The Beeb has a charming profile of one Catholic family eagerly awaiting the pope’s visit this week — all of them, converts:

“It will be just like going to Wembley to watch Bristol City play, with the flags flying, but better.”

That’s how Mike Smith, from Frome has described what it will be like going to Hyde Park to see the Pope on Saturday, 18 September 2010.

His family will be among the 80,000 people gathered there to see the Pope and share a vigil with him.

After attending mass five years ago, they converted to Catholicism describing it as like “coming home”.

The Smith family explored Catholicism after their daughter Lauren was put into a Catholic school.

They attended Mass in order to learn more about the faith so they were in a better position to answer any questions she might have had.

Mike Smith said: “We were going to church but were never totally happy, we only went once a fortnight, it was a chore to go.

“We put the kids into Catholic school but felt we needed to know about Catholic faith and when we went into church for first time, we felt there was something about this place.

“We felt it was like a family waiting for us to come.”

Sweet. Read the rest.