Picturesque Lies - by Brother Nicodemus

 

Repeating a story, in itself unfounded, and adding a dangerous word, facilitates a "published story" being later quoted as a kind of historical evidence. Thus the nasty little new word becomes "fact". In the repertoire of our detractors, these creeping lies have become key.

- The Press enquired (see previous post) before publishing its 30 November full broadsheet page "about" us, stating that nearly three decades ago Fr Michael "instructed people to strip off their habits and swim in a different river"... (Our emphasis.)

- More than a week after their enquiry, they published an article in which this had now morphed into: "followers were told to strip naked, leave their habits where people could see, and swim in the river anyway... (Our emphasis.)

- By the evening the online version had the following footnote: *CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said Father Mary asked followers to strip naked to bathe in a religiously significant stream at Lourdes. Father Marshall says they actually stripped their habits. (Amended 6.16pm, November 30, 2024)

- Their story now reads: "were told to strip off their habits*, leave their habits where people could see, and swim in the river anyway"...

You can see very clearly from this that the word "naked" had been interpolated into the text, and was, by the newspaper's admission, false. The original enquiry text had the exact same wording as the "corrected" text: "strip off their habits" The word "naked", like the other untruths that have been pronounced against us over and over again, is the poison that changes a silly, skewed and incorrect  account into something outrageous. While you can correct it in an online footnote, what is written remains on the paper and in the minds of all who read this.

Note too in this line alone how the narrative "improves" from "instructed people", which becomes "followers were told", which becomes in the correction "asked followers", and in the text "followers were told"; How "people" becomes the poisonous "followers". 

This modus operandi seems reminiscent of what FM Dostoevsky makes Fr Zozima say to Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov: “A man may know that [he has invented the insult for himself], has lied and exaggerated to make it picturesque, has caught at a word and made a mountain out of a molehill - he knows that himself, yet he will be the first to take offense, and will revel in his resentment till he feels great pleasure in it.”