Well, it’s been over a year, but I thought I must share this.  With all that has been said and done in the recent past, with all the words that have been bandied about, and all the accusations that have been made, something has been quietly happening in the background.

I have been preparing parents to have their children baptised for fifteen years.  In the second of three sessions we speak about passing on the faith to our children, how was the faith passed on to us, or how did you come to faith.

In that session, we ask cradle Catholics ‘who was the greatest influence on your faith as a child, and who is it now?’  To those who have come to the faith as adults, we ask the latter part of the question.

Generally, the answer will be a parent or grandparent, sometimes a priest or teacher for the early days.  In most cases, the same answer was given for both parts of the question.  You would get the occasional friend or priest, only once was it a deacon, and it wasn’t me, but for ten to twelve years, the replies were fairly standard.

But of late the same name keeps coming up as a reply to the latter part of the question, the same person who has been equally influential in renewing people’s faith or bringing them to the faith.

Pope Francis.