I DO NOT know Patricia McKeever, but it do know her type: Gerald Warner in a skirt.

I do know Cardinal Winning and have done now for some 32 years, since he returned from Rome in 1966 having been appointed Vicar Episcopal of Motherwell and Parish Priest of St Luke's, Forgewood, where I grew up. Lucky Tam Winning, what? Returned from his Roman exile just in time to take part in Celtic's greatest ever season. Then on the threshold of middle-age, but a bhoy for ever!

Fourteen years old at the time and a rather self-opinionated pupil of Our Lady's High School, after Fr Winning's first Sunday mass I voiced one of my opinions to my cousin Betty and her girlfriends. I advised them not to get too fond of our new Parish Priest as he would not be with us long. In my opinion he had obviously been brought back from Rome to be groomed for a bishopric, and most likely in time to replace James Donald Scanlan as Archbishop of Glasgow.

Admittedly I did not foresee his elevation to the Sacred College, but bearing in mind the available data I think I did quite well in my assessment and projection. I pointed out to them that he had a Licentiate in Sacred Theology, a Doctorate in Canon Law, and was an Advocate of the Sacred Roman Rota, the Vatican's marriage tribunal. He had been Spiritual Director of the Pontifical Scots College in Rome, and had been in Rome throughout the Vatican Council.

Clearly he had not been brought back to spend the rest of his priestly life in Forgewood, but some experience as a Parish Priest was, in my less than humble opinion, essential if he was to be appointed a Bishop.

Fr Winning definitely had brains. In my youthful brashness I even thought he was almost as clever as me. Evidently he is still far more clever than the likes of the Patricia McKeevers of this world for, despite being of an age when he can now both book his tickets to Rome via Saga Holidays and qualify for an OAP discount on his season ticket, and I don't mean for the buses, he at least is still well aware that attendance at Sunday mass never, ever, has been the acid test of Catholic life.

Does a failing memory account for Patricia McKeever's quoting ''a Catholic teacher'' out of context? When this teacher stated that ''Catholic schools have the same education aims in RE as do the non-denominational schools'' he was talking specifically about the Standard Grade course in Religious Education and not the teaching of RE as directed by the hierarchy.

When she asserts that the 1918 Act was ''designed to ensure correct doctrinal teaching'' she either does not understand, or perhaps has not read, the Act, or she is deliberately attempting to mislead your readers. The Parliamentary draftsmen of the day did not give a toss about Catholic teaching, correct in doctrine or otherwise. Indeed, Catholicism is not mentioned at all in the Act.

Hugh McLoughlin,

24 Russell Street,

Mossend, Bellshill. June 1.