LETTER:Priests who cannot keep to celibacy

From Mr Michael Broadbent

Sir: As a former Anglican priest received into the Roman Catholic Church last year, I have reason to be very grateful for the warm and generous welcome which I have received from members of the church, none of whom seem to have been troubled by the kind of misgivings expressed by your correspondents Jackie Hawkins and J. M. Ruane (Letters, 7 July).

We are not, I hasten to assure them, misogynist monsters, and it is a travesty of the truth to suggest that we regard women as "inferior" or "unequal before God". Most of us would readily accept the ordination of women to the priesthood if it could be shown by a consensus of the Universal Church to be what God wants.

Jackie Hawkins complains, perhaps with some justification, of a lack of dialogue: I think that, were she to take the trouble actually to talk to ex-Anglicans who have become Catholics, a lot of misunderstanding could be removed.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Broadbent

Bishop Auckland,

Co Durham

8 July