Your answers

Is it appropriate for members of the clergy to display election propaganda such as signs reading "Vote Labour", in parsonage gardens?

The conventional answer is no. In a democracy, unless it be assumed that only one party has any grasp of Christian principles, the normal assumption is that it is possible for members of congregations to hold to different political allegiances with integrity.

It follows that a parish priest who is the "parson", the representative person in the parish, should not publicly espouse any political allegiance.

Many years ago, my Reader was taken to task about my long-standing membership of a political party, something about which I had never spoken openly. My Reader replied that the honorary curate belonged to the other major party, and he himself was a Freemason!

Quite different is the raising of particular issues, many of which are not entirely straightforward: subsidiarity in relation to our membership of the EU, the nature of justice in relation to current penal policy, issues of wealth and poverty in relation to biblical examples of the common life, and so on.

Nor are these issues new or unrelated to the Church itself: the right of the Church to own property at all was a matter of long debate in the 14th century. The place of the calling to holy poverty resulted in papal pronouncements.

A parson is both pastor and teacher, and is surely right to raise issues and debate them - without pre-judging the arguments by allying oneself to a particular manifesto.

(Canon) R. H. W. Arguile,  Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk

Yes. It is their home, and they have every right to their political opinions and to express them.

In the vicarage where I was brought up, one parishioner complained about my father's Liberal poster in "her" vicarage.

She was even more incensed when these Liberal posters in the study window competed with my mother's Labour poster in the kitchen window. But what an example of marital tolerance and respect!

Christine Clark 

Your questions

With reference to your article on the Barchester Chronicles (Features, 17 April), does anyone recall the name of the bishop who once announced to his clergy that there was nothing he enjoyed more than going to bed with a good Trollope? D. L. G.

We are frequently reminded that, in today's secularised world, the Church's principal focus should be mission. Why, on the evidence of your columns, are increasing numbers of parochial clergy finding time to pursue academic doctoral studies?