6/21/2023 0 Comments Monsignor alfred newman gilbey![]() ![]() 'I often do when I'm discussing serious subjects. Monsignor Gilbey, his head down, was laughing almost uncontrollably, no doubt at the foolishness of of my question. ![]() But I soon learned that it wasn't exactly like that. They had to be given the address of Marks & Spencer. If anyone wanted conversion he sent them off to the Jesuits at Farm Street.' As he talked it sounded as though someone in need of a ready-made suit had strayed into Savile Row. He was afraid that might look like proselytism. Ronnie Knox, when he was Chaplain at Oxford, wouldn't even instruct. At Cambridge I cared for the Catholic undergraduates when I was their Chaplain. But when we met at last he dismissed, rather to my disappointment, any desire to convert me. ![]() Was I about to rupture the paper? I had gone with interest and some trepidation to the Travellers' Club, the home of the man I was led to believe was the great Catholic converter, who had been even more suc- cessful than communism in the fishing of Cambridge men between the wars. The Bishop of Durham was kind enough to tell me that there was only a cigarette paper between our beliefs. I, a devout atheist, had felt during talks with Graham Greene at the end of his life that our views on religious matters were not far apart. There can be few left among us who bother to regret the French Revolution but this charming and elderly priest is clearly lined up with the ancien regime. He was looking forward to his 90th birthday on 13 July. Neither historical event is one that I feel I can celebrate.' So said Monsignor Alfred Newman Gilbey, sitting beneath the chan- deliers in the dining-room of the Travellers' Club and pouring out white burgundy with a strong hand. `I WAS born the day after the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne and the day before that of the fall of the Bastille. Good and evil with Monsignor Alfred Gilbey ![]()
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