Our little girl, however, has made a life-defining decision by herself. I couldn’t be more proud of her. But I cannot deny that what she said to my wife and I stopped us briefly in our slightly smug, religiously disinterested, bleeding-heart liberal tracks.

For decades, god and religion have played no part in my life. I was baptised as a baby, but didn’t make it as far as first communion. That may officially make me a Catholic in the broadest sense, but if it does, I’m one who’s not so much “lapsed” as “stalled before I started”.

Apart from morning assemblies and weekly hymn practices at primary school, followed by a couple of years of religious education classes at comprehensive (which I dropped as soon as exam options allowed), I have barely considered my immortal soul, much less the direction it may be heading when I die.

Over the years, when I bothered to think about it at all, I came to the conclusion that I prefer the scientific theory of life and the universe to the spiritual one. I’m most likely an atheist, but one leaning to the agnostic side of the spectrum. I know I’m a sceptic, in the true sense of the word. Or shallow. One of the two.

I was, however, inclined to agree when my wife, who’s a pretty vehement atheist, said that she could cope with just about any life decision our children may make – apart from them wanting to join the military or the clergy. So what happened when our oldest daughter decided that, not only does she believe in God (capital G), but that she also wants to be baptised into the Catholic faith?

This shouldn’t have been as big of a surprise as it was. About five years ago, work took me, my fellow-journalist wife and our then three-year-old child from eastern England to southwest France. We enrolled our little girl at a local Catholic school, selected purely on the recommendation of a colleague for the quality of its education. And frankly, the school had a place when we needed it. She has stayed at the same school, and we have had no cause for complaint. Quite the contrary. We have had every reason to thank our colleague for her on-the-money insight.

Being a Catholic school, an hour is set aside each week for catechism (aka “caté”) lessons. Technically, our daughter should not have started going to caté as she’s not (yet) Catholic, but we never thought to stop her and it’s never been a problem.

A friend takes the class. She has often told us that our daughter is keen to learn and is visibly moved on high days and holidays, when the pupils are taken to church. But it’s one thing taking caté in school. That’s a bit like Catholic-centric RE (religion education for those who don’t use that term). It’s something quite different to want to go the whole hog and get baptised. And, it’s apparently another thing again to knowingly want to be baptised.

At the risk of upsetting my parents, I have to say, I had no choice. I was baptised before I could have any opinion about it. Not that it matters. I was baptised. Other than talking about it here, it has had almost no impact on my life. End of story.

Our little girl, however, has made a life-defining decision by herself. I couldn’t be more proud of her. But I cannot deny that what she said to my wife and I stopped us briefly in our slightly smug, religiously disinterested, bleeding-heart liberal tracks.

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