Francis Campbell (“Bureaucracies are often seen as something to be overcome or bypassed”, 29 August) fails to recognise that the reason the Roma Curia has been so “successful” over so many years is that it is an organ of a dictatorship, and one that has brought the Church to the unhappy place where we are now. He talks of the “benefits” of the Italian culture, which of course also produced the Cosa Nostra.Has he really not understood that the Vatican and the bishops have created the current problems by their continuing refusal to engage with the laity. Where else will you find the “electorate” treated with such contempt by the “elected” representatives. Campbell needs an immediate and sharp dose of reality.Kevin Hannigan, Lechlad