I worked for 10 years as a Roman Catholic priest in south London and was obliged to leave the ministry when I met Clare and we decided to get married (Catholics question why Boris Johnson was able to marry in church, 30 May). Pope John Paul II refused us permission to be married in church. Is it that Boris Johnson always gets what he wants, or is it that the church’s rules defy any rational logic, or is it perhaps both?
Chris Larkman
London
• Twenty-eight years ago, my wife and I were refused a blessing in a Catholic church in Bournemouth on the grounds that I was divorced. My first marriage took place in a register office, but there was no mention of an exemption being made on the grounds that this was not a Catholic ceremony. However, as I had no children from my first marriage, the priest asked if my first wife had refused to have children, as this might be grounds for an annulment. Obviously, this could not be applied to Boris Johnson, given his fecundity. We thought it would not be a good way to start a new relationship if it were to be based on a lie, and so we declined the “offer”.
Name and address supplied
• What a nauseating display of casuistry by the Catholic church. As Father Paul Butler so eloquently put it in the tweet quoted in your article: “Always one canon law for the rich and one for the poor.” Many Catholics – myself included – have fallen foul of the Catholic church’s rules around divorce and remarriage. Instead of privileges for the few, how about mercy and forgiveness for the many? Is it any wonder that so many Catholics are losing faith with the institution of the church?
Edwina Parker
Beverley, Yorkshire
• If memory serves, a Catholic must be in a “state of grace” prior to receiving a holy sacrament. Pity the poor priest who had to hear Boris Johnson’s confession.
Peter Taylor
St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex
• The question on everyone’s lips should be: “Will she make an honest man out of him?”
Philip Platt
Abergele, Denbighshire
• This page was amended on 2 June 2021 to remove details of the author of a letter that had been included in error.
