I learned a shocking thing recently (shocking, I admit, only if it is possible for something to be shocking without it being remotely surprising): in the UK, girls between the ages of eight and 15 get more than 12 per cent less pocket money than boys do. You can try arguing that parents are wisely preparing their daughters for the realities of the adult world, where women’s hourly wage is more than 9 per cent less than men’s, but I really do not think that is good enough. Nor, as a matter of fact, do I think it is true.

In response to the structural discrimination against women, plus some special internal Roman Catholic discriminations all of our own, there are now voices, including the Pope’s, saying we need a renewed theology of women. Personally I disagree; I think we need a new theology of men, of masculinity. St Luke’s gospel, and two millennia of the Church’s teaching, have made clear that the normative Christian is female.