I wasn’t expecting a fanfare with trumpets, but I did hope for more than a short sidebar reference to the forthcoming 2023 Synod in our weekend parish newsletter. Engagement of parishioners will demand more than an invitation to read the bishop’s letter, take a prayer card and return a completed questionnaire by end October.

So, not that important, eh? Sadly, I expect I will be part of a minority banging a drum to be heard. How many Catholics know that this exercise is more than temperature-testing? Thank goodness for The Tablet’s reporting.

Catherine Brady
Loughborough, Leicestershire