Madam, - I write in response to Fr Paul Clayton-Lea's letter of April 22nd, which should do him no harm at all in the hallowed halls of Armagh.
I was one of the musicians at the historic Mass in the Augustinian Church on Easter Sunday and it was a lasting memory for all who were lucky enough to be there.
Fr Clayton-Lea contends that the ceremony was mere liturgical opportunism. May I suggest that one man's liturgical opportunism is another man's heroic reaching out to fellow travellers to the Lord. He also seemed to think that politics played its furtive role in the Mass. I find this contention bizarre, hysterical and indeed unworthy of comment.
Could Fr Clayton-Lea not find it in his Christian heart to see that Jesus Christ presided over our ceremony, where 800 souls had gathered in his name? The question is surely not if one is a Catholic or a Protestant but if one actually believes in God. - Yours, etc,
TERRY McHUGH, Ballmakenny Road, Drogheda, Co Louth.
Madam, - Some simple questions about the Church of Ireland minister participating in the Mass in Drogheda at the request of Augustinian priests. Why would a man who assented to the Anglican 39 Articles of Religion, one of which (Article 31) denounces the Roman Mass as a "blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit" actively want to participate in that sacrament? Why would Roman Catholic priests let him?
Even though Roman Catholic priests may turn up and smile benevolently for photographs at Protestant ordinations, their church does not recognise the call of Christ to that office of any outside of their own fold, regarding it as "null and void".
It certainly does not recognise the ability of the CoI celebrant to supposedly turn the wine and bread into the literal body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.
Biblical Protestantism has always stood for the finished work of Jesus Christ upon the Cross (John 19:30). It repudiates the Mass on this basis: "Every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God" (Hebrews 10:11-12).
Drogheda was a farce for many reasons. I hope Archbishop Eames declares it to be such, in a way that is consistent with his own articles of religion. - Yours, etc,
COLIN MAXWELL, (Cork Free Presbyterian Church), Shanakiel, Cork.
Madam, - "Faith", wrote Evelyn Waugh, "is not a mood". The assertion in your Editorial of April 21st that Easter, of all religious feasts, would appropriately be marked by a sharing of the Eucharist among faithful of the Catholic Church and members of the Church of Ireland, expresses a sentiment that is heartwarming but naive.
We (Catholics and non-Catholics)believe that greater ecumenical understanding can never be achieved through actions that eviscerate the religious beliefs of both traditions. Such actions merely offend believers and point to a seriously defective faith on the part of the pastors concerned.
The division is caused by a fundamental difference of belief in the crucial doctrine of transubstantiation, and is not the result of whim or caprice that can lightly be set aside to suit the circumstances. - Yours, etc,
ORLA HALPENNY, ANNE NORMOYLE, AURORE LUBAKI, Glenard University Residence, Clonskeagh, Dublin 14.