In a major ecumenical development Ireland's four main churches are to share one place of worship in the new west Dublin Adamstown town centre. Involved are the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian Church, and the Methodist Church.
This has grown out of "the extraordinarily long-standing and integrity-filled ecumenical relationship in the Lucan area," said Fr John Hasset, Parish development priest in Adamstown.
The town centre project, which was launched in Dublin last night, "afforded us a new situation in a new Ireland with new communities an opportunity to give witness alongside each other," he said.
Rev Dr Trevor Morrow, minister to the Presbyterian congregation at Lucan, said the shared place of worship at Adamstown "demonstrated the extraordinary level of unanimity (between the churches) and the diversity of each as it was evident there were things we still cannot do together." He felt they could also be more "together, on social and moral issues" just as in the Lucan area they marked Good Friday, Easter, and Christmas together.
Fr Hasset emphasised the degree of support their plan to share a common place of worship had received from the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Most Rev Diarmuid Martin and the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin Most Rev John Neill. They supported the project "100 per cent, at every step of the way," he said.