The Church’s worldwide consultation in advance of the synod to discuss the pastoral challenges of the family may be wide-ranging, but it is not scientific. Here, we exclusively reveal the surprising results of just such a properly controlled analysis If leaders of the Catholic Church want to know what its members think and believe about sex, the family and ethical matters surrounding it, then the extensive surveys I have conducted of Catholic opinion in Britain can supply some of the information they are seeking. Three surveys, conducted between January and June this year, polled 1,672 Catholics in all. I will offer a fuller portrait of British Catholics in next week’s Tablet; here, it is ­sufficient to note that the vast majority believe in God, and 5 per cent are atheis