Censorship or not? A fine judgement

You can change your mind about a subject not just once, but several times. The subject over which I have vacillated in the course of my lifetime is that of censorship.

As a young person, I was vehemently against censorship, largely because both movies and books were subject to sometimes quite draconian censorship: either the state Censorship Board or members of the public objected to material considered to offend public morals or taste. In response, the generation of the 1960s wanted an end to all censorship.

Influences

Then, when my children were young, in the 1970s and 80s, I began to have second thoughts about a culture in which there might be no controls. It’s natural to want to protect young minds from nefarious influences, and I encountered parents who felt that – even then – some of the material in sex education was too explicit, and that on-screen violence was hurtful to young minds.

In Britain, Victoria Gillick campaigned to stop under-age girls being given the all-clear to engage in sexual relationships via contraception without parental consent, and I saw she had a point (though she lost, and the law ruled that girls under 16 could make their own choices).

Then, as I travelled in Poland, East Germany and in the declining Soviet Union, I saw that the restraints on freedom of expression, including freedom of faith, were odious. Censorship is dangerous because it prevents discussion and usually prompts political control. So I modified my views again in the light of experience.

In this century, I have seen how Christian values can be censored, not just officially, but through more subtle ways of social control and Groupthink. The channels of freedom must surely be kept open.

Then last week I met a woman who runs a charity for bereaved parents, and she told me that the most compelling problem arising now are the suicides of young people, driven by ‘suicide porn’ on the Internet, and by cyber-bullying of vulnerable teenagers, who are urged to kill themselves by influencers. After the tragic suicide of the English schoolgirl Molly Russell [pictured] – and a 13% increase in suicides by adolescent girls since 2017 – there are wide demands that social media like Google, Facebook and YouTube should be subjected to certain censorships.

There will always be a tension between freedom and necessary controls, and it will always be a fine judgement which side of the fence we may fall: sometimes too much towards liberty, sometimes too much towards authority. Sometimes we just have to make a judicious call to find that delicate moral balance.

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A civil war can be tranquilly commemorated

How will Ireland mark the looming centenary of our Civil War (1922-23)? That’s a problem which historical experts are addressing, including Gabriel Doherty, who contributes so knowledgeably to these pages.

The English have found a harmless way to remember their own Civil War – by dressing up in 17th-Century clothes and re-enacting it [pictured].

This week, the 370th anniversary of the execution of King Charles I – on January 30, 1649 – was marked by the English Civil War society in the usual way: by riding down Whitehall on horseback to the place of execution where Charles mounted the scaffold, on Cromwell’s orders.

A civil war can be more tranquilly commemorated if it’s 370 years in the past.

There are High Anglicans (and some Catholics) who regard Charles as a Christian martyr because he faced regicide execution with perfect acceptance. He was a High Anglican, but his wife, Henrietta Maria, was Catholic and that made him more suspect for the Puritans and Scottish Covenanters.

However, Charles I probably could have been more politically shrewd in his dealings with Parliament and not insisted quite so emphatically on his own ‘red lines’, as they say in the Brexit discussions.

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Decisions, decisions, decisions

I’ve known priests who faced the dilemma of a person approaching for Holy Communion whom they know, from private or public knowledge, was not in a position to be a communicant (in one case, the priest knew the would-be communicant was not a Catholic, but he decided not to make a judgement at the altar rail).

By contrast, I was refused Communion (along with several others) at a Greek Orthodox Mass, although it was my understanding that inter-communion with Rome was permitted. Our reaction was “their Church, their rules”.

A priest or eucharistic minister is entitled to make decision to administer or withhold Communion according to their own judgement of what is appropriate.