The death of Paul Johnson, the author, journalist, historian and editor is a loss not just to British letters and journalism and London social life, but to the Catholic Church. Throughout the vagaries of his long and varied career, his Catholicism was a constant, and he loved the Church, all the more because it is a Church of sinners where human faults and failings are forgiven. He went to school at Stonyhurst (the focus of this month’s architecture pages) and his Jesuit formation was evident in his intellectual clarity. His Requiem Mass, at the Church of St Mary of the Angels in Bayswater, London, was remarkable for the presence of former prime ministers, politicians, editors and journalists, but it was the man of faith that the playwright Sir Tom Stoppard saluted in his eulogy. Johnson cherished his friends, and he had many of them.