The House of Prayer on Achill Island, Co Mayo, which attracts an estimated 10,000 pilgrims annually, is to close this week, its founder, Mrs Christina Gallagher, said yesterday.
The decision has provoked an outcry from pilgrims, and local business people have criticised the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, over the closure. They said restrictions he had imposed on the House had made it impossible for it to continue.
The centre, a former convent overlooking the Atlantic, generates an estimated £500,000 annually for the local economy.
Mrs Gallagher did not inform the archbishop of the decision to close the centre, but went on local radio to say that this weekend's ceremonies would be the last.
She told Mid-West Radio that there had been no negotiation between her and the Catholic Church. "There was dictation, but no negotiation."
Mrs Gallagher said: "I am putting the record straight. I don't want any hassle with the bishop. I surrender to his authority and pray that God will receive all, because God knows all."
When told by the archbishop that he intended running the House of Prayer as a private association, Mrs Gallagher appealed the decision to Rome without success. "I am not mentally or physically able to take any more", she said. "I haven't got the strength in mind or body. It is closing at the weekend."
Father Brendan Kilcoyne, secretary to the Archbishop of Tuam, said yesterday that the church had not instructed Mrs Gallagher to close the House of Prayer.
He explained that the House of Prayer had started off as a small operation and had been intended to stay that way, to act as a retreat house to concentrate on adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. "Very quickly it became something different, a kind of de facto shrine. What Archbishop Neary was trying to do was bring it closer to the structures of the church, and inevitably that brought certain restrictions."
Father Kilcoyne explained that the archdiocese wanted to set up a private association and had repeatedly offered Mrs Gallagher the services of a canon lawyer.
After the publication last year of a church commission report the Archbishop of Tuam tightened his control on the centre. Sunday Masses were discontinued and confessions withdrawn. There was discontent at Easter when the archbishop directed pilgrims to the local church at Achill Sound for the traditional ceremonies.