To call her a "convert" is an insult to the Church of England that nurtured her. Some Anglicans use the term "poped" for going over to Rome; others call it "swimming the Tiber."

Most Anglicans who disliked the idea of female deacons or priests would never dream of 'poping'. And for every 'practising Anglican' in England there are probably 10 who in a residual way like the idea of their Church - its architecture, its liturgy, its ceremonies of baptism and burial, but also its freedom from the shackles and superstitions of Rome.

The seminal experience of [Harold Macmillan's] youth was his flirtation with Roman Catholicism under the influence of Monsignor Ronald Knox. He very nearly ''poped'' (as he called it) while at Oxford, but was prevented by his mother, a formidable American woman from Spencer, Ind., who would allow nothing and nobody to stand in the way of her ambition for her son.