Sir, - As a Presbyterian minister in Northern Ireland, I have followed the discussion about the President's participation in Communion in Christ Church with interest and dismay. If ecumenism has been threatened by anything, it has been by the exclusive and insulting responses of a number of Roman Catholic clergy.
Is a Presbyterian Communion Service a sham? Dr Connell was at pains in The Irish Times on December 19th to give a dictionary definition to clarify what was meant. My dictionary gives a range of definitions which includes "pretended" and `'counterfeit". To use such a word is open to serious misunderstanding.
Communion in the tradition to which I belong is a means of grace. In bread and wine, we receive from, and respond to, the risen Christ in faith. Not a sham, by any of many definitions I find in my dictionary.
Is a Presbyterian Communion Service a "free for all"? (The article by Andy Pollak in your issue of December 13th quoted Mgr Faul saying: "If you have `no Pope here' you'll have a free-for-all in regard to the sacraments.") If "free for all" means chaos or disorder, let me say that this in no way describes the Presbyterian Communion Service. Our liturgy may be different, but there is good order and discipline. An ordained minister conducts the service. The bread and wine are distributed by the elders - a democratically elected group who, having been ordained, are responsible for church order and discipline. There is good liturgy, worship, form, structure, and participation.
Another non-chaotic sense of the words "free for all" may well apply to Presbyterian Communion. God's grace is free for all. Our invitation to the Lord's Table is for "all who love the Lord in sincerity and truth".
On December 13th you quoted Mgr Faul as saying: "We have, thank God, one Catholic Church, whereas there are over 500 Protestant churches." The word catholic means "universal", doesn't it? We too say the Nicene Creed . . . "one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church." We too believe it, and believe ourselves to be part of it. The Roman Catholic Communion is one part of the Church Catholic/Universal that must surely include the 500 Protestant churches, along with the Orthodox Communion, Pentecostals and others.
Perhaps it is time for all of us to stop using elitist and exclusive language. It results in elitist and exclusive behaviour of the most awful kind here in the North. The complete separation of Church and State throughout this island might also help. - Yours, etc.,
Minister of Cairncastle Presbyterian Church, Ballygally, Co Antrim.