THE DEAN of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Rev Robert MacCarthy, said he had “no intention of being silenced” by the cathedral’s board following a disagreement over a letter he wrote to this newspaper about comments by President Mary McAleese during her recent visit to Turkey.
“I don’t intend being muzzled by the board. I don’t intend resigning and the board has no powers to compel me to resign,” he told The Irish Times.
His comments followed a letter published in this newspaper yesterday from board member Alan Graham. In it Mr Graham announced it had been “agreed, unanimously, by the board [June 2008] that the current dean should not write any ‘public’ letter without the prior consent of the board”.
Referring to a letter from Dean MacCarthy, published by The Irish Times last Tuesday, Mr Graham said consent to submit it “was not sought” by the dean.
The dean’s letter expressed surprise at comments by President McAleese that Ireland favoured Turkey joining the EU. He said this should not happen until there was religious freedom in Turkey and, particularly, not until the orthodox seminary there was allowed to reopen.
He also objected to a reference, in an official programme for the visit, to the President meeting “the Greek patriarch”. “This is how the Turkish authorities would like to refer to him. In fact he is the ecumenical patriarch, the first in honour throughout the whole Orthodox world,” he said.
Mr Graham said the board passed a resolution of no confidence in Dean MacCarthy in September 2008.
Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, Mr Graham said he had “no objection to the dean doing his own thing, as deans have done over the centuries, but it is one thing to make a general public comment and another to be offensive”.
He said the board’s immediate reason for acting against Dean MacCarthy in 2008 had been a letter to this newspaper the previous April, in which he said of Muslims and Hindus that, “to them, religious education has no meaning; instead they wish their children to be indoctrinated in the worship of a cult”.
Mr Graham said that letter was “the culmination of difficulties, many of them petty, but which collectively” demanded action by the board.
He agreed that the board, whose responsibilities at the Dublin cathedral are to do with its finances, had no formal powers over Dean MacCarthy.
The board is responsible for finances, the maintenance of the cathedral, and employment of its staff. It is made up of 10 clergy and 10 laity, and is chaired by Dean MacCarthy.
The dean agreed yesterday he had attended that June 2008 meeting at which it was “unanimously” decided he could not write any further “public” letters without its approval. But no vote was taken at the meeting, he said. He was absent from the meeting in September 2008 which passed the vote of no confidence. Traditionally, the dean of St Patrick’s retires at 75. Dean MacCarthy is 70.