That’s how I felt, anyway, when I saw this clip (thanks, Fr Z) of more than 600 choristers apparently breaking into an impromptu performance of the Hallelujah Chorus at Macy’s department store in Philadelphia. It was a “random act of culture”. Do look at it.

Maybe I am an old softie, but I smiled, and perhaps shed half a tear, when I played the clip. It was fitting that the random act should have happened in Philadelphia, which, if you forget its huge, grey, menacing Masonic temple, is rather an enchanting city, very 18th century, but a bit 17th century. It was the first capital of the United States, and in the 18th century was the largest English-speaking city in the world after London. In the 1730s it was the only city in the British Empire where Mass could be celebrated in public. William Penn, the pacifist Quaker who founded Philadelphia and gave his name to Pennsylvania, meant it when he said he believed in religious freedom.

The local Catholics were quite a presentable bunch, and rather establishment-minded. St Mary’s Catholic church in Philadelphia was the site of the first public religious commemoration of the Declaration of Independence: on 4 July, 1779, Mass was sung before the Continental Congress, the President, and the French and Spanish Ministers.

John Adams, second president of the US and a bit of a puritan, once visited the St Mary’s and wrote about it in a letter to his wife Abigail: “The music, consisting of an organ and a choir of singers, went all the afternoon except sermon time, and the assembly chanted most sweetly and exquisitely. Here is everything that can lay hold of eye, ear, and imagination, everything which can charm and bewitch the simple and ignorant. I wonder how Luther ever broke the spell.”

Cheeky booger, Adams, but he was a sound, conservative fellow. As the first American minister to the Court of St James, he had an emotional meeting with George III in the early summer of 1785. “Sir,” he said to his former sovereign, “the United States of America have appointed me their Minister Plenipotentiary to your Majesty . . . It is in Obedience to their express Commands that I have the Honour to assure your Majesty of their unanimous Disposition and Desire to cultivate the most friendly and liberal Intercourse between your Majesty’s Subjects and their Citizens . . . I think myself more fortunate than all my fellow Citizens in having the distinguished Honor to be the first to stand in your Majesty’s royal Presence in a diplomatic Character…”

The King replied: “I wish you Sir, to believe, and that it may be understood in America, that I have done nothing in the late Contest, but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do, by the Duty which I owed to my People. I will be very frank with you. I was the last to consent to the Separation, but the Separation having been made and having become inevitable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the Friendship of the United States as an independent Power… let the Circumstances of Language; Religion and Blood have their natural and full Effect.”

They were better men in those days.

A final English connection: William Cobbett lived in Philadelphia as an unashamed and unapologetic monarchist from 1793 to 1800, when he had to return quickly to England to avoid the consequences of a lawsuit brought against him by Dr Benjamin Rush, one of the Founding Fathers. Cobbett had accused the good doctor of killing patients (among them George Washington) through his bleeding and purging technique. Some people are easily offended.

Some of the Telegraph’s more leaden readers have reacted angrily. Here is a fairly typical comment: “Oborne, so you finally acknowledge your europhile status with this Qusiling and 5th column type of column. No doubt you would also sell your parents to get on the EUSSR Gravy Train!”

Yet this week’s defence deal with France is surely one of the finest achievements of the Coalition. Some tabloid scribblers have objected that our boys will henceforth have to serve under French officers. What a bunch of Poujadists these people are. Of course, British troops will come under French command from time to time, just as French troops will from time to time be under British command. There is nothing new here. It is not a plot by the Frogs. In the First World War British forces served under a French allied commander, Marshal Foch. In the Second World War, the allies served under General Eisenhower in France and under the American General Mark Clark in Italy. During the American Revolution General Layfayette served in the Continental Army under George Washington.

The French are besides ideal allies. They are brave soldiers. At Verdun between February and December in 1916 they and the Germans fought the longest battle not only in the First Word War but in all of military history. Both sides showed astonishing endurance and courage. In the Second World War France lost 92,000 dead before they were forced to surrender in June 1940. The key word here is “surrender”. “Cheese-eating surrender monkeys” was funny the first time it was used, on the Simpsons, but it was then flogged to death by chippy blue-collar Americans (who later joined the Tea Party) and the Right-wing think tankers in Washington (and their friends here).

Many will feel that the new deal with France does not go far enough. We have agreed to operate joint nuclear testing facilities, but we surely should get rid of our own hideously costly “independent” nuclear deterrent – which we’d never use without permission from Americans – and throw our lot in with the French. Together France and Britain could provide the EU with a truly independent nuclear deterrent. Next stop: a European army.

Don’t forget, meanwhile, that in spite of the lamentable French Revolution, France is the Eldest Daughter of the Church, and ought to be treated by us with love and respect.

In any case, well done, Dave; well done, Nicolas. Vive la France. Rule Britannia. Laissez les bons temps rouler. Yes, we can.

“There’s something about this Hangover 2 thing that doesn’t pass the smell test. It seems, at the very least, yet another example of the selective outrage that fuels controversy-driven entertainment coverage, and Hollywood posturing generally, with actors, directors, producers, studio bosses and other players working themselves into a righteous snit about certain people and offenses while giving others a pass.”

Go here for the whole thing.

The case against Mel is that he is anti-Semitic, homophobic, violent and alcoholic, and, to add insult to injury, a Roman Catholic. That’s a bad combination in Hollywood. Most Hollywood types can forgive alcoholism and a little domestic violence, but they draw the line at anti-Semitism and homophobia, and they don’t like Catholicism unless it comes from Bing Crosby and is wrapped in tinsel. No one would ever accuse Mel of wrapping his Catholicism in tinsel.

But hang on, is Mel Gibson really a Catholic? No, say his critics; he is a sedevacantist and therefore a schismatic and therefore not a Catholic. You didn’t hear much talk of that sort when The Passion of the Christ was released in 2004. Then it was Mel the conquering Catholic hero; now, in some quarters at least, it is Mel the Damned. When I last wrote about him three months ago, one reader declared in the combox: “I am sorry to say that Mel will go to Hell when he dies. He is NOT a Catholic and absolutely does not practice the true Catholic faith.” Bless that reader for having compassion enough to regret that Mel Gibson is doomed to spend an eternity in unspeakable misery.

But not even Google can tell us exactly what Mel’s religious position is. His friend the Jesuit scholar William Fulco says that Mel denies neither the Pope nor Vatican II. Mel Gibson is obviously a religious nut, however, and there must have been times when, as a loyal son, he embraced his father’s sedevacantism. It is possible that he remains a sede. But so far as I know he has never questioned, far less rejected, any part of Catholic teaching. That’s more than can be said for a lot of Catholics, including priests and bishops. Surveys show that most Catholics in the comfortable West do not accept the Church’s teaching on (for example) birth control. They don’t just ignore it – the way we all ignore moral teaching from time to time – they believe the Church is in error. So it could be that some of those accusing Gibson of sedecavantism may themselves be heretics, or at the very least recalcitrant dissidents. I am not defending sedevacantism – on the contrary – but I am suggesting that sedes are sometimes more faithful to Church teaching than respectable Catholics in the suburbs.

Whatever Mel’s status as a Catholic, however, he is in his anger and resentments a classic type of Catholic alcoholic. His anti-Semitism is very Catholic, too. Catholic anti-Semites are very rarely prejudiced against individual Jews, but have a “thing” about Jews collectively. G K Chesterton loved individual Jews, and was outspoken in his condemnation Hitler’s anti-Semitism, but he was able to write: “I am fond of Jews/Jews are fond of money/Never mind of whose/I am fond of Jews/Oh, but when they lose/Damn it all, it’s funny.” Some might say that those lines are quite innocent, but I am not sure many Jews would.

Mel himself obviously has nothing against Jewish people. His agent, Alan Nierob, is Jewish. Nierob is also the agent of Liam Neeson, who has been picked to replace Gibson in the cameo role in Hangover 2 – pending, as Nierob has said, “clearance of cast and crew background check”. Probably the only sane response to this is to laugh.

All the same, I have sympathies with Mel Gibson, if only because I, too, am an alcoholic, and sense that if I were to go back on the booze I might soon find myself doing Gibson turns. My perhaps rather pious hope is that Mel will sober up – whether or not he is drinking now, he is not sober – and make his peace with the Church. He can after all do that and continue to hear Mass in the old rite. First, though, he must learn moderation. That’s more than I have ever managed to do, but I am persuaded that the only antidote to booze, anger and bad religion is love of God and neighbour, especially when your neighbour is also your enemy.

“I don’t believe in that ‘anti-Catholicism’ of the [English] media. As I said, there is much religious ignorance and much indifference. On the other hand, the media is interested in dramas and controversies, and not in happy stories: this is how they function. That is why the majority of religious news that appears has a negative context — sexual or financial scandals, hypocrisy, etc.”

Mr Valero is absolutely right. There is a lot of negative stuff in the media – and such newspapers as the Independent and the Guardian are clearly anti-Catholic – but it does not follow that the media here are anti-Catholic. On the contrary. Two of the most powerful newspapers in Britain, the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail, are largely pro-Catholic. The Telegraph has a Catholic editor, Tony Gallagher. Two of its recent editors, Charles Moore and Martin Newland, a Downside boy, were Catholics.

On August 6, furthermore, the Daily Telegraph and the Sunday Telegraph published a joint editorial attacking the secularists who were trying to undermine the Pope’s visit. This “unequivocal support of the Holy Father’s state visit” from “the most senior and reputable newspaper and media group in the UK” was welcomed by Protect the Pope, as it was by all of us.

Such smut papers as the Sun and the News of the World tend to be pro-Catholic, too, even if they do regularly publish saucy pictures. The editor of the NoW, Colin Myler, is a Catholic, and has been described as ”devout”. Nor should we forget that Rupert Murdoch was made a papal knight for giving millions of dollars to the Church. As for the mighty Spectator, its editor, Fraser Nelson, is a Catholic, and so are its deputy editor (Mary Wakefield), its assistant editor (Freddy Gray, late of this parish), its arts editor (Liz Anderson) and its assistant books editor (Clare Asquith). The director-general of the BBC, Mark Thompson, is also a Catholic.

Yes, yes, yes, of course so-called Catholics can be very anti-Catholic; in fact, the most virulently hostile anti-Catholics are often Catholic by birth. All the same, if I were a secular humanist I might begin to feel there was a Catholic conspiracy at work in this land. I greatly admire the loyalty that inspires the Protect the Pope website, but I have to say that it is as devoid of nuance, irony and scepticism as Protest the Pope, and has been too ready to see anti-Catholic plots.

Peter Tatchell is no threat. He has no power. The threat comes from our respectable middle-class rulers, most of whom welcomed the Pope’s visit but at the same time would agree with Tatchell on such matters as abortion, gay marriage, contraception and embryonic stem-cell research.

But thank God for that beautiful Mass this morning. What a homily from the Holy Father! I am not talking about the apology but about the Eucharistic theology – and the invocation of both the Council of Trent and the Second Vatican Council. The apology is the “story”, but it will not satisfy the haters. Nothing ever will.

Three things stood out for me in the Mass:

1. The use of the Credo from the Missa de Angelis. My eyes pricked. I would have been a howling cot-case if the congregation had genuflected at the words “et incarnatus est”, but alas they did not. In time perhaps.

2. The use of the Roman Canon, which is what many of us regard as the “real” canon.

3. The Pope giving Communion on the tongue to men and women who knelt before him. What a pity that priests and people do not follow this example.

Now I’d better pull myself together and get with the programme. There is little point in sitting here looking sullen for the next five hours.

“I told the Pope,” said Boris, “that what was wrong with Britain was that the Roman Emperor Honorius told the Brits in 410 AD that Rome was no longer able to protect them.

“From that time,” said Boris to the Pope, “the British have had a sense of desertion, of confusion, of rejection.”

What did the Pope make of that? I asked Boris. “He looked hunted. His eyes flickered around the room.”

Did he saying anything? “Yes”, said Boris. “He said: ‘Very interesting’.”

Boris was accompanied last night by Lara Johnson, his 17-year-old daughter, who is an admirer of Benedict XVI and who speaks pretty good German.

Earlier in the day the Mayor had issued a statement exclusively for readers of the Catholic Herald: “In return for a general absolution,” ran the statement, “I have granted the Popemobile an exemption from the congestion charge.”

You couldn’t make it up. When I worked for Boris at the Spectator I would have been prepared to believe that he might one day star opposite Jennifer Aniston in a Hollywood romcom, but never that he would end up as the politician charged with welcoming the Pope to England.

But is it really so surprising, so inappropriate? Boris is a Catholic, after all. True he is not quite what the newspapers call a “devout Catholic” – by which they mean anyone who has been to Mass more than twice in the past year – but he was baptised according to the rites of Holy Mother Church.

There are two other points: first, Boris speaks Latin (and German and Italian), so there will be no language issues; second, he is keenly aware of the importance of the visit. He knows that it will make history, but also sees an element of inevitability in it. A couple of months ago he put it like this to me: “With his customary infallibility, the Pope has chosen to visit the greatest city on earth.”

If I still had access to Boris, what advice might I give him? First, genuflect and kiss the papal ring. You know it makes sense, Boris. If a job’s worth doing at all, it is worth doing in style. Second, quote from the Fathers, perhaps St Augustine, but not “Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo.” We do not want any more sniggering about continence and chastity. Think what the Sun would make of it. Third, make sure your shoelaces are tied. The last thing you need at this stage in your career is to stumble at the feet of the Holy Father and send him flying.

At any rate, I for one am looking forward to the television coverage. God bless our Pope.

To be sure, it was distressing that a mini-scandal should erupt on the eve of the visit, but you’d hardly be human if you did not laugh at the explanation for the “gaffe” that came from the Vatican. According to a spokesman, the cardinal had “no negative intention or appreciation” towards Britain. “He was simply saying that when arriving at London airport – as happens at any other large city airport in the world – but especially in London, you are aware that you are in a country with many different human realities from all over the world.”

“Human realities” is, I suppose, one way of describing black and brown people who dress in exotic robes. But are these different human realities “especially” evident in London? Personally, I have always found JFK more Third World than Heathrow, perhaps because when an Englishman enters the US he counts as an alien and has to stand in line behind hundreds of Third Worlders with bulging cardboard suitcases and cooking pots hanging from their belts. Purpose of visit? Vacation. Many of these people will disappear immediately into the black economy. But an American friend who is here to cover the papal visit told me last night that London is now more “cosmopolitan” than New York. It’s easier to find someone who speaks English in New York than it is in London, he said. So let’s not diss Cardinal Kasper.

Back to the BBC. Last night it risked the wrath of secular humanists by broadcasting two very interesting and sympathetic papal specials – Mark Dowd’s Benedict: Trials of a Pope (BBC1) and Vatican – the Hidden World (BBC4). I have not yet seen the second of these, but it must have been good because it attracted the rather prim disapproval of the Independent’s Today’s Choice feature: “This documentary is eye-popping for its access to the Holy See, and also for its uncritical tone.”

Bless.

But was he right when he said this:

“Whether we like it or not, as British citizens and residents of this country – and whether we are even prepared as Catholics to accept this reality and all it implies – the fact is that historically, and continuing right now, Britain, and in particular London, has been and is the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death.”

Mr Adamus’s boss, Archbishop Vincent Nichols, did not think he was right. A Westminster flak said the views expressed by Mr Adamus “did not reflect the Archbishop’s opinions”.

Nor do they reflect the opinions of all Catholic laymen. Some Catholic laymen, after all, will believe that in a world that includes North Korea, China and the United States (where abortion is a constitutional right) it is unwise to single out Britain for special blame as the “geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death”.

What Mr Adamus said was inspired by love of truth and fidelity to the Church’s magisterium, but strikes me as being at the same time aggressive, angry and over-emotional. He played into the hands of left-wing commentators in the Independent and the Guardian. There was also in his words a hint of the paranoia that has sprouted in some Catholic circles during the run-up to the Pope’s visit.

Perhaps I am being unjust, so let me give way to John Smeaton, director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. Mr Smeaton knows infinitely more about these things than I can ever hope to know, and, furthermore, has been uniquivocal in his support for Mr Adamus’s latest statement. But does he agree with Mr Adamus that Britain is the geopolitical epicentre of the culture of death? My impression is that he takes a rather more measured view of these things.

A couple of months ago, for example, he rebuked Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark for suggesting, in an interview with Anna Arco, that our abortion laws were about as liberal as they could be.

“This is simply wrong,” wrote Mr Smeaton. “There are many ways in which the Abortion Act 1967 continues to restrict abortion, both in law and in practice. Abortion remains in general a criminal offence in English law, under the Offences Against The Person Act 1861. There is thus no right to abortion in English law – a crucial bulwark against the international pro-abortion lobby’s incessant attempts to have abortion declared a fundamental human right in international law. Abortion is not, both in English law and in practice, treated as any other medical procedure. Two doctors must attest that at least one of the several grounds for abortion in the Abortion Act 1967 [which applies everywhere in the UK except Northern Ireland] have been satisfied before authorising an abortion. Doctors can – and sometimes do – decline to authorise an abortion. In addition, the Act’s conscience clause helps keep pro-life doctors within the medical profession. These safeguards, whilst flawed and often abused, both save lives and send negative messages about abortion. “

In the end, though, what matters here is not opinion. What matters here is the fact of abortion. As Catholics we believe that (in the words of the Catechism) “abortion is gravely contrary to the moral law”. That means we are opposed to the prevailing orthodoxies, and must be brave enough to defend the Church’s teaching in public. To win the abortion debate it is necessary to convince intelligent liberals that they are wrong. That means be firm and courteous about what we believe. Nothing is gained, however, no lives saved, by anger and exaggeration.

Over to the combox now. The first person to observe that “intelligent liberal” is an oxymoron wins a tin of sardines.

My own view is that most homosexuals are born that way. I believe it instinctively. I also believe it because many gay people say it is the case, and I see no reason for disbelieving them. I do not, however, believe that being born that way makes gay sex right. Nor do homosexuals necessarily believe that. Last March I received a letter from a homosexual traditionalist who did not believe it. But he did not like the attitude of some Catholics to gays, and rebuked me for having written in my Charterhouse column that homosexuals formed a “rich and privileged minority”. I reproduced a couple of lines from the letter at the time, but here, with a couple of small deletions, is the whole thing:

“… I can’t for the life of me understand why you think that some homosexuals are ‘a rich and privileged minority’. Often the opposite is true. I, for example, am not rich. I live a rather empty and lonely life, never fully able to be who I am, for, yes, I encounter prejudice often (especially at church). I will never have the privilege of fathering children, or of having a loving relationship…

“Many ‘gays’ such as myself go to church and try to lead a good (and chaste) life. I try to live by the precepts of the Church I love.

“It is quite hurtful when our priests talk of ‘the evil of homosexuality’ in the same breath as abortion, prostitution, etc, as if there are no ‘gays’ in the congregation at all! As I am sure you are aware, finding oneself homosexual is not a choice, whereas these other situations are avoidable…

“Some time ago, one of your articles made mention of an outrageously dressed individual in a post office queue. You assumed he was ‘gay’. But in my experience, gay men usually dress quite conservatively, and often with a more pronounced masculinity than is usual. I am sure, for instance, you may have passed me at the 9am Mass [traditional Latin] at the Oratory, as I’m there every week, but I suspect that I blend in with the other traditional Catholics in my sombre jacket and tie…

“But to finish, please take care what you say – there are more people of ‘homosexual orientation’ in the Church than I think you realise. Meanwhile enjoy your privilege of children and grandchildren, and the privilege of acceptance by all.”

“Acceptance by all” is pushing it a bit, but what my friend says is sobering. Life is infinitely sad. Good and bad alike, we mourn and weep in this vale of tears. But self-denying homosexuals – homosexuals who try to live by the Church’s teaching – often have a lot more to mourn and weep about than the rest of us.