MIKE Mineter is a Catholic in his 50s from Edinburgh, who set up a blog to encourage people to participate in a vigil of prayer for the future of the Church.

He is among those who grew up in the wake of Vatican II and is concerned the vision and openness it promised is being lost.

"We used to be encouraged to explore future possibilities," he said.

"But now an imposed uniformity is replacing that diversity, and that seems to me to be causing stress that is bubbling under the surface.

"I was involved last month in bringing some people together. We held a vigil of prayer out of concern for the growing gulf between the institutional Roman Catholic Church and some of the people who are active in the Church and also leaving through being disillusioned.

"The idea that priests are told not to discuss the possibility of women priests or married priests seems to me bizarre, when we actually have married former Anglican priests, and I see such effective women ministers in the Church of Scotland.

"Yet this is not the deepest issue here – I think that concerns 'What are we for as Church? What is our ministry to the world, and what should our priesthood look like in the future?'.

"That is to do with far more than sustaining the current class of the ordained, upon which the Vatican places so much focus."

Lack of discussion is 'bizarre'