The statements from the White House and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) give few details about what the Cardinal and the President spoke about, although the timing of the release of the Cardinal's video may indicate that the conscience protection regulations were at the top of the agenda.

Mr Samuel, based at Heston United Reformed Church, West London, said: 'He put his hand into my window, which was half open, and grabbed my hair and opened the door.

He started slapping my face and punching my neck. He was trying to smash my head on the steering wheel.

Then he grabbed my cross and pulled it off and it fell on the floor. He was swearing. The other two men came from the car and took my laptop and Bible.'

Giesbert describes Mitterand as "a Nietzschean until his dying day." He described himself as a mystic with the mind of a rationalist. He did not deny that form of transcendence might exist, but he described the idea that his spirit might survive his death as "embarrassing." He was fond of paraphrasing Celine: "Eternity must be very long, especially toward the end."

This collapse will herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian West. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become hostile toward evangelical Christianity, seeing it as the opponent of the common good.