It is almost impossible to conceive the change in the position of Roman Catholicism in England over the past 50 years.In the 1960s, when I was serving as an altar boy at mass, to be a Catholic was to be an outsider, a group outside the mainstream of British life, separate, slightly alien.
As if to emphasise the distinctness, our parish church was weirdly out of keeping with the rest of our suburban town: an enormous, garish, red-brick Italianate structure complete with campanile and a large statue of Christ on the roof.
On feast days we processed around the grounds behind a plaster Virgin Mary, praying fervently for the conversion of England as we went.
My Anglican father was one of those we described as our separated brethren.
There were no British Catholic role models, so when John F Kennedy – young, personable, dynamic and Catholic – became president of the United States, we were ecstatic. He was one of our own.
Ironically, at the very moment we were celebrating, Kennedy himself was assuring American Protestant clergy that he would not take his political orders from the Vatican.
How different today. This week's Tablet newspaper has a list of 100 influential Catholics, ranging from the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell to the BBC's Mark Thompson and Mark Damazer; from Delia Smith and Danny Boyle to David Lodge, Peter Ackroyd and Hilary Mantel; from Chris Patten and Iain Duncan Smith to Mark Serwotka and Jack Dromey; not to mention Frank Skinner, Peter Kay, Adrian Chiles, Susan Boyle and Ant and Dec. nNot necessarily religious role models or holy folk, but certainly diverse.
Not so long ago, when Duncan Smith and Charles Kennedy led their parties and Tony Blair was prime minister, all three were Catholics, or on the way to converting, an event which passed without comment or censure in a way that would have been unthinkable even 30 years ago.
Catholics, less than 10% of the population, are at the heart of every establishment. And yet, as the pope prepares to fly to Britain on Thursday, the anticipation is muted and fearful rather than excited.
"I just hope it goes off peacefully, and he gets away again without too much fuss," said one Catholic editor.
This contrasts sharply with the enthusiasm that greeted Benedict's much more charismatic and vigorous predecessor, John Paul II, in 1982 and the huge crowds that attended his appearances.
This time, parishes have complained about the lack of organisation and have been sending back their allocated tickets.
Young Catholics may be more enthusiastic. Danny Curtin, helping to organise youth attendances at next week's events, said: "There's genuine enthusiasm to see the pope, not necessarily the man but what he represents. The 3,000 young people who will greet him do not have issues or problems with their faith. The sex abuse issue just does not come up – they know that safeguards have been put in place in the church to protect them over the last few years."
The church here has changed in the last 28 years. While Catholics have become more pronounced – and less remarked upon – in public life, mass attendances have been in decline or static in recent decades.
Then, about 2 million of Britain's 5 million Catholics attended weekly mass; now the figure is less than 1 million. Immigration has disguised the drop in some areas. Filipino nurses mingle with Polish plumbers, Nigerians and occasional Anglican converts to boost congregations.
The newcomers tend to be more fervent and more conservative than the locals, long used to quietly ignoring Vatican injunctions they do not agree with, a process that got under way with the 1968 Vatican encyclical Humanae Vitae, prohibiting artificial forms of contraception.
Some Vatican injunctions seem perverse: many of us knew good Catholic priests cast into outer darkness when they wanted to get married, while the church welcomed married Anglican priests into its clergy.
The idea of women priests remains anathema in a priesthood compromised by a tiny minority of sex abusers, a crisis the old men in the Vatican seem clueless about containing.
The current pope's tendency to lecture church members without deviation or hesitation but plenty of repetition, and his effortless ability to antagonise Muslims, Anglicans and Jews with careless phrases, may not re-enthuse the lapsed.
We have the ironic prospect of the head of one of the world's most autocratic institutions addressing the Mother of Parliaments. That he will do so in fluent but heavily accented German English, just as Britain has been awash with Second World War commemorations, calls for extra sensitivity if he is not to stir up latent but deep-seated anti-Catholic passions.
John Wilkins, a former editor of the Tablet, said: "Can the pope succeed in talking to the hearts of the people? He lectured the bishops in Rome recently on the dangers of dissent but he is coming to a country with a strong tradition of dissent. It is a very honourable tradition here and he needs to recognise that. We know he is not like John Paul II – he's a man of the library. The question is, can he succeed in the market place of British opinion?"
SIC: TG/UK