Gesture of ecumenism stirs a public debate

WE expect a Dean of St Patrick’s to cause a stir, and the Very Rev Robert MacCarthy is no exception.

Without resorting to any authority higher than his conscience, he has extended a Christian invitation for the use of St Patrick’s cathedral to the seven former presidential candidates.

Since these seven included a member of MacCarthy’s congregation, Senator David Norris, and a former member of the IRA, Martin McGuinness, now Deputy First Minister in Northern Ireland and, I believe, a Roman Catholic, we must admire his ecumenism. His invitation is a gesture of Christian reconciliation and compassion, especially in the light of the persecution of Protestants in Ireland, whether in 1641 or in the 20th century.

When I came to Trinity College Dublin in 1968, the ban on the attendance of Roman Catholics imposed by Archbishop McQuaid in his Lenten Regulations of 1944 was still in force. It would be good to see the Dean’s generosity reciprocated, not least by McGuinness (a former colleague of Ian Paisley) whose role as peacemaker I applaud.

No doubt the Dean was acting ultra vires. St Patrick’s cathedral is the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland and is not in the gift of its dean. It is a symbol of Christian unity in the 32 counties.

Without jeopardising the status of St Patrick’s cathedral within the Anglican Communion, we can extend a small measure of Christian charity to the Dean, whom I know and honour as a man of God and a true Irishman. We can end, once and for all, the conflict between Protestants and Roman Catholics that has stained the history of Ireland and assert in its stead the unity of our Christian tradition extending as far back as St Patrick himself. Let us turn a local difficulty of a kind sadly not unusual among Christian congregations into an opportunity for Christian renewal under a new and enthusiastic President.

Roman Catholics and Protestants in Ireland surely wish in 2011 to operate on a basis of complete equality. And after all, the Church of Ireland is Irish.

Gerald Morgan

The Chaucer Hub, Trinity College

Dublin 2