I suggested a coffee shop

Mum's doing a lot of work at the Parish Council at the minute, and wants to know what the church could be doing to keep the Youth from running away at the age of 18 and never setting foot into a church again.

My answer to this one wasn't exactly impressive (see above), but here's a few more ideas:

1) Sexism is wrong. Have girl altar servers, at the very least. And women priests too. It's hard to overstate what a complete anachronism any organisation becomes when it's still fundamentally sexist in 2004. There was a time a few years ago when female altar servers were tolerated, but it came to the pope's attention, and that was that.

It's a real fundamental one. A good analogy would be a really nice cafe that still practised racial segregation. No matter how good the lattes were, I'd either be boycotting or firebombing the place. You don't have that problem in the church of England.

2) Engage in debate. There's no point in using the style Tony Blair has nicked if you're looking to include people who really don't like being patronised (ie most kids). The style of debate I remember from church was treating the person who disagrees at best as someone who's just not read it properly, at worse as if they've got a mild learning disability. No two people will really believe the same thing in the real world, and religious differences should be more than tolerated, healthy debate keeps an organisation from plunging into intellectual stagnation. You don't have that problem in the church of England.

3) Stop coming out with daft pronouncements. The Cardinal's not made waves, but there he and a few people have said some important things (Poverty more dangerous than terrorism). But then it gets overshadowed by ridiculous stuff, most of it coming from Rome, and involving sex.

4) Look at the calender. Closer than that. What do you see? Yes April, what else? A picture of a cathedral. Yes, that's the one- the year is 2004.

The Pope recently wrote a letter to all parishes urging them to oppose gay marriage, describing homosexuality as "evil". This was read out in Catholic schools. Jesus.

There we go, that's DOAFW's top tips for dragging the Catholic Church kicking and screaming into the 19th century. One step at a time.