When Pastoral Language Refuses to Answer: On the Rhetoric of Accompaniment
Introduction There is an old parlour trick, beloved of diplomats and theologians alike. Ask whether the soup is too salty and receive, at generous length, a meditation on hospitality. The taste of the soup remains untouched. Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe has elevated this into an art form. Ask him whether an act is licit, and he will tell you about friendship. He does not change the subject; he changes its register (from proposition to atmosphere) and trusts, correctly, that most of us will find the atmosphere so pleasant we forget we came in with a question. Two documents make the case better than I could argue it cold: a homily preached in June at a Mass for two men marking fifty years together, and an essay on the Synod written for L'Osservatore Romano, in which the same manoeuvre is performed at greater length and, rather touchingly, with footnotes. The Mass itself is worth a sentence or two, since two accounts posted on it could not agree on what kind of sentence to giv...