Like Burnham, I Was An Altar Boy. His Catholic Upbringing Is Shaping The Way He Governs |julian Coman

With a prime minister raised in a tradition that emphasises our mutual dependency, we may finally have a leader who can address the anomie gripping our country

Like Andy Burnham, I was once an enthusiastic altar boy, although I don’t recall competing to be at the front with the communion plate as the prime minister apparently did. Much of my motivation had little to do with piety. The tips received for serving at weddings were often very generous and I got on well with Father Jerome, an engagingly worldly monk from Ampleforth who shared my passion for Manchester United.

I’m five years older than Burnham, but the atmosphere of the small-town northern Catholicism we grew up with will have been much the same. The second Vatican council’s reforms, responding to the social changes under way since the 1960s, were “democratising” the tone and style of worship, and traditionalists were mourning the sidelining of the old Latin mass. The huge success of Pope John Paul II’s groundbreaking visit to Britain in 1982 – the first by a reigning pontiff – had made the faith seem more mainstream and less rarefied. Politically, most Catholics voted Labour, and the large number of Celtic surnames in parish registers testified to a demographic significantly different from Anglican congregations, which were both more English and more Tory.

Julian Coman is a Guardian associate editor

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.