Editorial
Much attention in the world at large as well as in the churches has been focussed this year on the two new men elected to lead the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches, Pope Francis and Justin Welby; and much hope is being placed in these two “new brooms”, whose style is refreshingly different from their predecessors. So this issue of SEARCH offers a closer look at their words and deeds in an attempt to consider the challenges that lie ahead in our two communions. We are grateful to Peter Admirand and Yazid Said, Roman Catholic and Palestinian Anglican theologians respectively, both teaching in Dublin, for collaborating in the reflections offered below.
In Ireland recently we have possibly been more excited by the election of our first woman bishop, an event which delighted many, though for a variety of reasons, but caused concern or even outrage in groups at opposite ends of the conservative – progressive spectrum. The new bishop faces many challenges and we offer her heartfelt support in all that lies ahead.A matter of deep concern of late has been the violence prompted by flag riots and Orange marches in and around Belfast over the past eighteen months. Bishop Harold Miller was present through some of the worst events and reflects on what lessons the Church has to learn from them and how we can best minister to those involved.Increasing poverty and the threat of climate change are two other concerns that have led to animated discussion this past year. So has the noticeably increasing number of people of different faith traditions in our country, both north and south. Alec Purser of the St Vincent de Paul Society and Andrew Orr of Eco-Congregations Ireland offer some challenging thoughts on the first two subjects, while Celia Kenny takes a radical look at how we read the Bible in relation to pluralism.Past relationships between different cultures in Ireland get a look in with Mark Empey’s careful study of Protestant links with Gaelic culture in the 17th century. The historical theme continues with Samuel G Poyntz’s celebration of Bishop Jeremy Taylor, 400 year’s after the great churchman’s birth. To conclude, Robert MacCarthy offers an In Retrospect on an episcopal figure of more recent times, Robert Wyse Jackson. A varied crop of book reviews completes the issue.
On 3 December 2012, Belfast City Council voted to fly the Union Flag on the City Hall only on designated days, which were to be no more than eighteen in the year, rather than all year round. There ensued two months of protests which led to trouble and rioting, putting Belfast again on the world stage in the media, and with resonances which felt like a return to the bad old days of the troubles.
In the spirit of the support of ecumenical engagement shown by both the new Pontiff of Rome and the new Archbishop of Canterbury, this article, written by an American Catholic and a Palestinian-born Israeli Anglican, will reflect on the new leaders of their respective faiths and then offer some commentary on the other’s reflections. While we discussed initial plans and outlines at various stages, the agenda was left purposefully open so that neither one of us would be forced to focus his viewpoint on the other’s priority or aims. In this regard, one gets a deeper sense of potentially differing perspectives while also seeing common threads and points for further dialogue and connection. Peter Admirand will first reflect on Francis I followed by comments from Yazid Said. After Said’s reflection on Justin Welby, Admirand will then offer some comments, followed by a brief conclusion.
In the five marks of Mission developed by the Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) between 1984-1990, the fifth Mark states the Church’s task as being, “To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth”. It is safe to say that in the Church of Ireland at least this Mark has been more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
“Governments and revolutionaries would compel society to take on the shape of their imagining, whereas poets are typically more concerned to conjure with their own and their readers’ sense of what is possible or desirable, or, indeed, imaginable.”
Who speaks for the homeless? Who speaks for the many families unable to pay their outstanding bills? Who cares for the poor of our society? Do our churches stand beside those in desperate need? And does our government or any government truly understand what poverty is?
The complex political and religious developments in the seventeenth century continue to be a subject of considerable debate among historians of Ireland. Central to these discussions is the problem of how a Protestant administration with an English monarch as head of state governed a kingdom that was predominantly Catholic and apparently loyal only to the pope. In this scenario Ireland is seen as a country riven by sectarian hatred, where the Protestant “New English” community was continually at loggerheads with its ethnic and religious adversaries: the Old English and native Gaelic Irish. There is little indication that this trend is losing momentum. These acute confessional divisions, manifested in the violence of the 1641 rebellion, still hold centre stage in the study of the seventeenth century. Therefore, the indications are that the current orthodoxy seems set to prevail.
THIS YEAR marks the 400th anniversary of the birth of Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down and Connor from 1661 until his death in 1667 and a revered Anglican divine of the Caroline, post-Cromwellian, period in Ireland. He was much celebrated in the writings of Archbishop Harry McAdoo in the 1980s and ’90s, especially with reference to his eucharistic theology. The following is a brief digest of a sermon preached by Bishop Samuel Poyntz at St George’s, Belfast, on September 22nd 2013.
Robert Wyse Jackson, born in 1908, was the last of the polymaths; he was a barrister, a historian, a playwright and a competent water colourist and an expert on Irish silver about which he wrote a book which is still regarded as a standard work. In addition to all that he wrote a weekly column in The Church of Ireland Gazette, which was a marvel of erudition about everything and anything in the Church’s past and present.