A February 2006 article by Kieron Wood in "The Sunday Business Post" claimed that Magee did not have the backing of the Vatican in his proposals for St Colman's. At the oral hearing of An Bord Pleanála he was requested to provide a copy of the letter from the Vatican in which he claimed he had been given approval for the modernising of Cobh Cathedral. The letter that he produced was a congratulatory message dated 9 December 2003 [no. 158/99/L) to the team of architects who worked on the cathedral project from Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The whole text of this letter was then reproduced in a publication called "Conserving Cobh Cathedral: The Case Stated" pp. 108–109.