To mark our anniversary, we have invited 50 Catholics to choose the person from the past 175 years whose life has been a personal inspiration to them and an example of their faith at its best Peter Gilbert, the social worker and academic who died on 12 December 2013, was inspirational in the way he lived and in the way he shared his values. Peter faced both mental and physical health problems in his own life, recovering from severe depression, and then being diagnosed with motor neurone disease. We engaged professionally in many conversations about death and dying over the years, but, poignantly, at the end it was Peter’s own impending death that we talked about. These conversations, and Peter’s bravery in questioning and then preparing for his death, confirmed my conviction