Sara Maitland (Column, 8 February) deplores the  scarcity of priests. Prayers for priestly vocations are not being granted, she suggests, because God wants us to rethink our ideas of what the priesthood is all about.Do we need to be more open to the kind of candidates whom the Holy Spirit is challenging to accept this vocation? Is the Spirit open only to celibate, male clergy, acting in a full-time working capacity? It is sad for the laity to observe the decline in the number of priests serving our communities and, at the same time, to recognise that there are married priests we know who would gladly return to ministry. It is mystifying to try and make sense of the ­present arrangements, especially with the ­ordinariate in mind. Maureen Jewess, Chelmsford, EssexSara Maitland&