It is good that your news story on the finances of the Leeds Diocese (News from Britain and Ireland, 2 May) recognised the difficulties recently faced by the administrator over a period of some two years – “without a bishop in place the diocese was run by an administrator who had limited powers and who was not able to make decisions such as appointing a new financial secretary.” As a retired priest of that diocese, may I amplify that statement, by acknowledging the universal admiration in the diocese for the way that the administrator, Mgr John Wilson, despite having one arm tied behind his back, valiantly beat out the flames at the peripheries of an inherited incendiary financial situation, thus preventing its further spread. These sede vacante problems, which were