When the Catholic Herald team arrived to launch our 130-year-old magazine in America, I thought we were primarily on an intellectual mission to “convert” educated Catholics to the riches of orthodox Catholicism at a time when the US Church is in crisis. But what I didn’t expect was that we also ended up converting our guests to another cause altogether. As Richard Johnson of the New York Post put it in his Page Six column: “Conservative British Catholics came to New York and re-introduced the natives to the three-hour lunch.” He quoted a guest: “The Americans were quite surprised that wine was being served and many of them seemed to forget they were supposed to get back to work.” He was referring to a highlight of our trip, a VIP lunch at the Knickerbocker Club for which we had 30 RSVP acceptances. At least that was the figure that Constance Watson, great-granddaughter of Evelyn Waugh, had confirmed with the Knickerbocker’s head of catering around 9.30am. But RSVP disaster struck at 11am, just after we had breakfast. Constance calmly said: “I’ve just checked the responses and we’re now up to 46.” By the time guests began drinking champagne, the number had risen to 57. I am not sure what would have happened if we had been in an English club and shown up with almost double the amount of guests, but the Knickerbocker managed to seat all the guests, even if it meant a table being wheeled into the library.