For years as the Catholic chaplain at Oxford I sat under Simon Elwes’ distinguished portrait of Ronald Knox. Knox was chaplain from 1926 to 1939 and was once described by one Oxford don as “the most distinguished, but not necessarily the most effective” of my predecessors. Others, who had been undergraduates during his time, spoke of him with affection, correcting the gloomy impression of Knox created by Evelyn Waugh in his biography.I never met him or heard him speak in person, but one Boxing Day the BBC broadcast again a talk that he had given on translating the Bible. Knox was renowned for never speaking without a text. But you could never tell. He sounded conversational. And so it was on this occasion. As he talked, relaxed and informal, it seemed that those listenin