Next week's rural Catholics’ conference has floods as a central theme, with talks on the subject from a specialist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and a senior Anglican priest. One might assume that the organisers were on the ball and responding to the situation on the Somerset Levels, but in fact the flooding theme was chosen many months ago. This is not the first time the conference has anticipated a major crisis. A few years ago, the theme was quarantine for infected animals, a debate that happened to coincide with an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.The uncanny knack of being so topical is a little worrying to one of the organisers, Fr Robert Miller, parish priest for Tisbury and Wardour in Clifton Diocese. “Makes one feel responsible so