OHN CARDINAL HEENAN served as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster from 1963 until his death in 1974. Writing in 1974, he called Monsignor Ronald Knox “perhaps the Church’s greatest figure of the 20th century.” He also added: “Although renowned as a preacher and scholar, his greatness lay in his holiness of life.” You can read the full quotation:
* PDF Download • Cardinal Heenan on Ronald Knox
—Words written in 1974 by the Roman Cathlic Archbishop of Westminster.
The Knox family seems to have been quite remarkable. For example, the brother of Monsignor Ronald Knox was named Alfred Dillwyn Knox. He was a code-breaker during WW1 and WW2. He helped decipher the ‘Zimmermann Telegram’ which brought the USA into the First World War. As chief cryptographer, he later played an important role in the Polish–French–British meetings on the eve of WW2 which disclosed Polish cryptanalysis of the ‘Axis Enigma’ to the Allies.
When Ronald Knox converted to the True Faith, his father, Edmund Arbuthnott Knox (the Anglican Bishop of Manchester) cut him out of the family will. In those days, Anglicanism was the “respectable and rich” sect, whereas the Roman Catholic Church was considered as belonging to the “poor uneducated Irish.” Ronald’s brother, Wilfred Lawrence Knox, was an Anglican cleric. Wilfred later went on to embrace various forms of immorality (such as artificial contraception and divorce) along with the Episcopalians and Anglicans. Wilfred would’ve done well to have become familiar with Mk 8,36: Quid enim próderit hómini, si lucrétur mundum totum et detriméntum ánimæ suæ fáciat?
Below is a photograph of John Cardinal Heenan:
