How a case can be misinterpreted to put the Church in a bad light

TODAY begins the annual Week of Prayer for Christian Unity - a time when Jesus Christ’s wish that his followers ‘may all be one’ is the focus of Christian prayer both within individual denominations and at ecumenical gatherings.

This is a week for Christians to reflect all that has been achieved in the difficult field of ecumenism, and to look forward to what may yet be accomplished.

For some people, the need to look back remains strong all the same. The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Neill, spoke last week of his ‘worry’ that some commentators now claim the dominant Catholic ethos of the Irish constitution in the past “had never been used in a negative way where other denominations were concerned.”