Defective vision?
Sir: The eminent Taticanologisr , Mr Peter Hebblethwaite, reviewing George Bull's In- side the Vatican (16 January), begins by describing its 'spendid cover', noticing a 'bespectacled Swiss Guard' where there is none. Poor eyesight, perhaps — the reviewer's!
But surely it cannot be poor eyesight that prompted the reviewer to twist the author's quotation of a Vatican official, convenient- ly suiting his own cynical tone. Mr Bull quotes the official: 'We don't tell lies in the Vatican, but we don't always tell' (p.110). The Hebblethwaite version reads: 'We don't lie in the Vatican — but we don't always tell the truth'.
This is a monstrous misquote. There is all the difference in the world between discre- tion and mendacity, as Mr Hebblethwaite well knows. Or does his poor vision affect more than his eyes?
Fr Alban McCoy
Saint Benet's Hall, Oxford
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