Dear Editor,
Your report on Bishop Nazir-Ali’s joining the Catholic Church in the November issue of en offers no explanation, though some insight may be deduced from his proposed affiliation with the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, established under the patronage of John Henry Newman.
The danger of Newman’s subjectivism is well illustrated in the experience of Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990) who became a Christian in the late 1960s. He later converted to Catholicism, in part through the influence of Mother Theresa. Addressing his concerns at the contradictions between Rome’s many flaws and its concern for the poor, she wrote: ‘You are to me like Nicodemus … “unless you become a little child …” I am sure you will understand beautifully everything if you would only become a little child in God’s hands … The small difficulty you have regarding the Church is finite. Overcome the finite with the infinite …’.
