansion and destroyed the emotional
impact if he’d said: “Theirs not to ask
why . . . ”. But an unfortunate consequence of these famous lines is that the
phrase “the reason why” is commonly
used when it isn’t necessary.
Even the phrase “the reason that”,
while semantically right, is usually
redundant. If you find yourself writing
it, you can almost always find a simpler
and more direct way to say the same
thing. The word “because” ought never
to be joined to “the reason” but it is idiomatic and useful on its own. Obama
and Cameron could have advanced the
identical argument with greater impact
by removing altogether the word “reason” from their paragraph: “It thrives
and is such a natural partnership
because it advances our common interests and shared values . . . ” It remains
strong because it delivers time and
again.” (The phrase “time and again” is
a cliché, but let’s ignore it this time.)
As should be clear, I normally
admire Obama’s skill with language in
speech and on the page. But while I’m
on the subject of his verbal infelicities,
I’ll point to an unexpected linguistic
mistake he made in his speech to Parliament this week. On the issue of nuclear
weapons, he said that “from North
Korea to Iran, we have sent a message
that those who flaunt their obligations
will face consequences”.
The verb “flaunt” means to display
ostentatiously. Obama’s point, however, was that North Korea and Iran
were not displaying adherence to their
obligations but ignoring them. The
word he meant was not “flaunt” but
“flout”, meaning to treat with disdain.
These are often confused — so often, in
fact, that some dictionaries allow them
as synonyms. But they’re not synonyms at all. There is no connection
between them but the first two letters.
The distinctive bell-tower of St Patrick’s, Soho Square. After a £3 million restoration, the church re-opens on Tuesday
They have also added an electric organ
to the church, and to the right of the
altar a baptistry, containing a copy of
the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe in
Mexico City. “This image has kissed, or
touched, the original image,” says Sherbrooke, referring to the Mexican
account of how in 1531 an Indian
named Juan Diego claimed he had
seen the Virgin Mary. Prompted by his
bishop to ask the apparition for a sign,
Diego found the image of the Indianfeatured woman dressed in white and a
star-spangled blue veil imprinted on
his tilma, or cloak. This is the image
now preserved in Mexico City.
“It is appropriate to have Our Lady
of Guadalupe’s image in the baptistry.
She is the patroness of the unborn, and
also of the Americas, and St Patrick’s is
home to the Chinese and Latin American chaplaincies,” says Sherbrooke.
From Tuesday he will be saying
Mass at the restored altar. This has
been moved so that in accordance with
the revival of traditional liturgy promoted by the Pope the priest may
either celebrate Mass in the modern
style facing the people, or following
Tridentine fashion and facing the tabernacle facing East, the direction Scriptures say Christ ascended to heaven.
As the feast of the Ascension will be
celebrated in the Catholic Church on
Sunday June 5, a special Vespers marking the feast is to be held at St Patrick’s
on Tuesday and presided over by the
Auxiliary Bishop of Denver, the Right
Reverend James Conley. The reopening Mass will mark the premiere of St
Patrick’s Magnificat, a choral piece in
Latin composed especially by James
MacMillan. He says it will be sung unaccompanied and in four parts, explaining: “I have been interested in Pope
Benedict’s writings on the liturgy and
on the paradigmatic nature of polyphony and plainsong, and their unique
suitability for the most solemn Catholic praise.”
Sacred music and liturgy can draw
the soul to God, says Sherbrooke.
“Pope Benedict has called for the reevangelisation of Europe,” he says.
“One thing that demonstrates how to
do this is in the beauty of the liturgy
and the Mass.” When on Wednesday
night, George Weigel, the official biographer of John Paul II, will deliver an
invitation-only lecture at St Patrick’s
on Pope Benedict XVI and Europe, his
words will be relayed over the church’s
new public address system.
Changes to the church have been
practical as well as aesthetic. The architects have installed a new lighting
system in the main church and a lift to
take wheelchair users down to the
crypt. A new kitchen has been built
there for volunteers to prepare the
weekly meals for the homeless, as has a
café (along with loos) for parishioners
to gather after Mass.
Near by is the parish office, and a
place where counselling will be offered
to the alcoholics and drug addicts involved in the Cenacolo Catholic drug
rehabilitation programme. A lecture
hall, also in the crypt, will double as a
classroom for the School of Evangelisation, the international year-long
course in Catholicism devised for
young Catholics by Sherbrooke soon
after his arrival at St Patrick’s in 2001.
As well as studying the Bible, and the
Catechism, students attend daily Mass,
morning and evening prayer and assist
with the parish’s outreach activities.
Once a week they take to the streets of
Soho to chat and pray when appropriate with those they meet there.
For Sherbrooke there is no separation between reaching out to both the
physically and spiritually hungry. The
parish mission to both, he says, has the
same origin. “This is the heart of the
gospel,” he says, “a call to give your
heart to God and to your neighbour.
The deeper you are drawn to the Eucharist, the deeper you should be drawn to
your brothers and sisters.”
http://www.stpatricksoho.org/