Dean honours cathedral outreach group’s work with the homeless

The current [February] edition of the Church Review (Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough) publishes the following photograph and half-page news report on page 21:

Cathedral clergy and some of the members of the Christ Church Cathedral outreach group working with the Mendicity Institution, photographed at Thomas Abbott’s monument at the West Door (left to right): Marie Hammond, Máire Dewar, Canon Patrick Comerford (preacher), Roger Sterling, Doug Hammond, Larry O’Raw, Philomena O’Raw, Charles Richards (of the Mendicity Institution), Barbara Comerford, and the Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, the Very Revd Dermot Dunne.

Dean honours cathedral outreach group’s
work with the homeless

THE work of an outreach group from Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, and its engagement with the Mendicity Institution and inner-city poverty was praised recently special events in the cathedral.

The outreach group, which is co-ordinated a member of the cathedral congregation, Barbara Comerford, works regularly on Sundays with the Mendicity Institution, one of Dublin’s oldest charities.

The Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, the Very Revd Dermot Dunne, who entertained the outreach group to lunch, praised their work as part of the mission and ministry of the cathedral. He pointed out that one of the founders of the institution, Thomas Abbott, is commemorated in a monument at the West Door of the Cathedral.

The dean is an ex-officio patron of the charity, along with the Church of Ireland and Roman Catholic Archbishops of Dublin, and the Dean of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

Preaching at the Cathedral Eucharist earlier in the day, Canon Patrick Comerford said: “Today, the ‘Mendo’ works from Island Street, providing meals for about 70 people each day. Over the years, the people it helps have changed, but the basic object remains the same: to make it unnecessary for men, women and children to beg in the streets of this city, no matter what their religion may be, no matter what their nationality is.”

He said the members of this small group “are working not for themselves, but on behalf of this whole cathedral community, to serve Christ in all they find on those Sunday afternoons.”