John McDonnell has always been a believer. As a child, growing up in an Irish Catholic family in Liverpool, he went to Mass every Sunday morning followed by Benediction in the afternoon. There was no meat on a Friday, confession on a Saturday night and, as soon as he could lift the thurible, he became an altar boy at the church at the end of the road. On Holy Days of Obligation he would join the procession behind the statue of a saint and help his mother to decorate the windows of their small terraced house. Sometimes he would go on retreats to deepen his faith with the help of the monks. So strong was his spiritual devotion that, at the age of 12, he