So long as the Big Things are right, we can ignore the niggles, the little but regular annoyances which keep me from dropping off at night. I am a cradle Catholic brought up in the schools of harder knocks (or Knox?) and there are still a handful of things to get off my chest. I was reminded of them at Latin Mass last week. My mother had divorced her first husband and married the man who became my father. She was forbidden Communion during his lifetime. God has His ways. My father died in a road accident, aged 35. My mother went to Confession. To repent for the years of happiness she had shared with him? The children she had borne him? Who knows, or can ever know? She was given absolution – a technical knock-in, I suppose they call it. I discussed this with Fr Julian Large, Provost of the London Oratory, whom I enjoyed sitting next to at lunch. An ex-journalist priest. There should be more.