Mass Confusion
From Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac:
“It’s the birthday of [novelist] John le Carré, born David John Moore Cornwell, in Poole, England (1931)…. His father was a con artist who wanted his two sons to be lawyers because he thought it would come in handy. He sent them to boarding school, where they learned to speak and act like members of the British upper-class, but when they went home they knew they might have to bail him out of jail, or spend the holidays with a bunch of crooks. He learned German and became a spy, but said he ‘never did anything to alter the world order.'”
From The New York Times of Oct. 19, 2002:
“…victims of sexually abusive priests expressed despair and outrage yesterday at the Vatican’s refusal to endorse the American bishops’ zero tolerance policy….
‘This certainly sends the whole thing into wild confusion,’ said Thomas C. Fox, publisher of The National Catholic Reporter, an independent newsweekly that helped uncover the church’s sexual abuse problem nearly two decades ago. ‘It seems we haven’t moved anywhere in finding a resolution, and that makes it terribly, terribly painful. It’s like this nightmare simply won’t end.'”
Other classic Catholic quotations…
1. “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother.”
2. “What is truth?”
3. “Writers often cry ‘Truth! Truth at all costs!’ Some are sincere. Others are hypocrites. They use the truth, distort it, exploit it, for an ulterior purpose. Let us consider the case of John Cornwell….” — Inside the Vatican
John Cornwell recently wrote a classic study of the Roman Catholic Church, Hitler’s Pope* (Viking Press, October 1999).
According to the Daily Catholic and to Inside the Vatican, Cornwell is the brother of of spy novelist John le Carré (born David Cornwell). An article in the Jerusalem Post, however, seems to say that the spy novelist had only one brother, whose name was in fact Tony, not John. A Sydney Morning Herald article confirms this version of the Cornwell family history. Finally, once one learns from the Sydney article that David Cornwell’s father’s name was Ronnie, a perfected Google search reveals a Literary Encyclopedia article that seems to demonstrate conclusively that the Roman Catholic sources cited above lied about John Cornwell’s family background. Of course, this may be wrong… Those who wish may investigate further.
* (I personally prefer Hitler’s own remarks on the Church’s “static pole,” but tastes differ.)