Wednesday, July 06, 2005
My dear People of God,
In 1992, when we undertook the restoration of St. Colman's Cathedral, we distributed
a brochure to every home in the Diocese which described the work to be undertaken
and the manner in which it would be phased. You may recall that we announced
then that the last phase of the work would be the re-ordering of the Sanctuary
area. The response from you, the People of the Diocese, was very generous and
now, as a result, much of the work of restoration has been completed and the
Cathedral has been secured for the foreseeable future.
The task of re-ordering the Sanctuary, in accordance with the mind of the Church and the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, still remains to be undertaken. This is necessary to enable the congregation to have full and active participation in the Liturgy. In 1998 we announced our intention of undertaking this work and we held meetings to explain what was involved. Since then various committees have been formed with expertise in Liturgy, Architecture and the Arts to advise how best to proceed. The firm of Professor Cathal O'Neill and Associates was commissioned to design the re-ordering of the Sanctuary and the design for the re-ordering is now complete and ready to be submitted to the Planning Authority.
The design was submitted by me to the relevant Congregation in Rome and received its approval. In the letter of approval the Cardinal Prefect states: "The plans seem in fact to ensure adequate space for the celebration and to make the sanctuary visually more accessible to the faithful". The letter of approval concludes, as follows: "the Congregation wishes to congratulate Your Excellency once more on the zeal shown by many in the drafting of this project and from its point of view cons