In their different ways, Mervyn Thomas and Michael Alison stayed warm and persistent. They had an unexpected American ally in Charles Colson, with whom I was exchanging deeply personal letters that summer. Notorious for being Richard Nixon’s “hatchet man” who had served a jail sentence for Watergate-related offenses, Colson had been a valuable source of new material for my 1993 biography of the thirty-seventh President of the United States. In my historical interviews with Colson about the goings-on in the Nixon White House, he had barely mentioned his post-Watergate conversion to a life of Christian faith and ministry. Even so, we struck up a good rapport, and he reviewed my book generously in the American press. However, we were no longer in touch with each other until, by chance, Colson was staying in a London hotel on June 21, 1997, the day when I became front-page news as public enemy number one after being caught telling a lie on oath in the Guardian libel case.

Colson immediately wrote me a letter urging me to take the Christian path of repentance. Filled with remorse for my wrongdoing, I was receptive to his suggestion. However, I had no real understanding of the concept of repentance. I did not know the deeper meaning of the Greek word for it, metanoia, which translates as “a change of heart and mind.” I thought repentance consisted of saying sorry, preferably as quietly and as privately as possible, and then getting back to business as usual.

As my correspondence with Colson developed, he seemed to be suggesting a far less convenient approach to repentance. He recommended that I should “get a group of praying friends” around me to whom I should “become accountable.” He mentioned his own experiences—described in full in his 1976 autobiography, Born Again—of belonging to a group that consisted of a Senator, two Congressmen, and a Washington, D.C pastor. This quartet breakfasted together once a week, “shared everything as brothers,” and “had fellowship”—whatever that was. This formula of born-againers sharing coffee, croissants, sins, and Bible reading had no appeal for me. My religion was private and was going to stay that way.

For some weeks there was a tug-of-war in my spiritual life between privacy and fellowship. It was resolved not by evangelical Protestants but by Roman Catholics. Long before I was in any kind of trouble I had developed a friendship with Father Gerard Hughes, SJ, the author of God of Surprises. We had met when my political star was in the ascendant and the skies of my ambition seemed cloudless. At that time I was so keen on worldly success that I was not particularly receptive to what he called “spiritual direction.” However, there must have been the seeds of a latent spiritual hunger buried somewhere deep within me. For against my natural instincts Father Hughes somehow persuaded me to participate in the first ever Parliamentary Retreat during Lent 1994, a commitment that meant setting aside several hours a week for the various activities this involved.