Quite a lot. My weekly columns are just a small part of my job. Together with my colleagues I also write some of the leading articles and comment pieces in the paper. I also look after the ‘letters’ page, and I write features on general subjects, book reviews, and anything else I am asked to do. Every day is different, but we are expected to do a lot. Newspapers are expanding on the Internet, and even send news to mobile phones. So we have to keep running to be up to date.
How did you first become interested in journalism?
Because I couldn’t do anything else. I studied English at Oxford, and after university I was looking around for things to do. I had an interview at British Leyland, the motor company, and I am glad I didn’t get that job, not just because the company did badly, but because I would have been bored there.
Eventually I found a job at the Catholic Herald, and I spent five years there. That was a good introduction to journalism because I had to do jobs of different kinds: I was a reporter, a sub-editor, and plenty of other things as well.
Then I spent a year at The Tablet, also a Catholic weekly. After that I moved on to a well-known weekly magazine, The Spectator. It seems funny to look back at that time in the 1980s now, but when The Spectator promoted the cultural idea of so-called ‘Young Fogeys’ – people who wanted proper marmalade or sausages – as an expression of tradition, it hit a chord with readers. It was the mood of the time, though we sometimes got a little tired of people who wore hats and overcoats and rode around on heavy old black bicycles. I remained there another five happy years before I came to the Daily Telegraph, and I have been working here full-time since 1992.
In England Catholics do have the opportunity to work in the secular press, but they are on an equal footing with colleagues of many different types of backgrounds, either secular or religious. This is a good thing for a Catholic because it means that the Church is present in the secular world. It is good that ordinary lay Catholics are expressing their membership of the Church through their secular jobs. Luckily the Daily Telegraph recognises the place of religion in human affairs, and therefore it is sympathetic to reporting religious news just as it reports the sports news (one of its strengths) and all the other news.
What are the core points or values for a Catholic journalist to keep in mind, irrespective of whether he or she is in secular or religious media?
They are probably the same as for any other journalist. The need for honesty is very important because you need to be trusted by the readers, and if they discover that you’re twisting the truth for some partisan reasons they lose trust in you.
This reflects back on the position of Catholics within the Church, because I can see very clearly the danger and the harm done by a so-called ‘party spirit’ within the Church. Some people like one thing, others like another; for instance, the old Latin rite as opposed to the new rite. The Catholic Church is supposed to be universal, but it is very damaging and gives a bad example if people have confrontational party lines within the Church.
What would you say are the key issues to watch for in the next decade?
Nobody knows the future. If we asked this question in the year 2000, people would have given all sorts of answers. Many people thought we were entering a peaceful period, but then 9/11 occurred, quite unexpectedly, and the world changed: everybody remembers where they were on that day.
It’s a mistake to suppose that you can predict history. But you can make an intelligent guess, so I would wager on the effects of global warming, the continuing problem of terrorism, and our relationship with Islam. However, we also have to take into account events that we have no foreboding of.
What do you think the Catholic reader is looking for in a Catholic magazine?
They are looking for a sense of community, for people they have something in common with, because in an urbanised society like ours it is easy to feel separated, but as Catholics we are all members of the same body, and a Catholic magazine should promote and emphasize this truth.
They are also obviously looking for information, but along with that they want some kind of fellow-feeling, a solidarity with people who believe the same thing. They also want to cultivate their prayer-life, because it is not enough to go to church once a week, but we have to pray daily. The Internet can be a great aid here. There is a site run by the Jesuits in Dublin called Sacred Space, where in just 10 minutes you can actually pray while in your office.
Do you have any advice for editors of Catholic periodicals?
They should be sensitive to the way the whole Church is going. That is, they shouldn’t just promote their own big idea, but they should reflect what the Church actually is in the world now.
It’s interesting to see what happened since Pope Benedict was elected. At first the secular press gave out a lot of negative stories of him, labelling him with unflattering nicknames like ‘God’s Rottweiler’ or ‘Panzercardinal’ and so on, but it gradually changed its mind. It now portrays him as an intelligent, humane man with interesting messages on those central issues in religion and politics. It is very impressed by his intellect. It also noticed that he wrote about Jesus and about love. Now, if the secular press reacted that way, then it’s certainly the duty of a Catholic periodical to be equally flexible, and to listen to and to reflect like a mirror what is happening in the world, and not just bring out the editor’s views.
Do you think the secular media and public life in general tend to trivialize religion?
The secular media trivialises everything! This is most evident in the television, where there is an astonishing failure to go very deeply into things. Now religion is a counter-balance to this because it is in tune with something that is happening in the secular world, and this is a hunger for spirituality.
People think they understand what spirituality means, but they don’t understand what religion means. They are frightened of religion because they have negative preconceptions. They also have a feeling of discomfort associated with it, and guilt about their own lives, and they are therefore looking for something that is going to satisfy their hunger for spirituality without the negative side-effects that they believe religion would bring. So it can be a helpful task for writers to show that organised religion is not necessarily an oppressive or cramping thing, but that it offers a liberation and the spiritual nourishment that many people are seeking.
How do you perceive God? How would you describe Him?
We cannot see God. Now some people think that the fact that you can’t see Him proves that there is something wrong with God. They are mistaken. We ourselves are limited. We only have to ask ourselves what God would be like if we could see Him. In that case He would be human, and no longer be God. God, by nature, is not comprehensible; He is beyond comprehension.
However, we can perceive God’s action in our own lives. Something very useful for an ordinary Catholic in Britain today is to have some notion of divine providence, of God’s action in ordinary affairs, particularly in one’s own life. We cannot see God physically, but we can see his action in our lives. To perceive the providence of God, and His action in our lives as they develop, is an invitation to faith. Augustine of Hippo was not the only one to notice this phenomenon, but he wrote about it very well in the Confessions.
If God is active in shaping your life then you must trust Him. An example is in prayer. You are not necessarily aware of what is really going on in prayer. You should not give yourself marks out of 10 for good or bad prayer, because prayer is God’s action in you. It is part of his providential action, and all we humans have to do is to make ourselves open to God for a certain time every day.
Have you ever had any difficulty in being a Catholic?
Oh yes, every day! But luckily in Britain over the last generation Catholics have had it easier than in the past. Atheist opposition is nothing new. There is no longer any persecution, but it is difficult, for instance, to be a Catholic medical doctor in Britain because the law is sometimes antipathetic to some Catholic moral absolutes.
The main problems, though, are just those usual daily struggles against one’s own difficulty in complying with the Church’s high moral standards, such as the fight against selfishness, sloth, bad temper, and so on.
There are many Catholic artists, writers, journalists… Do you think it is appropriate to talk about a Catholic culture?
Yes, but it’s not just one culture. It’s a culture that is being made by both sides, by Catholicism on the one hand, and by the culture of different countries on the other.
It’s wonderful to see the way the Catholic religion is expressed in different cultures. Here in Europe we can see that the whole of our civilisation has been formed by Catholicism. Some of this is below the surface, particularly here in Britain. On the surface there has been secularisation, yet the cultural pre-suppositions of modern-day society are rooted in Christianity. This can be seen for example in place-names: the train to Paris leaves from St Pancras station, which is named after a Roman saint whose relics were brought to London hundreds of years ago. People don’t notice it, but in all sorts of ways Britain is Christian country; for example, the next king will be crowned in a Christian ceremony, and every day in Parliament the session begins with prayers.
Do you think that in today’s society there is a demand for religion or spirituality?
There is a very deep hunger for spirituality, but the problem is that people do not know what they are looking for, and search in directions that seem ridiculous to us. For example, they take an interest in prehistoric stones or in strange New Age ideas. However, many young people are happy to go to church, so perhaps it was their parents who lost interest in religion. Younger people, in their teens or twenties, are less easy to pigeonhole. They combine devotions and social action which in a previous generation would have been markers of difference – flags of parties. So for example, they take part in Eucharistic devotion such as benediction and they work with the socially marginalised.
It was marvellous to see the success of the recent visit of the relics of St Therese of Lisieux to Britain. There were two all-night vigils in Westminster Cathedral, one of them organised by young people. But it united old and young, and brought in people who were not practising Catholics, or indeed Catholics of any sort.
Do you have any personal memories concerning Saint Anthony?
Yes, quite a few. In Britain, Saint Anthony is someone you turn to when you need to look for something. I find among my colleagues that even people who don’t believe may say a prayer to him if they lose something, and it always works!
I remember the episode of the late Frank Johnson, a political journalist who was a colleague of mine, and a former editor of The Spectator magazine. He was once on a foreign trip, and on the way back he forgot his passport at the hotel. He was at the airport and it was too late to go back and get it, so someone said to him, ‘Say a prayer to saint Anthony!’ He said, ‘Okay, but I don’t really believe in it’. Well, anyway, after 5 minutes a man on a motorbike arrived sent by the hotel with his passport.
I was lucky to go to Padua at the beginning of last year, where I visited the Saint’s beautiful Basilica, and said a prayer at his tomb. I then visited Venice, and Saint Anthony was able to turn that visit into a spiritual pilgrimage.
My local church is Westminster Cathedral, and they are going to put up a mosaic to Saint Anthony at a little side-chapel by the west door where there is a statue of the saint, because it is a very popular place to say prayers, and many people there make donations to Saint Anthony’s Bread.
Yes, the Saint often helps me in a number of ways, and he means a great deal to me.
BORN near London in 1955, Christopher Howse graduated in English Language and Literature at Oxford University in 1978.
Christopher is an Assistant Editor of The Daily Telegraph, a British broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the UK and internationally.
In January 2008, The Daily Telegraph was the highest-selling British ‘quality’ paper with a certified average daily circulation of 842,912 copies.
Christopher wrote the newspaper’s history for its 150th anniversary in 2005. He also writes regularly for The Spectator and The Tablet.
At The Daily Telegraph, which he entered in 1996 as Obituaries Editor, Christopher writes about the world’s faiths, especially Christianity. He also comments on blogs and on the uses and abuses of the English language. His Saturday column is called Sacred Mysteries.
He lives in Westminster, a stone’s throw from The Daily Telegraph offices, which are situated in Buckingham Palace Road.
Among his books on spirituality, journalism and language are Sacred Mysteries; Comfort; Prayers For This Life; AD: 2,000 Years of Christianity; and The Best Spiritual Reading Ever.
Updated on October 06 2016