Sir, - To engage in correspondence with Mgr Faul should not be undertaken lightly, particularly as I have long admired his defence of the voiceless and the marginalised. In the past, I have listened to President McAleese express great admiration of his work and that of Mgr Raymond Murray in standing up against monoliths and inflexible ideologies.
Mgr Faul has championed those who tenaciously resisted manmade laws which he believed to be wrong. He has sat in courts where the judicial process was driven, at times, by the necessity to maintain the establishment's status quo. I would find it hard not to believe that a man of conscience and sensitivity like Mgr Faul can be comfortable in his present role of defending an inflexible Hierarchy which recognised his achievements 20 years too late. I come from a traditional Roman Catholic background, and I still am a practising member of my local Roman Catholic church. It has been my "conviction" to receive Communion in a variety of non-Roman churches over the past decade. Had I received "as a gesture" to the members of those churches, I would have been roundly condemned and could have faced a more severe and lengthy punishment than those in the Code of Canon Law. To trivialise the Eucharist is a grievous wrong and should be condemned forcibly whoever is the perpetrator, even the President of Ireland. But not even Mgr Faul is saying that President McAleese accidentally left her intellect at home on the Sunday she visited Christ Church Cathedral. Like a growing number of Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland, it was her practice to receive Communion in a rite that was welcoming and in a form that she believes is efficacious.
For those of us who have travelled this path, we must always respect those whose absence from the table will remain a painful demonstration of our present disunity. Fr Michael Hurley SJ has done more for ecumenism than anyone I know, and he holds to this position. But for others in increasing numbers, we have found in the Anglican rite of Eucharist a theology of "the real presence" which is powerful. Here the mystery has been retained. No attempt is made to imprison the presence in prepositions, nor to reduce it to forensics. We are made very welcome. We always receive Communion in both species. No attempts are ever made to "convert" us. It is in the Church of Ireland that liturgical forms have best retained the continuity of the Great Western Church. The one word that comes to mind in describing Anglican Worship is "propriety". There is always a sense of timelessness, dignity and respect for the words of the worship that is uplifting.
Sadly, this is missing in some Roman Catholic churches during the Eucharist. (My own local church is an exception, and I would be proud to bring members of other churches to it.) The sense of the transcendent may be replaced by the strategies of how to complete the ceremonies in time to clear the car park for the next Mass. Sometimes the celebrant may lack the dignity which the president of the Lord's table should have. The efficacy of a particular Eucharist is not reduced, even if the celebrant is unworthy (e.g. if he has ceased to believe in God!). I happily accept that reassurance. Nor do I believe that one Eucharist is more effective than another, but many of us have experienced a very wide spectrum of conduct from the priests in Roman Catholic churches during Mass. It is my experience that this diversity in behaviour is not so noticeable in the Anglican clergy in public worship. I have yet to hear a debate on the scandal of the "fast Mass".
To my Catholic sisters and brothers in the Church of Ireland, I wish to go on record as asking for their forgiveness for the many hurts that I and my fellow Roman Catholics have offered them in the past, with non-recognition of Holy Orders, and lack of understanding of the Anglican belief in the real presence, in particular. I have good reason in my own life to be grateful for their patience, hospitality and their generosity of spirit.
For any individual or group to set themselves up as the sole orthodox interpreter of the Eucharist mystery, for once and for all times, is clearly a contradiction which has passed its "believe-by" date. - Yours, etc.,
From Dr John Burton
Moneymore Medical Centre, Moneymore, Co Derry.