Next Tuesday evening in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, a report of the Church of Ireland Bishops' Advisory Commission on Doctrine will be launched.
The speaker will be the Archbishop of Armagh and there will be a response from Fr Bernard Treacy OP, editor of Doctrine & Life.
The report, entitled The Authority of Scripture, seeks to discover "a safe and holy place where Christians of different traditions and outlooks may meet together in humility to uncover the riches of the Holy Scriptures". The core of the report is five chapters written by Dr Andrew Pierce (Irish School of Ecumenics), the Very Rev Dr Stephen White (Dean of Killaloe), the Rev Dr Maurice Elliott (Rector of Shankill), the Very Rev Dr Sue Patterson (Dean of Killala) and the Rev Prof Nigel Biggar (Trinity College Dublin). The chairman of the commission, the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, has contributed an introduction and an afterword.
The report is the most substantial publication so far by Church of Ireland Publishing, managed by the literature committee under the chairmanship of Dr Kenneth Milne, and has benefited enormously from the attention of the Church of Ireland publications officer, Dr Susan Hood.
The Authority of Scripture is available from the Resource Centre Bookshop, Holy Trinity Church, Rathmines, Dublin 6, and from the Good Bookshop, Donegal Street, Belfast at €7.25/£5.
Today the Minister of State for Children, Brian Lenihan, will open the Catacombs, incorporating Cosy Cats Child Care Provision, at Calry parish church, Sligo, where the rector is Canon Liz McIlnenney. This €1 million project has transformed five disused crypts under the church into 3,500 sq feet of space which will be used primarily for childcare programmes. Meanwhile in China, two TCD students, Graham Ruddle and Roisin Rowley Brook, will begin a month's voluntary work with the Shanghai YMCA.
Tomorrow morning, RTÉ will broadcast a service from the church's Ministry of Healing in Belfast, led by the Rev Dr Pat Mollan, while in St Mary's Church, Nenagh, there will be a thanksgiving service for the 100th anniversary of Nenagh Church of Ireland National School. In the afternoon, the Friends of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, will attend festal evensong, where the preacher will be the Dean of York, the Very Rev KB Jones.
In Christ Church Cathedral at 3.30pm, the Archbishop of Dublin will ordain John Marchant and John Ardis to the diaconate. The Bishop of Down and Dromore will raise four deacons to the priesthood in Dromore Cathedral, where the preacher will be Canon Paul Draper; while in Lisburn Cathedral, the Bishop of Connor will ordain four deacons to the priesthood.
On Tuesday, the standing committee of the general synod and the executive committee of the Representative Church Body will meet in Dublin. The House of Bishops will meet on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Down and Dromore Diocesan Synod will be held in Moira.
In St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, on Friday evening at 7.45pm, the former South African ambassador to Ireland, Melanie Verwoerd, will address Mothers' Union members.
In St Fin Barre's Cathedral, at 8pm, the Bishop of Cork will ordain Paula Geary and Walter Hill to the diaconate.