Irish ecumenical controversy.

The newly-elected President of Ireland, Professor Mary McAleese, a practising Catholic, took communion at Dublin's Anglican Cathedral in December 1997 as a gesture of good will. Subsequent publicity forced priests, including the Catholic Archbishop Desmond Connell, to point out that Catholics are not permitted to receive communion in Protestant churches.

Opinion polls indicated that 78 per cent of those questioned agreed with the President's gesture.

To counteract the confusion the Catholic Archbishop had to explain as well that gestures such as these by practicing Catholics, who do not accept Anglican orders as valid, is in reality a sham act and more an insult than a commendation.

The reaction of Church of Ireland spokesmen Archbishops Walton Empey (Dublin) and Robin Eames (Armagh), expressing sadness and regret, revealed that they continue to be suprised at the strict Catholic teaching.

On December 22 the American ambassador, Jean Kennedy-Smith, a member of the now notorious Kennedy family in Massachusetts, added fuel to the fire by announcing that she, too, had decided to attend at the Anglican Cathedral and receive communion. "We all have our own way of going to God," she declared, saying she would go again for Christmas. She added that before becoming ambassador she often attended Sunday services at a Presbyterian church in Manhattan (CWN, Dec. 23)