Thank you for the most interesting juxtaposition of comments on Mary at the Annunciation by Margaret Hebblethwaite and Melanie McDonagh (“One woman’s work” and Notebook, 26 March). Although theologically the Church has always taught that it is Mary’s fiat which enables Jesus’ conception, both the way Luke 1:26-38 has long been read and the framing of the Angelus diminish the centrality of her active consent.

The subliminal effect then becomes akin to Greco-Roman myths of male gods taking helpless young women. Could this be a factor in what is now being revealed about male clerical abuse of religious women, and the supposed sanctifying of such abuse in cases like Jean Vanier’s?

I’ve been editing the Angelus for years. Here’s my current version: