The Minister for Education, Mr Martin, was among a number of prominent Catholics who took Communion in Christ Church Cathedral yesterday. He was attending the consecration of the Right Rev Paul Colton as Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross.
Mr Martin, Mr Simon Coveney TD, a former Labour TD, Ms Joan Burton, and RTE director general Mr Bob Collins all received Communion from the newly consecrated - and youngest - Church of Ireland bishop.
At 38, Bishop Colton had been rector at Castleknock in Dublin and is co-ordinator of religious programmes involving the reformed churches at RTE.
Other Catholics to take Communion during the service included the Deputy Lord Mayor of Cork, Mr Frank Wallace, and the Cork assistant city manager, Mr Dan Buggy. Mr Austin Currie TD, Mr Michael Moynihan TD and Mr P.J. Sheehan TD were also present.
The President, Mrs McAleese, took Communion in Christ Church Cathedral in December 1997, provoking a prolonged controversy. Last September the Catholic bishops issued One Bread One Body, a joint document on Communion.
It was emphatic that "it is not permissible for Catholics to receive Holy Communion, or the sacraments of Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick, from ministers of the Anglican Communion [the Church of England, the Church of Ireland, the Church in Wales, the Scottish Episcopal Church], the Church of Scotland or of other faith communities rooted in the Reformation."
Mr Martin said it was not the first time he had taken Communion at a reformed church service. In Cork they had been sharing services for a long time. "It's nothing new to us in Cork," he said.
Mrs McAleese had been invited but had a prior engagement. She sent a message of encouragement to Bishop Colton which was read out by the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Empey. It said this was "a time for preparation and for looking outward with generosity and humility to each other, so that we can build the kind of bridges which are so clearly necessary."
The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Connell, issued a statement from Rome congratulating Bishop Colton on his ordination. Dr Connell was represented at the service by Mgr Patrick Devine.
In his sermon yesterday the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, the Most Rev Richard Clarke, said "there is, I'm delighted to say, a rising generation which will, I believe, refuse to tolerate the brutal fantasies and monstrous stereotyping of other religious traditions by which all our churches, and not least the Church of Ireland, have sought to bolster up their own membership since time immemorial."
People would not in future belong to any Christian tradition, because belonging to this or that denomination seemed to be part of what it is to belong to a particular tribal grouping within Irish society, he said.
