Cathedrals – the bridge between the sacred and the secular

THE 19TH CENTURY Scottish novelist, essayist, poet and travel writer, Robert Louis Stevenson, author of the famous pirate novel Treasure Island said “I never weary of great churches. It is my favourite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.”

I was baptised and spent my most formative years in a cathedral. As a cathedral chorister in Belfast, hour upon hour of my youth was spent in that holy place. Later as Dean’s Verger I was a keyholder and protector of that same building. In 1997 I was ordained priest in Armagh Cathedral, and was soon appointed as a minor Canon, and later served as a Chapter Canon in the National Cathedral here in Dublin. For just over four years I’ve been Dean of the ancient Cathedral Church of St Patrick, Armagh - an ecclesial setting which has been recognised down

the centuries as having pre-eminence over all the churches of Ireland. So, Cathedrals are part of my DNA.

I am therefore probably quite unique amongst clergy in that rather than finding cathedrals and their distinct practices a bit obscure, it was the workings of the parish church that, as a young curate some thirty years ago, I found to be unusual. In the parish everyone seemed to know one another, their pedigree, even what they had had for breakfast, whereas in the cathedral it was possible to retain a level of anonymity amongst the great pillars and formal liturgies.

* Full article available in printed copies.

Shane Forster

is Dean of Armagh and Provincial and Diocesan Registrar.