As many of you may know, I am a RC convert. I was brought up in the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian), spent most of my teens as a militant agnostic, became an Anglican in the early-1970s and was received into the Catholic Church in the 1990s. Overall I believe that, for me, this has been a sensible and healthy journey, and a joyful one, but it has left me with some cultural “gaps” which can sometimes lead to various sorts of bafflement or confusion, more often about ecclesial politics than about faith, worship or spirituality – in as much as it is possible to separate them.

At the heart of my confusion is often the claim that the Church is “inerrant” in its teaching and therefore can never change its mind. This is both ridiculous and patently untrue. As late as 1866, Pope Pius IX declared that it was “not against divine law for a slave to be sold, bought, or exchanged” – I very much hope that not many Catholics would agree with this judgement now. Especially as in 1994 the Church officially declared the precise opposite: “The Seventh Commandment forbids acts or enterprises that … lead to the enslavement of human beings, to their being bought, sold and exchanged like merchandise, in disregard for their personal dignity.” It is simply not possible that these two declarations can both be immovably correct. Of course the Church can and does change its mind, thank God.