In December 2009, two friends sat in a pub and sighed about the difficulty of defending the Church. Austen Ivereigh and Jack Valero had just watched a public debate in which Stephen Fry and Christopher Hitchens (full disclosure: he was my uncle) had won resounding applause by attacking the Church.
From that night sprang Catholic Voices (CV), a media group which trained speakers for radio and television. If Radio 4 wanted someone to explain why the Church opposed the redefinition of marriage, if Sky News wanted to interview someone who supported Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain, they could turn to CV. (Full disclosure: I worked part-time for CV in 2014-15.)
