Why I Am Still a Catholic

Peter Stanford is a writer, journalist and broadcaster. Books include Heaven: A Traveller's Guide to the Undiscovered Country (HarperCollins 2002), The Devil (Heinemann 1996), and the polemical Catholics and Sex which became an award-winning four-part Channel 4 series in 1992.

• 1. Cherie Booth QC on Catholic social teaching and its influence on her career; 2. Rugby legend Shaun Edwards on how faith saw him through the tragedy of his younger brother's death; 3. Channel 4 presenter Dermot O'Leary on conscience and how he still prays every night; 4. Writer Christina Odone writes how her marriage to a. divorcee has excluded her from the sacraments but not the Church; 5. Award-winning script-writer Frank Cottrell-Boyce imagines a dialogue with God to devise a new Penny Catechism; 6. Today's Edward Stourton traces his faith back to Reformation rebels; 7. Anne Maguire on how her faith sustained her while imprisoned for nine years for terrorist crimes she did not commit; 8. Comedian Mel Gieldroyc (of Mel and Sue) on the pull of her Polish Catholic roots; 9. Journalist Charlie Brown on being gay and Catholic; 10. Stem-cell research expert Professor Neil Scolding on discrimination against Catholics in science; 11. Baroness Patricia Scotland, Home Office minister, on being a Catholic in government; 12. Former priest and leader of CND, Bruce Kent, on life from the other side of the altar rails.

"'This is a hard-hitting book which criticises as much as it praises...it should be read by anyone interested in the phenomenon of organised religion' - Lady Antonia Fraser The Spectator 'Fascinating...a surprisingly uplifting book' Damian Thompson in the Sunday Telegraph 'This book is really rather edifying' Melanie McDonagh The Tablet"