My late father, Paul Johnson, was never afraid to cross swords with the New Atheists, or “Prometheans” as he generously called them – though I don’t think Richard Dawkins was ever titanic enough to accept his challenge to a public debate. What would he have made of the professor’s startling admission in a recent interview that “I call myself a cultural Christian and I think it would be truly dreadful if we substituted any alternative religion”?
I doubt that we can expect an apology from the author of The God Delusion for the vehemence and vulgarity of his anti-Catholic polemics. Thirty years ago, Dawkins wrote: “Paul Johnson believes what he is ordered to believe by this Pole and he is already committed to reversing his mind when told to do so by the Pole’s successor, no matter who that successor may be. What an ignominious, contemptible, retarded basis for holding the deepest beliefs of one’s life.”
