Lord (Roy) Hattersley is a self-proclaimed atheist, but has a personal connection with the Church: his father, before marrying his mother, had been a Catholic priest. And this week, the Labour peer revealed that his next book would be on Catholics, specifically on the “miracle” of how they survived centuries of persecution in Britain. In a BBC Radio 4 interview with Lord (Peter) Hennessy, a trustee of The Tablet, Lord Hattersley said he would dedicate the book to “Father Frederick Roy Hattersley” and would record the main events of his ecclesiastical career including his leaving the priesthood to marry. It was not until after his father had died and when Lord Hattersley was aged 40 that he was made aware his father was a priest.  The 81-year-old former deputy