Three major events in the past week have offered insights into the family of today and the family of the future. First, there was the wedding of the Queen's grandson, Peter Phillips, and Autumn Kelly, attended by the divorced and remarried parents of both bride and groom, together with their new spouses. It was a complicated situation familiar to many Catholics who suffer as much from marital breakdown as the rest of society. Then there was the publication of Cherie Blair's autobiography in which she admitted to conceiving her late-in-life baby, Leo, because she forgot her "contraceptive equipment". But while the Catholic Mrs Blair found the teaching of Humanae Vitae hard to accept, she rejected an amniocentesis test which, when it reveals foetal abnormality, often means a mother opts for abortion. Again, many Catholic parents will recognise the situation as similar to their own.

But Wednesday's votes in the House of Commons on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill produced a far darker image of the family. MPs effectively endorsed the end of the traditional family by voting to remove the requirement for fertility clinics to consider a child's need for a father.

This vote, together with those in favour of allowing the creation of hybrid embryos for medical research and the creation of saviour siblings, as well as against further restricting abortion, indicates that the Catholic Church's thinking on fundamentals - on the family, on the beginnings of life - is increasingly in marked contrast with that of the Government. Ordinary Catholics in the pew may struggle with some Church teaching, and welcome the secular state's provision of contraceptives or a divorce, but they too will be gravely concerned with the shape that British society is taking.

The most vituperative critics have gone so far as to attack the Church for speaking at all on the HFE Bill, arguing that religion should be something essentially private. But as Nick ...

Cardinal John Heenan, Archbishop of Westminster at the time of the publication of Humanae Vitae 40 years ago this summer, described the crisis of authority it triggered as "the greatest shock the Church has suffered since the Reformation". With hindsight that was an exaggeration, though the encyclical brought about a profound change in the way Catholics saw the Church. Remarks a week ago by Pope Benedict ...

Seen through Western media eyes, the Catholic Church's main contribution to the battle against HIV-Aids in Africa and elsewhere has been its opposition to the use of condoms as a protection against infection. That perception was made worse by the way certain churchmen, most notably the late Cardinal López Trujillo, offered flawed scientific arguments in support of the condoms ban. The reality is rather different. ...

Trust cannot be taken for granted just because it is on the letterhead. The BBC Trust's handling of a complaint against the "Panorama" television programme "Sex Crimes and the Vatican", transmitted in 2006, will dismay those who had hoped the recently revised arrangements for dealing with complaints would quickly rebuild confidence in the BBC's integrity. The Trust's newly published ...

Qui custodiet ipsos custodes? Pope Benedict went further than expected in the way he dealt with the issue of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests in America, and earned much praise for it. Not only did he condemn it in the strongest terms several times, but he met victims of the abuse in person, an occasion of high emotion which appeared to have been cathartic. And when Cardinal Francis George of Chicago admitted ...