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There is a form of truth known as calumny.’ This howler appeared in the first Editorial of Blackfriars. The Editor, Father Bernard Delany, followed up by Father Vincent McNabb in the first article, was expounding ‘Our Aim of Truth’. The slip was quite out of keeping with Father Bernard’s character and its like never recurred while he was Editor. If he had a fault it was excessive caution born of selfdistrust. It used to be said of him that when he came to be beatified the Breviary would have to admit ‘Nimis demisse reputabat de se’. To us, his contemporaries, this initial slip seemed a cruel misfortune, a quite unnecessary manoeuvre by his heavenly patrons to safeguard his modesty. We feared it might discourage him and intensify his habitual shyness of publicity. The way his lapse was brought home to him made that the more likely.
Six of us, at least, were given his leader to revise. It must have been over-confidence in his diffidence that blinded us, for we saw nothing wrong. Nor, as far as we knew, did anyone else, until James Britten opened his copy of the Review. Britten, then a peppery old gentleman and a militant convert of many years standing, was joint founder of the Catholic Truth Society, which at that date was in the early stages of a post-war ‘Forward Movement’. He was learned, and zealous for the exaltation of Holy Church and the overthrow of her enemies. He was also incapable of silence or of keeping out of print when anything called for contradiction or correction.
