FATHER Aidan Jones stepped down as Ferns director of ecumenism of the Catholic Church after a quarter century in the post with a farewell speech last week to the diocesan ecumenical committee. And the parish priest of Bunclody departed confident that people of different religious traditions now live in greater harmony than they did when he was first drawn to inter-faith activity in the Seventies.
"There have been dramatic changes in every way over the 25 years,' commented Fr Jones, who has handed over responsibility to Rosslare-based Fr James Murphy.
Meanwhile, his long-time opposite number Dean Leslie Forrest is making way for Tinahely's Rev Arthur Minion.
The departing cleric, speaking at the ecumenical society meeting in St Mogue's Cottage in Ferns, recalled that the approach to marriages of mixed religion began to change in the late Eighties.
The churches then came to realise that the couples were more important than theological legalities.
Father Jones noted that during his time the ecumenical committee welcomed more than a hundred guest speakers, including Cardinal Seán Brady and Dean Robert Maccarthy.
The group also played its part in the 1798 bicentenary commemorations.