The editor of Catholic magazine The Tablet has called on Catholic charity Cafod to “disassociate” itself from book royalties that its communications chief Damian McBride has promised to the organisation.

Earlier this week the chief executive of Cafod, Chris Bain, was moved to defend the charity's employment of McBride to The Tablet, after the magazine suggested that the recent Daily Mail serialisation of his political memoirs could be damaging to the charity's relationships with senior political figures.

Now The Tablet editor Catherine Pepinster has tweeted a call for the charity to refuse the book royalties.

A Cafod spokeswoman would not comment on Pepinster's latest message. But, responding to concerns that the publicity around McBride’s book could impact on Cafod’s reputation, she said the organisation had hired him on “who he is today, not who he was in the past”:

“It would go against all our Catholic values - including our belief in forgiveness and redemption - to judge him for the behaviour and character he demonstrated in the past rather than what we see for ourselves today.

“Part of that recruitment process was making an assessment of his character and the way he would work with other people, and our clear conclusion was that he had developed into a very different person, with very different ways of working, from that described in his book - and indeed he acknowledges the significant changes he has been through in the book.

"Ultimately, that judgement has been borne out by the way he has worked since coming to Cafod and the strong relationships he has built up.”

Pepinster made her call on Twitter, which led to an online spat with McBride’s book publisher Iain Dale.

 

The publication of McBride's memoirs about his time advising government have sparked calls for him to lose his civil service pension and be interviewed by police.

McBride joined Cafod’s communications team in 2011. He resigned from the government in 2009, where he had been Gordon Brown’s press adviser, after reports emerged that he tried to circulate false rumours about political opponents.