ECUMENICAL INITIATIVE: ALL PRESIDENTIAL candidates were sent a letter by the Dean of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin asking that they support his proposal that it be made a national cathedral for all Irish Christians.
Dean Robert MacCarthy has said that “whether we like it or not, we are now in a situation where the majority of Christians in Dublin and possibly in the State attend no place of worship. We all know some of the reasons why this is so and I for one regret it.
“But there may now be an opportunity to make St Patrick’s into a national cathedral not merely for the Church of Ireland but for all Irish Christians. This was the vision of the late Michael Hurley SJ which he wrote about as long ago as 1970,” he said.
Dean McCarthy said the matter had now become more pressing “and we have already made a modest start in that a Roman Catholic priest and a Presbyterian minister have already been elected to membership of the Cathedral Chapter and preach in their turn alongside the other canons”.
Dean McCarthy was referring to the former professor of moral theology at St Patrick’s College Maynooth, Fr Enda McDonagh, whose installation as an ecumenical canon at St Patrick’s in July 2007 was the first such for a Catholic priest there since the Reformation.
The former moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Rev Dr Ken Newell, was installed as an ecumenical canon at St Patrick’s just days previously.
In his letter to the presidential candidates Dean MacCarthy continued that despite this “there has been little interest in making St Patrick’s a national place of worship on the part of the leadership of the churches - the idea of having a Roman Catholic Mass celebrated regularly in the cathedral has not been acceptable”.
On the other hand he had “encountered a great deal of interest and support from lay people and clergy”.
He noted too that non-Anglican preachers were “quite frequent” at St Patrick’s.
These have included the late cardinal Cahal Daly, the current Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, the Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Down and Connor Anthony Farquhar, the former Catholic bishop of Killaloe Willie Walsh, while Baroness Nuala O’Loan is to preach there on St Patrick’s Day next year, he said.
The dean told the presidential candidates that “my sense now is that an effort to reposition St Patrick’s into a role consistent with both its history and the changes now taking place in Ireland require a transcending initiative from non-church sources.”
It was “an area where the leadership of the president of Ireland could be crucial and appropriate”, he said.