This week Dr Gavin Ashenden talks to Steve Ray, the acclaimed American author of Crossing The Tiber and Upon This Rock, among other titles, and a man hailed as one of the most effective Catholic apologists of the present generation.

In this 34th episode of the Merely Catholic podcast series for the Catholic Herald, Mr Ray recalls how he left the Baptist faith of his youth to become a dedicated and highly-motivated Catholic after, like St John Henry Newman, he studied the writings of such Fathers as Ss Irenaeus of Lyon, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna and recognised that their sub-Apostolic faith was the same as that professed by the Church.

Mr Ray also offers some insight into new and emerging contemporary crises in the history of the Church and shares some opinions about what the future may hold.