I have been spending the week in Rome, having breakfast and dinner most days with Pope Francis I. Literally. How did a suburban mum from Canberra end up sharing digs, and dinners, with His Holiness, not to mention narrowly avoiding collision with the successor of Peter, coming and going from his rooms at Casa Santa Marta, within the precincts of the Vatican?

I am here for a conference of jurists and other lay people about the rights of the family for the Pontifical Council for the Family.