15 DECEMBER 2020, THE TABLET

Let the lights shine a way for us all

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Renewal at Christmas

Does the unusual proliferation of outdoor Christmas lights in residential streets this year signify anything? Is it on a par with the Thursday evening “clap for carers” of last spring? That was an extraordinary public expression of thanks for nurses, doctors and others during the first wave of the pandemic. Both appear to be a spontaneous expression of something many people felt – of the need for community, of wanting to participate in something that transcended individual interests. In the middle of isolation, neighbours got to know each other.

Brightening the darkness of grim winter evenings with cheerful coloured lights is a form of service to the neighbourhood. And if it is not done explicitly to celebrate the birth of Christ, it is reasonable to suppose an underlying connection. There is nothing much else to celebrate in a cold wet December 2020, as the virus rampages yet again and most of the country moves up a tier into greater isolation.

If the epidemic of a contagious and dangerous disease has taught us anything, it is that everyone has a stake in the health and well-being of everyone else. “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” Under the subtle social pressure of individualism, neighbourliness was perhaps at a low ebb before the coronavirus appeared. Maybe 2020 marks its revival. Predictions of the outcome of events while they are in train is risky. But if individualism has passed its high-water mark, that has all sorts of implications. 

The National Health Service has been described as the nearest the British have to a national religion; but religion in general has long gone out of fashion. Nevertheless what the NHS expresses is a national commitment to the common good, and, as Thomas Aquinas taught, the ultimate common good is God. It is not absurd therefore to consider the clap for carers as an act of thanksgiving. Gratitude is not just an emotion; it is spiritually transformative.

A grim lesson of the spring, when the NHS was threatened with being overwhelmed, is that the dedication of health-service professionals, continuing to work while putting themselves at risk, was not the only sacrificial element in the crisis. It is now clear that tens of thousands of elderly and infirm men and women in residential care homes lost their lives as a result of officially sanctioned policies and practices. That included the deliberate long-term underfunding of the care sector, poor pay and conditions for care home staff, the emptying of hospital wards to make room for Covid patients, and giving priority to their treatment ahead of such conditions as cancer and heart disease. 

Nobody can regard that outcome with anything but sorrow and shame, recognising that depriving close relatives of access to the bedside of their loved ones in their final hours felt like a form of institutional cruelty. It is fitting that this same sector of the population has been put at the head of the queue for vaccination – an admission of past mistakes, perhaps, and a realisation that the common good cannot exclude anyone. 

Looking back, there does seem to have been something wrong with the ethos of a health system that allowed such a catastrophe to happen. Like a flash of lightning, Covid-19 has once again illuminated hidden neglect in all the darker crevices of society. The key task for 2021 is to identify and understand how that neglect occurred, and for the whole of society to take responsibility for repairing it. 

It hardly needs saying that 2020 was an annus horribilis for the Catholic Church, not just in Britain but generally, as a culture of denial and evasion regarding the sexual abuse of children by clergy was made manifest and held up for public condemnation. The leadership of the Church has still not reckoned with the extent to which their moral authority has been undermined. This affects everything they do. When bishops protested at the closure of churches during the pandemic, for instance, the ease with which their voices were dismissed by politicians has a lot to do with that loss of trust and respect. 

Yet churches are still among the most important manifestations of community networks, places where the nation stores its social and moral capital. Indeed, religious faith continues to inspire collective social action without which society would be in a much worse state. The voluntary sector is present wherever there is a crisis, through the food banks movement, charities working for the homeless, for refugees, for ex-prisoners, and so on; the list feels limitless. So does the potential. If the 2020 rebirth of community-mindedness is not to be just a passing phase but a turning point, the voluntary sector needs to seize the moment for its own benefit and that of those it serves.

There are challenges for business too. The corporate culture of minimal compliance with regulations while maximising shareholder value has to give way to a culture built on a moral purpose, namely service to the community. Many boards of directors are asking themselves whether the tide has turned. “Big Pharma” – the global pharmaceutical industry – has turned its attention to the invention and production of anti-Covid vaccines with a striking commitment to the public interest rather than just profit. A revolution in the internal dynamics of capitalism may be under way.

This rediscovery of purpose behind economic enterprise is the central theme of this year’s BBC Reith Lectures by Mark Carney, recently retired Governor of the Bank of England and a Catholic. His analysis of the moral flaws in a market economy is not far from that of Pope Benedict in his 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate. Reliance on an “invisible hand” to turn individual pursuit of self-interest into public benefit is not enough. It certainly will not arrest climate change. 
The advertising industry sniffed this change out some time ago, and new products have been launched with an emphasis on green credentials or community responsibility. There is a growing realisation that the “marketisation” of everyday life has gone too far, and individualism has found its nemesis in the coronavirus epidemic. This makes 2020 a year of awakening, and 2021 a year of opportunity. In which spirit we wish our readers a very Happy Christmas – despite all the many difficulties. The twinkling lights of Britain’s suburban streets say much the same.