A religious sister, a mother, a Natural Family Planning tutor and a trainer of catechists are among those honoured in this year’s Catholic Women of the Year awards.

The awards will be presented in London in October.

The youngest of the winners is Catherine MacMillan, a writer, speaker and musician (and daughter of the composer Sir James MacMillan). She became unexpectedly pregnant at 18, and resisted pressure from doctors to have an abortion.

Her daughter, Sara, was born severely disabled, and died earlier this year aged five. Catherine has spoken and written about Sara, saying the pain of bereavement is “worth it to have those almost six years of joy, love, heartache and extreme pride … What we had is the alternative to the guilt and the pain of being pressured to end something that is not our choice to end.”