It has become a commonplace comment that Christians in the UK are facing persecution from an overbearing state, a seemingly hostile judiciary and a metropolitan elite with friends in the media. A quick trawl of news sites shows that Ann Widdecombe believes that ‘Christianity in Britain is under severe persecution and it will get worse’; David Simpson MP says that ‘we don’t have to go to other countries to see persecution, we simply look to our own back door’. Even the former Archbishop of Canterbury, the Rt Rev Lord Carey, says that in Britain ‘Christians are vilified by the state... Christians are being driven underground’.

Change in the world of education has been rapid and will continue under the Coalition Government at a pace; one might speculate about the shape of the educational landscape in 2012. Already we see a world of academies, free schools, companies which provide education, competition, deregulation and closures. It is also a time of great demographic change in the Catholic population which is affecting dioceses in very different ways. The classroom has become ethnically very diverse. This offers a wonderful opportunity to understand the Catholic Church as the community of disciples in a much broader way.