There was confusion yesterday over the reason for the non-participation of the Muslim and Jewish faiths in the service in the Pro-Cathedral for the victims of the attacks in the US.
Seven Christian churches joined in the ecumenical service, including the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church. The representative of the Russian church, the Rev Michael Gogoleff, read one of the two groups of intercessions.
But there was no representative of the 11,000 Muslims in Ireland involved nor of the Jewish community.
According to a spokesman for the Catholic diocese of Dublin, the Government had requested an ecumenical service. The spokesman pointed out that "ecumenical" describes co-operation between the Christian churches, while "inter-faith" would refer to a service that extended to other, non-Christian faiths. The main Christian churches in Ireland then set about organising the service.
He said members of the Muslim faith were in the body of the church. Some members of the diplomatic corps are Muslim, though it is not clear which of them were present.
However, a Government spokesman told The Irish Times that a request had gone from the Government to all religious denominations to hold "an appropriate service". It was up to the churches to organise it and decide on the form it would take. There was no decision to exclude Muslims and Jews, he said.
