‘An absorbing and important analysis which should be essential reading for all intelligent Catholics. The style is breezy but the questions posed are hard-hitting and the commentary equally so.' Antonia Fraser: Catholic Herald. An account of the leader of the English and Welsh Catholic Church between 1976 and 1999, first written to mark his 70th birthday, examining both the life of Basil Hume and the wider changes in the nature of the Catholic Church in Britain that he came to symbolize, namely its transformation from persecuted post-Reformation rump to integrated, accepted part of national life.