I endorse Clifford Longley’s excellent and timely call in his column (19 September) for another National Pastoral Congress along the lines of the one held in Liverpool in 1980. A re-reading of The Easter People (the bishops’ report of the congress) would make excellent preparation. Regarding women, it asked: “that each of you … use to the full your gifts, your skills and your knowledge in the life and service of the Church. Traditional and unquestioned attitudes towards women ... may have to be changed. We ourselves and our clergy may well have to be persuaded gently of our insensitivity and our assumptions of male dominance … you yourselves will have to be encouraged to take a positive role. You must not be excluded from the process of pastoral planning an