Do you like the century you’re in?

Years ago Lord Patten of Barnes – Chris – was our guest for my Great Lives programme on BBC Radio 4. He championed the life of Pope John XXIII, a mid-20th-century pope from humble origins who (his admirers would say) did much to bring the Roman Catholic Church into the 20th century. He had his detractors too, Evelyn Waugh for instance: ‘Easter used to mean so much to me before Pope John and his council… I have not yet soaked myself in petrol and gone up in flames, but I now cling to the faith doggedly without joy.’

I leave Catholic culture wars to Catholics, mentioning this recording only for a remark of Patten’s that struck a chord with me. One of the things he admired in John XXIII, he said, was positivity about his own epoch. ‘The Catholic Church has so often, through the ages, given the impression that it doesn’t like the century it’s in.