It’s always nice to be asked to a party – especially when it’s in the grand surroundings of the mother of parliaments, when I get to rub shoulders for an evening with the great and the good of the Catholic world in London and further afield. Lord Brennan was our host, the invitation proclaimed, and on the evening of 6 March I was to present myself at Black Rod’s Garden Entrance at the Palace of Westminster to be frisked and admitted.
The evening was a celebration of the work of Sir Edward Leigh as president of the Catholic Union. Cardinal Nichols was there, and so was the papal nuncio, Archbishop Buendía. Among the crowd I spotted all sorts of bigwigs: Baroness Hollins, the distinguished psychiatrist who’s taken over from Sir Edward as president of the Catholic Union, Mary Glindon MP (a Catholic Union vice-president), and Baroness O’Loan.
