A lie, said Winston Churchill, “can be halfway round the world before the truth has its boots on”. John Henry Newman wrote that “nothing has such vitality as a lie – and I have often been astonished how it is capable of being cut in pieces, like some reptiles, yet without substantial injury to its power of action”.
There will be media lies, undoubtedly, about the Pope and the Church, which are being saved up to coincide with the papal visit, and which will be believed until, as usual, they are disproved, which will be after the Pope is back in Rome.
