Those who fear that Scotland will run out of clergy (News from Britain and Ireland, 30 May) should read Garry Wills’s book Why Priests? That might help rid them of the proprietary mentality that Catholics cannot pray, have liturgies or enjoy the blessings of community, without the services of a male, celibate priest. The Vigil Parish movement here in Boston has shown that lay people are perfectly capable of running a parish. It sprung up as a way of keeping open parishes that Cardinal Seán O’Malley wanted to close in 2004 in order to raise money to pay settlements to victims of abuse. Parish communities all around Boston occupied their churches and ran their own services, week in week out for 10 years, just as meaningfully and as lovingly as any priest could have done.