Meanwhile: why atheists adore cats

Churchgoers are much less likely to be cat people, according to a study which found that those who had never entered a church owned on average two pets, while people who worshipped more than once a week owned 1.4. Samuel Perry from the University of Oklahoma, who conducted the study, argued that atheists seek in cats the company and social interaction which Christians have simply by going to church. “We always want to win their affections … we end up serving them a lot,” Perry said. “Cats are very godlike in those characteristics.”

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As well as hoping that the new Government will create opportunities and respond to the needy, Cardinal Vincent Nichols used his New year message to hope for great­er trumphs for Liver­pool Football Club.

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A 15-year-old schoolboy has composed a “Mass of the Resurrection”, and his church has started using it in Masses. Matthew Brown plays piano for Masses at St Mark Church in Vienna, near Arlington, Virginia, where he is a parishioner. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, which oversees liturgical music, made a few minor corrections to his words, and gave its approval for the Mass.