ROME. We are in the midst of Sede Vacante, and I am sitting in the hot, early lunchtime Roman sunshine with Fr Gerald Murray, one of America’s leading conservative Catholic “media” priests, as well as a respected multi-lingual canon-lawyer. He is wearing a smart Panama hat along with his black clerical suit, and reminds me of Ronald Knox, the famous pre-war Oxford chaplain, scholar, priest and broadcaster who helped convert Evelyn Waugh and other intellectuals to Catholicism.
Fr Gerry is a longtime contributor and friend to the Catholic Herald. I can remember – in 2023, just after Fiducia Supplicans was issued, allowing blessings of people in same-sex relationships – sitting with him at Brown’s Hotel in London after lunch with Sir Rocco Forte, discussing how Pope Francis’s controversial legacy would impact the next papal election. “Oh, when I read this encyclical I thought the progressive pendulum now has to swing back the other way,” he said.
