YOUR REPORT that the Bishops' Conference "was prepared to consider individual applications of married convert clergy for acceptance as candidates for the priesthood in the Catholic Church", struck me as being both cold and condescending, in spite of the explanation given "that the Bishops had been cautions on the issue of convert Anglican married priests, not wishing to appear to be poaching".
It is the sort of reaction that convert Anglican priests received more than 130 years ago from the Catholic Church. 1 quote from Fr C S Dessain's book on Newman, in the hope that the Bishops will keep it well to the front of their minds when they meet again in November.
"It has fretted me, ever since I was a Catholic, that so little use was made of the married converts, like Anglican clergymen, who, I have said and truly, viewed together, have an amount of talent, which the unmarried clergy converted have not.
M T Hayes Edgbaston, Birmingham