Paul KeenanDear Editor, Your lead story last week, ‘Hopsital Catholic chapel to be replaced by mutli-faith centre’ (IC 17/7/14) reminded me a very recent visit I paid to a multi-faith room in Leeds Bradford International Airport two weeks ago. Intrigued by such facilities, I try to pay a visit whenever I see them offered and the one at this airport would win an award for being the most pointless, vacuous and soulless of its kind. Somebody clearly worked very hard to make sure this room would always be empty, regardless of the multitudes of the faithful making their way through the airport.
The room was odd in being about eight feet wide yet 20 feet long – more a hallway than a room – and boasted filthy, frosted windows and two chairs, with a few mats thrown carelessly in one cob-webbed corner. And that was it.
I fully accept the omnipresence of God but I can’t imagine even he would have much time for a room that is there only because it ‘has’ to be and not because it should be.
I did say a prayer in the room, but I said it in the hope that someone would show a little faith in this multi-faith room and give it some attention.
If the powers that be insist on a multi-faith room instead of a chapel at the remodelled St James’, let’s hope it’s designed and maintained with regard to its reason for being.
Yours etc.,
Brian Dowling,
Ayrfield,
Dublin 13.