A method of phosphate ester hydrolysis including incubating a solution of an aqueous phosphate ester with a texaphyrin metal complex. The metal is a metal cation having catalytic activity for ester bond hydrolysis in aqueous solution, in particular, a lanthanide metal cation, preferably Eu(III) or Dy(III). A preferred substrate is RNA and a preferred texaphyrin is a derivatized texaphyrin having binding specificity, in particular, a texaphyrin covalently coupled to a site-directed molecule, preferably an oligonucleotide.