The predicted collapse in the numbers of priests in the Archdiocese of Dublin (“Dublin priesthood ‘to decline by two-thirds in 15 years’”, News from Britain and Ireland, 23 January) is the story of most dioceses in England and Wales too. Research findings for religious belief and practice among young people make equally grim reading. Some of the suggested proposals for dealing with the situation feel like we have been looking at out-of-date maps. I wonder if at this critical time what we need are places of study and scholarship, reflection and spirituality, where we can rediscover what Henri de Lubac described as the hallmark of the Catholic experience, “a balance of religion, morality and mysticism”. Otherwise, after all the rearranging of diocesan str