Sir, - I was very saddened and not a little angered to read of the recent remarks of Monsignor Denis Faul and Archbishop Desmond Connell about the Church of Ireland and its Eucharistic liturgy in the aftermath of the controversy surrounding President McAleese's reception of Holy Communion in Christ Church Cathedral. Mgr Faul's comments were extremely offensive and gratuitously insulting to the central and most sacred service in the Church of Ireland. They were also insulting to our Blessed Lord whose Sacrament it is.
Jesus himself is host at our Eucharist. It is His risen and divine presence we proclaim and it is His finished and eternal sacrifice we celebrate in our liturgy. I believe in, and unapologetically proclaim, His real presence and plead His atoning sacrifice at every Eucharist at which I preside. Any cursory reading of the Church of Ireland Eucharistic liturgy or perusal of the Communion hymns in our hymnal will show the basis of this belief.
Archbishop Connell's recent comments, in which he used the words "sham" and "deception" when referring to Roman Catholic people receiving Holy Communion in Church of Ireland churches, beggar belief in this post-Vatican II and allegedly ecumenical age. To speak of the doctrines of the Church of Ireland as a "faith other than apostolic" and to imply that Church of Ireland doctrine is "incompatible with it" displays not only crass insensitivity and arrogance but a culpable ignorance of what fellow Christians hold dear. He should withdraw his remarks at once and apologise to members of the Church of Ireland.
While we regard our Roman Catholic neighbours as brothers and sisters in Christ and part of the same Christian family as ourselves, we cannot cede to Mgr Faul, Dr Connell or any other individual or church the sole claim on the word "Catholic" or the right to decide for us what our beliefs are or how orthodox they might be. We too claim to be Catholic Christians with Catholic sacraments and Catholic Holy Orders passed on from the preReformation Western Church. With our Roman Catholic neighbours we rejoice in the inheritance bequeathed to us from the Lord and his apostles and from Patrick and the ancient Irish Church. Of course we have our share of bigots and sectarian fundamentalists who insult the faith of our fellow Christians and who greatly shame us. It saddens me to discover the mirror image of such sectarianism alive and well among senior Roman Catholic churchmen.
These recent remarks have done all Irish Christians a great disservice and serve to keep alive the disease that has bedevilled this island for far too long.
May the Saviour whose birth we celebrate deliver us all from the prison of our sectarianism. - Yours, etc.,
Rector, St George's Parish Church, High Street, Belfast.