The Pope’s opponents
As a parish priest serving in the Midlands, I have had contact over the years with young Polish Catholics. The impression they give of their experience of the Church in Poland is one of clerical and hierarchical harshness, with unsympathetic and legalistic clergy. Jonathan Luxmoore’s article “Poland plays a waiting game” (30 July) strengthens this impression. The fact that Poland produces “at least a quarter of all the priestly vocations in Europe” is alarming, to say the least.

What is puzzling about the antagonism towards Pope Francis among the hierarchies of Poland and the United States, in particular, is that these very people wish to instil in the faithful a respect for the authority of the Church as invested in the Pope, cardinals and bishops. Do they not realise that contradicting and ignoring what Francis says gives the laity leave to contradict and ignore them?