In their call for the reinstatement (if they are willing) of laicised priests, Basil Loftus and Kevin J. Hartley have my enthusiastic support (Letters, 12 April). To prevent this development being interpreted as just another desperate attempt to make up for our present chronic shortage of priests, our Church needs urgently to revisit the vexing problem of mandatory celibacy. Even if the Vatican only thinks in centuries it must surely be obvious, after a thousand years of compelling it, that it is both a failure and a mistake. It is a mistake because it does no justice whatsoever to the beautiful theology of the human body and its sexuality which is so apparent and so attractive to most of our world. Its widespread failure is measured not only by the frighteningly large numbers who felt fo