THE DUP deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, has criticised the authorities who run the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald on the outskirts of Belfast for allowing a "public" Mass in the hospital.
He has demanded an investigation into the use of "public property by the Roman Catholic Church as a place for public worship".
Mr Robinson said that the Ulster North Down and Ards Hospital Trust which ran the hospital did not have the authority to permit one denomination to use hospital property for a "sectarian purpose and that the hospital did not have planning permission for this purpose
He asked whether all other denominations were offered use of the facility for public worship or was "this a privilege the trust bestows upon the Roman Catholic Church alone".
He also wanted to know whether the Catholic Church paid for the facility or whether there was insurance cover for use of the church for public worship.
The trust in a letter to Mr Robinson said the Ulster Hospital church was available to those churches which have a chaplain there - the Church of Ireland, Presbyterian, Methodist and Roman Catholic churches. "There is no policy or conditions of use for this facility," a trust official informed Mr Robinson.
The hospital church was built for the use of patients and relatives who might wish to have a "quiet time" or speak with their ministers or priests.
The three Protestant churches took it in turn to bring patients from the wards on Sunday mornings for 9.30 a.m. service while the Catholic chaplain "says Mass on Sunday mornings at 10.45 a.m. for both patients and public from outside to come in for worship", according to the hospital.
The Catholic chaplain, the Rev Paul Armstrong, said he was not in a position to comment on Mr Robinson's complaint.
However, there is a tradition of some hospital churches being used by members of the public to attend Mass. In Dundonald, where the Ulster Hospital is based, some of the small local Catholic population have been attending the hospital Mass since the local Catholic oratory was destroyed in a sectarian arson attack two years ago.
