Religious reconciliation - Mass must not lead to division

AS history shows, few issues have greater potential to cause division and strife among the people of the world than the vexed question of religion.

Wars have been waged across Europe and battles are still being fought today over matters of theological disputation, as manifest by the collision between extreme Muslims and the western world.

For centuries, Ireland has been riven by deep-seated divisions between the Catholic and Protestant churches. Therefore, when representatives of the communities come together in a spirit of unity it ought to be a cause of celebration. However, despite advances in the ecumenical field, the controversy raging following the concelebration of Easter Mass by Catholic priests and a Church of Ireland clergyman in Drogheda, has emphatically demonstrated that the boundaries remain as sharply defined as ever. What began, perhaps naively, as an inclusive eucharistic celebration of the 1916 Rising, involving a congregation of one thousand parishioners drawn from both churches, is believed to be the first concelebration of its kind since the Reformation was initiated by Martin Luther in 1517.