To mark our anniversary, we have invited 50 Catholics to choose a person from the past 175 years whose life has been a personal inspiration to them and an example of their faith at its best For single women in the Church, there are precious few inspirational fore­- bears. A rare exception is Maude Petre. She was born into the Victorian Catholic aristocracy, but forged a unique path of independence, faith and social action. If she is remembered at all, it is as the passionate defender of the casualties of Modernism in the early twentieth century. She endured hostility and ecclesiast­ical censure for her support of George Tyrrell, whose work she published.Petre’s upbringing was austere; she and her nine siblings were educated at home. By the time she was 20, her parents were