On the eve of the Pope’s state visit to Britain, I thought it might be helpful to give some thought to an overview of the Roman Catholic church in these islands…

It has not been an easy time for the old Church- child abuse scandals, involvement of priests in terrorism in Ireland and some rather difficult pronouncements by the Pope, who appears to be intent on winding back a lot of progressive forces within the wider church.

There was a really helpful programme on Radio 4 yesterday morning, which I tried to listen to on my drive to Bute. I say ‘tried’ as you lose radio signal at different parts of the route.

However, you can listen to it all here.

The programme is particularly helpful as it was clearly made from an inside perspective- through discussion with real people- lay and clergy- who represent the wide spectrum of positions within the Church.

Well worth a listen in particular for those of us who are not familiar with some of the tensions present within this venerable old institution- from those who would take the Church back to before Vatican II, right through to those who see the future of the Church as needing to respond to a changing world on all sorts of issues, from homosexuality, to woman priests and a change on totemic issues like contraception.

Incidentally, there was great hilarity in our house this week, as we realised that our wonderful 10 year old son had been mishearing our pronunciation of the word ‘Pope’. Somehow whenever he had heard the title of the Pontiff, he had thought that the word being used was ‘Poke’. Chuckle.