ABOUT 250 people protested outside St Anne's Church of Ireland Cathedral in Belfast city centre last night where Cardinal Carlo Martini, the Archbishop of Milan, was speaking at an ecumenical service.
The Catholic Primate, Cardinal Cahal Daly, the Methodist President, the Rev Christopher Walpole, and a representative from the Presbyterian Church also took part in the service. About 1,300 people attended.
Cardinal Martini, who has been tipped by some sections of the media as the next pope, said it was "a joy to be in Ireland and in this beautiful cathedral".
He said that Belfast had been a symbol of the need for "mutual love, understanding and peace".
The protesters were Free Presbyterian members of the Independent Orange Institution, and evangelical Presbyterians.
The DUP leader, the Rev Ian Paisley, was due to lead the picket but was unable to after he caught a virus in Africa. It was led instead by a Free Presbyterian minister, the Rev David McIlveen. He said he was delighted by the number of people who turned up.
In a statement, Dr Paisley criticised the Church of Ireland. "For so called Protestant churchmen to suggest that Christian unity can be forged on the anvil of ecumenism is to compromise the faith of their forefathers," he said.
He predicted that the service would contribute to "personal and national disaster". Dr Paisley added that his church fully accepted "the right of the individual to exercise religious liberty".
However, the Dean of Belfast, the Very Rev Jack Shearer, described pickets by Free Presbyterians as intimidating.
Cardinal Martini will today address the annual ecumenical conference at Greenhills, Co Louth.
He will speak at an ecumenical service in St Patrick's Cathedral in Armagh tonight.