For the first time ever, the annual distribution of “Maundy Money” by Her Majesty The Queen took place this year (March 2008) in Northern Ireland, in St Patrick’s Anglican Cathedral, Armagh. We are always pleased to see Her Majesty visiting Northern Ireland, but, while the ceremony was full of pageantry, it was, sadly (and yet predictably) ecumenical in nature, with the “leaders of the four main churches” taking part. Cardinal Sean Brady should certainly have been invited to attend the service on Maundy Thursday but not to participate. By virtue of the Act of Settlement 1701, the British monarchy is Protestant. Her Majesty should therefore seek to ensure that all services she is involved in or attends are wholly Protestant in nature. No true Protestant should attend an ecumenical service or any form of “joint worship” or give any credibility to it. We must be very careful here, for we can easily be lured into such situations and feel “trapped” once there. Our Protestant faith must come first. There must be no exceptions to that rule. As we listen to the pathetic ecumenical utterances of “Protestant leaders” such as the current Archbishop of Armagh, we are certain that his illustrious and godly predecessor, James Ussher, the first Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, would not have given any credibility to the ecumenical service or any similar event, and he would have made his feelings known to the monarch. We need more men of principle like Ussher in the church today.