Pope Francis changed everything, even if he changed very little

'There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilisation. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends, till it is lost in the twilight of fable.'

Lord Macaulay's words are the best thing that wonderful writer even penned. His Protestant Whig soul was inspired.

But John Kenneth Galbraith told Gary Wills in 1972 "Of all the changes I have seen in my lifetime , the greatest by far is the one in your church .” Growing up after the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church (in England) did not feel old at all. It felt a creation of the early 1960s.

And this had a huge impact on the world in every way, far beyond religion. For many centuries, perhaps since the Roman Empire, the Church represented the pole of conservatism and tradition. Suddenly it became innovative, liberal, democratic and radical. This more than anything else launched the 1960s cultural revolution which has led to feminism, political correctness, woke, the world we inhabit.

Pope Francis, even though he cunningly played with the liberals, gave the impression he was remodelling the Church again like a one man Third Vatican Council. This has had a vast effect.