For most Catholic parents a time will come when, sitting on the sofa at home watching pre-watershed primetime family television, for instance, their young children will hear references to transsexuality or homosexuality. An explanation will then be required as to why a man wishes to wear a dress and high heels or why two ladies are kissing.

This can be a bit unsettling, not least because in “the years of innocence” (from the age of five to puberty), as Pope St John Paul II called them, children really shouldn’t be concerned with these matters.