Your news in brief about seven parishes becoming one (The Tablet, 1 November), is not meant to shock. Hartlepool in the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle is not unique. It is taking practical steps to meet the shortage of priests, but it is another indication of looming crisis.
If there were no solution there would be no guilt, but since there is at least a partial solution it is doubly painful to watch the loss of the Eucharist and the disintegration of parishes taking place. The first obvious step would be the further training and ordination of deacons. To do nothing does not just let the people down but Christ himself.
Christopher David, San Bartolome, Lanzarote
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