Gerard Noel, who has died aged 89, was one of the most distinguished editors in the history of Catholic Herald, a historian of immense range and readability, and a much-loved presence in English Catholic life for many decades.
Gerry Noel, as everyone knew him, personified a type encountered increasingly rarely these days. The son of the Earl of Gainsborough, he grew up in the family seat of Exton in Rutland, which had a private chapel. In short, he came from the sort of aristocratic Catholic background that Evelyn Waugh celebrated – but there was nothing snobbish or self-indulgent about his faith. He was twice editor of the Catholic Herald; it was a role he performed with skill and relish, often intruding a note of mischief into the publication.
Noel was liberal in many of his sympathies, a profound supporter of the changes initiated by the Second Vatican Council, but never allowed the newspaper to become an organ of destructive dissent.
He was a servant of the Church he loved, while also considering it an extension of his family.
The Hon Gerard Eyre Wriothesley Noel was born on November 20, 1926. He was educated at Worth, then only a prep school, and was sent to America during the war to finish his schooling in Washington DC. He went up to Exeter College, Oxford, and would have become President of the Oxford Union had a certain Anthony Wedgwood Benn not broken a verbal agreement not to stand against him but delay his candidacy until the following term.
Noel was not, however, a man to bear grudges. He was a strikingly witty dinner companion – something he had in common with his old friend Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, whom he had met when he briefly tried his vocation in Rome after Oxford.
He was an astonishingly gifted mimic – a theatrical gift that surprised people when they first encountered it, since on the surface Noel seemed such a conventional English clubman, never happier than when enjoying a brandy with his fellow landed gents in White’s Club. Alas, no video survives of his imitiation of Cristina Odone, the glamorous Italian-American socialite who was one of the Catholic Herald’s most unlikely – and successful – editors. Noel reportedly used a bath towel to represent Odone’s miniskirt.
His contacts in the Vatican were formidable and dated back a long way. In 1948, he had a private audience with Pope Pius XII at Castel Gandolfo. Many decades later, he was the subject of Noel’s biography Pius XII: The Hound of Hitler. Understandably, it pleased him that this book, written when he was over 80, should be the most critically acclaimed of all his works. In total he wrote more than 20 books, including a deliciously quirky and clever life of Queen Ena of Spain, granddaughter of Queen Victoria and consort of King Alfonso XIII – the perfect subject for Noel.
In 1968, Noel became literary editor of the Catholic Herald. This was, of course, the year of Humanae Vitae. Noel commented that “it caused almost the most convulsive detonation in the whole of Catholic history”, adding that “its fallout was devastating, extensive and long-lasting”.
He related that Cardinal Heenan, then Archbishop of Westminster, had assumed that “Church law on the subject of marriage … had undergone development”. When the news came out that the Church’s teaching would remain unchanged, “the cardinal, as he later told me himself, slumped back in his chair in stunned and silent disbelief.”
In 1969 Noel became assistant editor of the Herald. He edited the newspaper first from 1971 until 1976 and then once again from 1982 until 1984. He created the Charterhouse Chronicle column when the Herald moved its premises from Fleet Street to Charterhouse Street. It was usually written thereafter by Patrick O’Donovan, a legend in Fleet Street not only for the quality of his writing for the Observer but also for his heroic consumption of alcohol. Sometimes Noel’s biggest challenge was to sober up O’Donovan sufficiently in order to write Charterhouse.
After O’Donovan’s death, Noel wrote the column himself. Typically, mischief and curiosity kept intruding. In one column in November 1982, he asked: “Could Cardinal Benelli have lived longer? What were the exact causes of Pope John Paul I’s sudden demise? What was happening to Cardinal Daniélou before he died? Who set fire to Cardinal Canali’s private papers within minutes of his death?”
These and other mysteries – such as his theory that Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria had not committed suicide at the Mayerling hunting lodge – often exercised his imagination.
As the biographer of Pius XII, he explained to Herald readers that the pope’s Swiss doctor, Paul Niehaus, had not injected the Holy Father with “monkey glands” as was commonly thought at the time, but with “scrapings from the skin of unborn calves, prematurely induced”. This unusual medical treatment was given in 1954 and Noel was convinced that it provided the Pope with a further four years of vigorous life.
His birth and his position as editor of a leading Catholic weekly gave Gerard Noel entrée into distinguished circles. He was friends with Miles, Duke of Norfolk, as well as Otto von Habsburg, son of the last Emperor of Austro-Hungary, whose wedding he had attended. Despite his liberal inclinations, he often served Mass in the Tridentine Rite for Mgr Alfred Gilbey in his private chapel, a converted broom cupboard in the Travellers Club.
He also worked tirelessly to improve relations between Catholics and Jews in Britain, employing his formidable diplomatic skills and unforced charm.
Noel married Adele Julie Patricia Were in 1958. She survives him, along with their three children. His family motto is Tout Bien ou Rien (“All Well or Nothing”). It encapsulates Noel’s own fierce loyalties, his circle of friendships and his always trenchant opinions.
May he rest in peace.
The Hon Gerard Eyre Wriothesley Noel was born on November 20, 1926. He died on July 27, 2016
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