The Jesuits are, whatever else you might say about them, formidable. Dr Bygott quotes Francis Bacon, who believed that the Jesuits as teachers ‘are so good that I wish they were on our side’.

I myself am, in part, a product of their education system. Several of the personalities in Dr Bygott’s study have been known to me personally, and I can honestly say that I never knew a Jesuit whom I did not, in one way or another, admire.