Cardinal Desmond Connell has said he would be "very worried if disagreements about issues like intercommunion were characterised as uncharitable rowing and conflict".
Speaking at Dublin Airport yesterday, he said: "The truth is different. We must speak honestly and openly about the things that matter. But we must also recognise the Holy Spirit at work in each other's Christian communities.
"Ireland owes much to its Christian heritage. But Christianity is not just a part of our past. We must live Christianity in the present moment and realise that Christianity is essential to our future as well."
Dr Connell was speaking on his return from Rome, where he became a cardinal last week. He was welcomed at the airport by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mr Maurice Ahern, and the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto. Afterwards he paid a courtesy call on the President, Mrs McAleese, at Aras an Uachtarain.
Meanwhile, a Church of Ireland rector has called on Catholic priests to break a "conspiracy of silence" and speak out against Cardinal Connell's views on intercommunion.
The Rev Stephen Neill, rector of Cloughjordan and Borrisokane in Co Tipperary, said that the cardinal's criticisms were setting back inter-church relations by years.
Mr Neill said he was aware that there were Catholic clergy in "senior positions" who were in disagreement with the cardinal's comments.
He also believed there were "many within the hierarchy of the Irish Roman Catholic Church" who felt pained and embarrassed. "I am convinced of that, and I would love to see them finding a voice, because I think that it could certainly make a difference in the long term", he said.
The cardinal's criticisms did not seem to come out of any interaction with communities and what they were experiencing on the ground, he said.
Mr Neill's remarks come as a response to what he described as "pain and hurt felt in Church of Ireland circles" following the cardinal's comments.
"It is very painful when you are extending a welcome, as we do to our brothers and sisters from other communions, to have the doors slammed in our own faces, but particularly to be told what to do within our own churches. I would respect Cardinal Connell's position and the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church, but when members of his church come to our church we have to treat them the same as our own", Mr Neill said.
He himself had attended many Masses and had received Communion at them, he said.
