From Mr Richard Sheridan Sir, Pat Pinsent of CWN is

quick to inform us that "Catholic Women's Network is an integral part of the contemporary Catholic Church" (Jan 11) but she needs to be reminded of one or two things. Firstly, CWN's membership is very small – approximately 300 – and by its own admission, in an open letter to the late Cardinal Hume dated March llth 1997, it stated that "a significant number of our members are non-practising'".
If CWN's members are "nonpractising", and if they wilfully reject Catholic teaching on faith and morals that have to be definitively held, such as the Church's teaching on women's ordination, they can no longer consider themselves in full communion with the Catholic Church, let alone an "integral part" of it.
This is not some idea of Joanna Bogle's, or any other lay person come to that.
It is papal teaching, recently clarified in the papal document Ad Tuendam Fidem and the accompanying notes from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Yours faithfully, J R SHERIDAN [email protected]