The feast of the Dedication of the Lateran yesterday was overshadowed, to all intents and purposes, by Remembrance Sunday, but the feast of St Leo the Great today turns our eyes towards Rome again. Doctrinally, liturgically and politically, his pontificate (440–461) was extremely important. Probably most of us think of him in connection with the Chalcedonian definition of the two natures in the Person of Christ, human and divine, or his arguments in defence of the primacy of Rome. Every Christmas we re-read his writings on the Incarnation which are models of clarity and theological insight (the two do not always go together). This morning, however, I was thinking about his success in turning back Attila the Hun from the very gates of Rome. A man who understood that jaw-jaw is always better than war-war, St Leo is a saint for our times. (No podcasts until the current round of coughs and splutters in community is over.)