A Church of Ireland
rector who concelebrated the controversial 2006 Easter Sunday Mass in
Drogheda with three Augustinian priests has, for the first time, given
his theological reasons for doing so.
The Mass at St Peter’s Augustinian Church was concelebrated by Rev Michael Graham, Fr Iggy O’Donovan, Fr Richard Goode and Fr Noel Hession.
Rev Graham
told worshippers then it was “the first public celebration in Drogheda
of the Eucharist by a Catholic priest of the Anglican tradition in a Catholic Church of the Roman tradition since the Reformation”.
Fr
O’Donovan welcomed “members of our sister Church of Ireland” there and
later described the event as “the most meaningful Eucharist I ever
celebrated”.
Within a month a statement from the Augustinian congregation said Fr O’Donovan, Fr Goode and Fr Hession had written to the Catholic Primate Cardinal Brady,
the papal nuncio and the prior general of the Augustinian Order in
Rome, apologising “for the ill-considered celebration”.
Fr O’Donovan was
dismissed from his annual six-month teaching stint in Rome.
Last month Fr O’Donovan, who moved to Limerick in September, was awarded the Freedom of Drogheda.
In a book The History of Religious and Cultural Integration in Drogheda, published on Wednesday, Rev Graham explains his understanding of
differences between Anglicans and Catholics on the Eucharist.
“People
would say ‘you don’t believe in transubstantiation’ as an Anglican. We
believe in the Real Presence. Christ is really present at the Eucharist
in the elements of bread and wine. It’s not symbolic. The only
difference is (that) the Roman Catholic tradition defines how Christ is present in the bread.”