An Anglican enjoys Mass at Christmas in Marbella

I had the privilege of being present in the Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de la Encarnacion in the historic centre of the old town of Marbella (in the Orange Square) for the midday mass on Christmas Day.

It was built in the 16th century in the place of the main mosque.

I was greatly moved not only by the magnificence of the interior but also by the Christian love and devotion of the Spanish congregation.

If I had one regret it would have been the absence of the Latin mass, the universal language of medieval Christianity.

And the language of course of Aquinas's masterpiece, the Summa theologiae, the bedrock of medieval Christian belief.

Outside the sun was shining from a clear blue sky and the temperature at 20 degrees.

How much I could appreciate all this as an English Anglican brought up in the Church of the Holy Jesus Lydbrook, Gloucestershire, inspired not by the profound expositions of Aquinas but by my mother's constant faith even as she endured the after effects of a cerebral haemorrhage at the age of 45 in 1956. She continued to send my sister and myself to Holy Communion each Sunday morning, even after I was no longer in the choir.

The Church of England was at war with the Church of Rome and hence with Spain in the 16th century.

Queen Anne Boleyn (1533-1536) died the death of a saintly English martyr when beheaded on the orders of the misogynist Henry VIII, son of the Welsh usurper Henry Tudor, son of Margaret Beaufort of the illegitimate line descended from John of Gaunt and his mistress Katherine Swynford, Chaucer's sister-in-law. at Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485.

From the innocence of Queen Anne Boleyn is descended England's greatest Queen, Elizabeth I, born on 7 September 1533, a queen learned in Latin, French and Italian.

Elizabeth I was excommunicated by Pope Pius V in 1570.

In 1571 she founded Oxford's greatest college, Jesus College, in 1571.

In 1588 she defended England from the crusade of Philip of Spain, the king of Co. Offaly as his queen, Bloody Mary as we know her in England, was queen of Co. Laois. The Spanish Armada was driven by cruel winds onto the shores of Co. Clare.

In 1592 Queen Elizabeth founded Trinity College Dublin as the equal of the great English universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

Sadly no longer their equal. But with some 20,000 students at the time of writing and with great scholars at the helm there is no reason why we cannot regain the eminence we last had in December 1920.

We are still after all in December 2022 Ireland's greatest university.

And our tolerance of Catholics and Protestants alike in our great days of the 1880s (when there were some 20% Roman Catholics in the great university of the Church of Ireland) shows what can be achieved also in Ireland by religious tolerance rather than sectarian bigotry.

For an understanding of what can be achieved by religious tolerance and unity in the service of Ireland in all 32 counties all we need to do is to read the list of the Trinity College Dublin War Dead 1914-1918 still preserved in the entrance to the hall of honour (1928) in Front or Parliament Square.

Dr Gerald Morgan, Dublin