A World of My Own (8 page)

I have never liked lecturing, and I certainly do not feel competent to speak on religious subjects, but all the same I found myself on one occasion in My Own World explaining to a number of people my theory of the common evolution of God and Man, and the common identity of God and Satan.

This is how that theory appeared later in
The Honorary Consul:

Someone was telling me that if I was visiting Israel I should go to Emmaus, a small village that had not changed at all since biblical times. It was there that Joseph met Mary. ‘But what brought him there,’ I asked, ‘from Nazareth?’

‘Perhaps,’ the reply came, ‘it was the same matter of taxation which later took the two of them to Bethlehem.’

It was in January 1973 that I read in a newspaper that I had been appointed Archbishop of Westminster. I was astonished and my feelings were somewhat ambiguous. I knew that I was quite unsuitable,
but all the same I was rather attracted by the idea of taking part in some royal occasion a few days later, with the Archbishop of Canterbury. I found that all the members of my family had been given two seats each for the ceremony.

I had been planning to leave London, but I told my mistress that I thought I should stay behind to get the robes and mitre and to learn, as it were, my part. I would have to be ordained as a priest first and for that I would have to consult my predecessor, Cardinal Heenan. Then whom should I run into but the cardinal himself?

He looked at me very sourly when I said that my appointment had come as a complete surprise. ‘When it was announced,’ he told me, ‘it was a bombshell. I must talk things over with you.’

I went home with him. It seemed that he had asked a private detective to prepare a report on me. The report contained photographs, including shots in which the rather shabby and illiterate detective appeared with his witnesses.

‘Who is Mrs Burton?’ the cardinal asked. I replied that I didn’t know the name. Perhaps the detective was referring to a woman who had been my mistress many years ago and was dead. ‘He might at least have dug up someone more recent,’ I said.

The cardinal had interviewed the Inland Revenue, who claimed that I had cheated on income tax by
transferring money abroad. This did make me uneasy. Might they intend to reopen the case? His dossier also included a rather mysterious story of my trespassing in a field. After a lot of thought I remembered that I had once had the idea of moving into the country and had gone with my publisher to inspect a field in which it might be possible to build a house. The dossier became more and more absurd and farther and farther from the truth. By this time the cardinal and I were both laughing. He was relieved to feel that there was no longer any danger of my going ahead with the comedy of my ordination.

Lying in bed, I made a great decision to turn my back on Christianity altogether and take up Buddhism. At that moment of decision I had the sense of Christ close by me. His outline was faintly visible in the dark, and he seemed unhappy at losing me. I regained at least my half faith.

I had been reading an interesting Jewish book on Christ. It compared Christ’s career with that of an
earlier Jew called Mouskie. Mouskie had come to a very similar end. Jesus knew Mouskie’s story and therefore he saw the likelihood that he would die in the same way. Mouskie too had foreseen his end, but his knowledge had been based on the Prophecies while Jesus’s foresight was based on the history of Mouskie, which seemed to make Mouskie the greater figure.

Another interesting feature in the book dealt with the story of Nicodemus. He took refuge up a tree and refused to come down because he was afraid to speak to Jesus, since he saw that Jesus was guarded by two ‘rough Galileans’.

A new Order was being formed in the Church by a group of priests who were giving an exaggerated importance to Saint Paul, almost a priority over Christ. A symbol of the Order, which could be bought in shops selling pious objects, was a bust in china of Saint Paul with three arms, and heads growing out of his arms. I think the Order flourished best in Spain.

A reaction against the Order was being led by a priest I know, who had written a book criticizing it. Late one night he was rung up on the telephone by
someone needing an urgent confession: a rendezvous was agreed to at a church on the other side of town. He set out but slowly became suspicious. Was he being followed? He turned and went back.

On returning, he found the street in which he lived ablaze—not only his house but the houses of four other priests who had opposed the new Order.

Archbishop David Mathew, who was an excellent novelist as well as an historian, was a good friend who saved me by his advice in our Common World from the attempted censorship of
The Power and the Glory
by the Holy Office. All the more strange do I find the account of his funeral in My Own World.

I attended David Mathew’s funeral in December 1964. It was a very bizarre service. I sat in the gallery of the church with a friend and was much annoyed by the whispering, even giggling, which went on in the congregation below. I wanted to call down to them, ‘The archbishop is my friend and he is dead.’ Then my companion whispered to me, ‘One of the priests—I do believe he’s trying not to laugh.’ It was very odd, and I might have put it down to the hysteria of grief had not another of the serving priests seized
the altar by its end with a gay laugh a moment later and wheeled it quickly, like a table, out of the church. The service came to an end in a riot of gaiety.

Now, looking back after the passage of many years, I ask myself whether the end of life should not always be celebrated in some such way.

One night in 1964 I was rung up by ex-King Leopold of the Belgians, who wanted my advice. He was organizing a fair to represent the history of Belgium, to be held in all the world capitals, and he was wondering how to deal with the unfortunate history of the Congo. I suggested that he should simply leave it out, but my reply satisfied neither of us.

I then proposed that he should be completely frank, and admit the crime of his great-great-grandfather (I wasn’t quite sure that I had got the relation right) and the mistakes of the Belgian government. ‘You might compare them with the crimes of other countries including my own—the massacre of Amritsar, for example.’ I have never known whether he took my advice.

In 1966 there was a muddle about my reception at Buckingham Palace to receive the Companion of Honour. There had been a change of date and I was away in the Congo when the note came. For some reason my secretary lied and told the Palace that I had not received it. When I turned up for the changed appointment I was taken to one side by a state official.

‘Tell me the truth,’ he said. ‘Your secretary lied, didn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine why. I was in the Congo.’

We passed by the Queen, who was sitting on her throne, and I paused to shake hands. She gave me a smile. ‘Not yet,’ she said, ‘it would be a breach of protocol.’ I had lost my place in the queue.

We went into the garden to pass the time. There were a lot of bishops about, and children sitting at tables eating buns and ice-cream. After an hour we went back in. I was feeling hungry and so, obviously, was the Queen, for she seated herself at the table and ate a bun. I was a little put out because she
called me by my original first name, Henry, which I have always disliked.