I totally understand the position of Mary Geoghegan (Letters, 28 June), who described what happened when a priest came to her parish with no sense of accountability to the laity. In happier times, I remember the late Bishop Jim O’Brien in Hertfordshire inducting numerous parish priests. He always explained that he was giving the priest to the parish, not the parish to the priest! Very much “the spirit of the law”, which sadly is not enshrined in canon law. More’s the pity.Andrew McCarthy, Tolpuddle, Dorset It seems to me that there is doublethink operating within the episcopate. On the one hand you report Cardinal Nichols as preaching that bishops must be servants of the people (News from Britain and Ireland, 5 July). On the other, multiple parishes are being cite