Clearing His Name: Father John Gerard, SJ

The BBC has personally apologized and will correct one of their recent series depicting the Gunpowder Plot after a viewer complained about the inaccurate depiction of his relative, Father John Gerard, SJ. According to The Catholic Herald, Michael Maslinski is a 10-times great nephew of Fr John Gerard. He complained about how his 10-times great uncle was depicted in the historical drama series Gunpowder and then again about the historical documentary series Elizabeth I's Secret Agents, with different results:

He has been an inspiration to members of my family for hundreds of years and it came as a shock to see him featured in the BBC historical drama Gunpowder, clearly represented as being “in on the plot”. The characterisation of Fr Gerard was so far removed from all historical accounts that I believed it could only have been a deliberate misrepresentation.

I complained to the BBC that the priest they called “Fr Gerard” was an entirely fictitious character, and that it was unethical to use the name of a real person whom the drama was implicating in a serious crime.

The BBC did not dispute my comments, but its guidelines for historical dramas allow substantial leeway in departing from the facts. They clearly need to be changed.

This was followed by a historical documentary series on BBC Two, Elizabeth I’s Secret Agents. In this series, Fr Gerard was given a starring role at the centre of the Gunpowder Plot, suggesting not only that he had prior knowledge of it, but also that he supported it and, most offensively, that he blessed the plot “in the Blood of Christ”. It was clearly stated that he played a leading role in devising the plot. . . .

Working through the BBC’s complaints process took a great deal of patience and tenacity: it involved at least six exchanges of letters, as the complaint gradually filtered up to the top level. The eventual outcome, however, was a great credit to the corporation. It accepted that the programmes were “seriously misleading” and a “breach of editorial standards”. It has agreed to publish an apology on its website and has had the series re-edited to reflect my complaints, prior to re-broadcast. I could hardly have asked for more.

The Jesuits in Britain website also reported on this story. Here's their biography of this intrepid missionary:

Aged 23, John Gerard became a Jesuit in Rome in August 1588. Having already studied at the Jesuit College in Clermont, he was sent almost immediately back to England. For six years he undertook a clandestine mission, bringing more than twenty influential families back to the Catholic faith and preaching the Spiritual Exercises. He worked closely with the Jesuit superior in England, Henry Garnet. He was captured in 1594 and sent to the Tower of London where he was tortured, fruitlessly, to reveal Garnet’s headquarters. In 1597 with the help of Nicholas Owen he made a daring escape from the Tower. He was implicated in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot because several of the plotters were those to whom he had ministered. He managed to escape to the continent (disguised as a servant of the Spanish Ambassador), and continued his ministry. Around 1620 he was removed from his position of novice-master in Liege because of his support for Mary Ward and her “English Ladies”, an early attempt to form an apostolic congregation of women. At the request of his superiors, he wrote his autobiography. After a decade as spiritual father, he died in the Roman College on 27th July 1637.

Week of Prayer for Christian Unity: Time for an Apology?

During the Week or really the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity (January 18 to 25) The Church of England is evidently going to apologize on behalf of past generations for the excesses of the English Reformation.The apology will include regrets for iconoclasm, the dissolution of the monasteries, the Catholic martyrs, etc. This statement of repentance comes as Christians commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. This comment struck me as starting off in the wrong direction:

“As the Church of England prepares to celebrate the Reformation, it should also repent of the violence and brutality it sometimes committed in God’s name,” commented Rev. Andrew Atherstone, a member of the Anglican synod.

Atherstone said that aspects of the Reformation are “deeply embedded in our national psyche,” and was [sic] the historical context for the attempted invasion of the Spanish Armada and the Gunpowder Plot, when Catholic would-be revolutionary Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up Parliament.

That seems like a strange thing to do in the midst of preparing for a statement of reconciliation--if you're apologizing or repenting for things your side has done in the past why bring up things the other side has done in the past? 

The U.K Daily Mail story quotes Anne Widdecombe, a former Anglican and former Conservative Member of Parliament: "These gestures are pointless. The Archbishop has not put anyone to death, as far as I know," she said. "Modern Christians are not responsible for what happened in the Reformation. You might as well expect the Italians to apologise for Pontius Pilate."

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is a project of the World Council of Churches which developed this year's theme:

It was in the context of the Reformation Anniversary that the Council of Churches in Germany took up the work of creating the resources for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2017. It quickly became clear that the materials for this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity would need to have two accents: on the one hand, there should be a celebration of God’s love and grace, the “justification of humanity through grace alone”, reflecting the main concern of the churches marked by Martin Luther’s Reformation. On the other hand, the materials should also recognize the pain of the subsequent deep divisions which afflicted the Church, openly name the guilt, and offer an opportunity to take steps toward reconciliation.

Ultimately it was Pope Francis’ 2013 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (“The Joy of the Gospel”) which provided the theme for this year, when it used the quote: “The Love of Christ Compels Us” (Paragraph 9). With this scripture (2 Cor 5:14), taken in the context of the entire fifth chapter of the second letter to the Corinthians, the German committee formulated the theme for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2017.

It will be interesting to see the statement of the Archbishop of Canterbury, God bless him. He is obviously trying to respond to the second part of the theme: to "name the guilt, and offer an opportunity to take steps toward reconciliation."

This a Job for an English Major!

When I majored in English Language and Literature and then went on to earn an M.A. in the same subject, the question often was--"What are you going to DO with those degrees?" or  "How are you going to get a job?" The common argument for the "usefulness" of the Liberal Arts was that I was going to know how to think, how to do research, how to write, how to express ideas--to teach, to persuade, etc. Now I find out that I--were I a recent graduate--could help airlines apologize, according to this article in The Wall Street Journal, as "Carriers Deploy Software, English Majors to Tell Angry Fliers They're Sorry for Mistakes in Flight":

United Airlines, which had the highest rate of complaints filed at the DOT among major airlines the past three years, has a team of about 450 customer-care agents handling general issues and refunds. Add to that 400 people handing (sic) frequent-flier program issues and about 100 answering baggage-related letters and emails.

Delta Air Lines employs 150 people in Atlanta and Minneapolis to email answers to angry—and complimentary—customers. Many get letter-writing training and are experienced airport agents used to dealing directly with customers.

Airlines say they try to make responses conversational and personal. They aim to apologize and acknowledge the problem, providing more information about the particular situation after research, then offering some compensation as a goodwill gesture, such as some frequent-flier miles. Letters are signed by an employee, though many use pseudonyms.

Complaints are sorted by complexity and by the value of the customer—top-tier frequent fliers and big spenders get priority. A low-level customer may get 3,000 frequent-flier miles for a canceled flight, while a high-value customer who complains is soothed with 10,000 miles.

Agents research incidents to verify and provide explanations. Complaints also are tracked so airlines can peg frequent complainers trawling for extra miles or discounts.

Customer feedback is compiled into reports for top executives, and individual letters—complaint or compliment—do get forwarded to supervisors and employees, airlines say.

American Airlines uses a library of responses built over the years that agents can search and then customize. That allows for consistency and accuracy in responses. "We've gone completely away from corporate-speak to personally showing empathy," said John Romantic, American's managing director of service recovery.

The print article contains additional detail about Southwest Airlines, which employs 200 agents just to respond to customer complaints and compliments. "It's an entry-level job for college graduates. Southwest also employs proofreaders, often English majors."

My first job out of the graduate school as as a proofreader at an advertising agency.

As I was pursuing those degrees, however, my ideal was Blessed John Henry Newman's--that a liberal education was a good in itself, as knowledge is a good in itself, without needing application or usefulness to prove its worth. I'm certainly not sorry about that.