Recently I stepped inside Fisher House, home of the Cambridge University Catholic Chaplaincy, for a pre-Lenten day of recollection. The last time I knelt there was in my final undergraduate year back in 1990. What struck me as encouraging – and different from the late 1980s – was the sheer amount of spiritual and academic energy fizzing around the chaplaincy – and its lovely bar, the Black Swan, named after the pub in Lion’s Yard which was demolished in 1924 to build Fisher House. According to chaplain Mgr Mark Langham, the former administrator of Westminster Cathedral, numbers are indeed up from the 1980s. This is clear from the notice board which was jammed with posters for numerous societies. These include the Apologia: Dinner and Theology group that meets every Tuesday for supper to explore the doctrine of the Catholic Church; the Interfaith and Ecumenical Group; The Haddocks (for Catholic medics interested in issues of ethics); The Dolphins (for sporty left-footers); the Quaero (theology for non-theologians); Consider Your Call (for those exploring vocations); a film club, a group for south-east Asian Catholics, the Benson Club (discussing Catholic novels) and the Dante Circle (to discuss cantos from the Divine Comedy). And more.