27 JULY 1985, Page 22

Popish Plot?

Sir: The conversion of the Spectator into a Vatican house journal continues apace. This process reached a new low in this week's issue when no fewer than three major articles were devoted to the travails and troubles of the Catholic Church. Sure- ly not all your readers are of the Popish persuasion? Nor, I would suggest, are they over-interested in the decline of an institu- tion which is a prime repository of ignor- ance, superstition and sexual hypocrisy. Is it not time to request your Catholic contri- butors to take themselves off, bag and baggage, bell, book and candle and re- move their dusty dogmas to the pages of the Tablet, the Universe and similar organs? There are few forums left which possess a modicum of good sense, wit, informed comment and reason without removing the Spectator from their ranks. Remember Ridley and Latimer! Or did the English martyrs flame in vain?

Nigel Jones Baldock. Herts.