I'm not a man of faith, but my wife Miriam is Catholic, my children are being brought up in her faith, so I have a little bit of an insight into the immense feelings of anguish in the Catholic community here and elsewhere. And I think many Catholics themselves feel really extremely, extremely torn apart by what's happened. I think they do want to see the Catholic Church express greater openness and repentance. You can't keep a lid on sin, and of course you need to move with the times. I do welcome the Pope's visit, but I hope by the time he does visit, there is a greater recognition that there has been terrible, terrible suffering, there have been abusive relationships which have left immeasurable scars on individual people's lives and we need a process of openness and then healing. You can't undo the tragedies of the past, but you can be open about them so people can start to move on.

I think on this matter, we do. I don't agree, I've made it publicly clear in the past, that I don't agree with the formal doctrine on homosexuality of the Catholic Church, for instance. I don't agree with it at all. It doesn't mean I don't... I think there should be some, you know, uprising against the Pope's visit, quite the reverse. I would like to see the Pope here. I think the Catholic community in Britain wants to welcome him, but, as we've all acknowledged, that doesn't mean one has to subscribe to the every letter and every crossed T and dotted I of the thee theology and doctrine of that church.