That our bishops “call for action to tackle poverty” (News from Britain and Ireland, 23 November) can only be welcomed. That some in this country receive “unjustifiably high pay” is glaringly true. But why is it that our bishops find it so hard to make the connection between poverty and military expenditure? The sharp end of this currently is the proposal to spend £100 billion on building and running a replacement Trident fleet of nuclear missile submarines.When Archbishop Mamberti spoke for the Vatican to the UN General Assembly in September about the elimination of all nuclear weapons, he challenged the good faith of those countries, like ours, which are proceeding with “modernisation” programmes and decline to take part in abolition negotiation