Anglican Bishop the Rt. Rev. Ewan Ratteray has criticised what he sees as the high-handedness of the Immigration Department, calling its threat to arrest one of his priests for an alleged breach of his work permit "reminiscent of Nazi Germany".

He is right. What is tragic is that others have not joined him in his outrage.

There are several layers to the current row over St. Paul's Anglican Church in Paget. The first concerns the right of a congregation to choose a priest for its church, balanced against the right of a Bermudian priest to have a living in his own country. In the case of Paget, the congregation does not believe there is a suitable Bermudian - or spouse of a Bermudian - and wishes to appoint a Canadian.

The Department of Immigration apparently disagrees, and the two sides are at an impasse, leaving the church without a priest.

If the church did decide to accept a Bermudian whom the congregation disliked, the risk is that the parishioners would vote with their feet, leaving the priest with a church, but no flock. This scenario already seems to be playing out at St. Mark's Church in Smith's Parish, with tragic consequences for all.

At St. Paul's the temporary solution has been to have priests from other parishes fill in. This is an unsatisfactory solution, but the only one available if the church is to continue. Bermudians the Rev. Andrew Doughty and the Rev. David Addington from Warwick are helping to fill in at one service, and Canon Alan Tilson from Hamilton Parish, who is not Bermudian, agreed to conduct the other 8 a.m. service.

Canon Tilson, a popular priest who has built a large and happy congregation at Holy Trinity Church, did not have to do this, but did, presumably out of Christian charity.

The thanks he got last week was to be threatened with arrest because he was allegedly breaching his work permit.

This is shocking behaviour on the part of Immigration. At one level, a discussion between Immigration and the church may have solved the problem instead of threatening a peace-loving man with arrest. More importantly, Canon Tilson has the right to serve his whole church, and not just one parish, and the people of St. Paul's are entitled to worship. This is not simply an immigration matter but goes to the heart of the right to worship, which is enshrined in the Constitution.

And it is, as Bishop Ratteray points out, an infringement of his role as Bishop to have the priests in his diocese serve God as he thinks right. Does this mean that if a priest fell ill, Bishop Ratteray cannot ask another priest to fill in for him, simply because of his nationality?

Some months ago, Bermuda saw Dr. John Murray lose his work permit, in spite of protests that the relationship between a physician and a patient should be given weight by Immigration officials.

If that is true of doctors and patients, surely the spiritual bond between a priest and his congregation is even more important?

The Immigration Department has made a bad mistake and should correct it before any more damage is done.