‘Woe To Me If I Do Not Preach’

‘Woe To Me If I Do Not Preach’ I’m not sure whether Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco, the Archbishop of Algiers, has read the satirical poem “Absolute and Abitofhell” by Monsignor Ronald Knox. The poem describes the Oxford dons and clergymen of his day, who were enamored of theological liberalism, the kind of churchmen that, St. John Henry Newman said, he had spent his life combatting.The lines from that poem that come to mind about our man in Algiers are as sharp as vinegar: “When suave politeness, temp’ring bigot zeal / Corrected ‘I believe,’ to ‘One does feel.’ “Cardinal Vesco has recently...