The Parish of Donagheady (Donemana) is to get a new incumbent later this year. Rev Capt Richard Beadle has been appointed to succeed Rev Dr Robin Stockitt, who retired almost a year ago.
The news was shared this morning with worshippers at St James Church in Donemana and parishioners in the Manorhamilton Group of Parishes, in the Diocese of Kilmore, which Rev Beadle has been overseeing as Bishop’s Curate since his ordination in September 2017.
Rev Beadle has been an active Church Army Officer since 1998 and before being commissioned had worked in the Employment Service in the UK. His work as a Church Army evangelist took him to parishes in Nelson, East Lancashire; St. Matthew’s on Belfast’s Woodvale Road; and the rural Swanlinbar-Kildallon Group of Parishes in the Diocese of Kilmore.
“I am excited that my family and I will be coming to Donemana,” Rev Beadle says. “Exploring Donemana with the nominators has been a privilege and blessing, and we have clearly sensed God’s hand. We pray God will use our gifts fully to make a lasting contribution as we seek to share the wonderful news of Christ. We greatly look forward to getting to know our new parish and diocese.”
Moments such as this can be bitter-sweet for clergy. “After 14 years,” Richard says, “leaving Kilmore, Elphin and Ardagh Diocese is not easy, yet we are enormously grateful for our time and friends there.”
Richard, and his wife Pauline, will now be making preparations for their move to the Church of Ireland’s northernmost diocese. Pauline is a midwife by profession. She loves cooking and her happy place could be any kitchen. The couple have three children: Ruth, who is at Lancaster University, and twins Alicia and Asher who are studying for A-levels in England.
When time allows, Rev Richard indulges his passions for tennis and nature photography – he was interviewed on BBC Radio Ulster recently about the plight of the curlew – and he describes himself as “a rare Crystal Palace fan”. A date has still to be arranged for the new Rector’s Service of Institution.
There was loud applause for the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, Rt Rev Andrew Forster, on day two of the General Synod in Belfast when he called on the UK government to “step up to the mark” in its response to the refugee crisis which has arisen as a result of the war in Ukraine.
During consideration of the Report of the Church of Ireland’s Standing Committee, the Bishop compared the responses of smaller countries like Ireland to that of the UK. Out of 66,000 visa applications [from Ukrainians], he said, only 11,000 had been settled in the UK. “Now, what’s happening with the visa applications is that you may have a mother with three children, and two of the children are getting an application and the mother doesn’t get it – and families [are] to be split up. I can’t understand whether that is incompetence or cynicism, to be honest with you.“
The fact that our response in the United Kingdom to this refugee issue with people has been huge – many people have signed up for ‘Homes for Ukraine’, and so on – and then [when] they get to the second part of the process, it is nothing but frustration. Smaller countries like the Republic of Ireland have led the way in saying for the moment we’ll forget about visas because this is a crisis that needs an immediate response.“
The UK government has supported in different ways, we know, in the conflict, but I think it has to be said that the response to the refugee crisis is found wanting and terribly wanting. And, for us as Christians, with open hearts for refugees – because we worship one who was a refugee – can I urge you to lobby your local MPs for this and on this issue. I have done, and I’ve had a very open response to that, but I think we need to be speaking out the cause of the oppressed within this. Bishop’s Appeal is helping us [to] do that but the government needs to really step up to the mark in its response to this refugee crisis.”
The Church of Ireland has announced a Clergy Assistance Programme to help to improve mental health among leaders in ordained ministry. It will be provided by Health Assured, the UK and Ireland’s largest independent provider of programmes of this type, as part of the Church’s mental health promotion project, MindMatters COI. The programme was announced at the General Synod, on Thursday, by the Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Most Rev Pat Storey, who chairs the initiative.
Bishop Storey told delegates: “For those who lead and pastor us, it is vital that there are enough resources to keep them healthy and well. It is to this end that the MindMatters project launches its Clergy Assistance Programme for church leaders, focussing on good mental health and well–being. It is hoped that, in response to the MindMatters survey, clergy will feel more adequately supported.
“As with many professions,” Bishop Storey said, “clergy too have felt isolated and powerless throughout the pandemic – many feel that their very raison d’être was removed. The Clergy Assistance Programme seeks to give clergy a place and a space to explore their own well–being and is intended to supplement and not to usurp the pastoral care of a diocesan bishop. We hope that this will be a successful contribution to better support and care for those who watch over us.”
This service will be available free–of–charge to all Church of Ireland clergy for three years thanks to generous financial support from the Benefact Trust (previously known as Allchurches Trust). Key features will include:
telephone helplines – available 24 hours a day and seven days a week – offering practical information and emotional support; a medical information helpline – available on weekdays, between 9am and 5pm; up to six face–to–face counselling sessions, per issue, per member of the clergy, including with applied cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques; up to six structured telephone counselling sessions, per issue, for a member of the clergy, or their spouse, and dependents (aged between 16–24 and in full–time education); crisis management and critical incident support; an online health and wellbeing portal at www.healthassuredeap.com; and a monthly well–being newsletter.
The Clergy Assistance Programme has been put together in response to surveys of Church of Ireland clergy and lay members in May–June 2021, which were commissioned by the Church to document understandings of and attitudes towards mental health. In responses to the clergy survey, 28% of clergy disagreed (and 18% strongly disagreed) with the statement that the Church of Ireland provided them with good support for their own mental health; by comparison, 20% agreed and 1% strongly agreed.
MindMatters COI is a three–year project to raise awareness of, and respond to the mental health needs of communities across our island, and was launched in October 2020.
Further initiatives from MindMattersCOI:
Dioceses and parishes are currently being invited to submit applications for seed funding for local mental health promotion initiatives to address one of the following four themes emerging from the project’s research:
Stigma – there is a significant level of stigma in relation to mental health issues;
Connections – connections play an important role in positive mental health;
Supporting clergy to support others – clergy may benefit from additional training to support parishioners experiencing mental health issues and can feel unsupported in relation to their own mental health; and
Faith as a support for mental health – as faith and prayer are important to the mental health of members of the Church.
Mental health training is being rolled out to clergy and pastoral carers, free–of–charge and delivered online by Action Mental Health. The training lasts no longer than two hours and provides the participants with a broad overview of mental health, identifies the most common mental health conditions, teaches the participants how to sustain good mental health and emotional well–being, and provides them with relevant resources available in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
The Church is also seeking to recruit mental health champions/advocates as part of the project, who will help promote positive mental health in the Church of Ireland and in communities across the island of Ireland. The plan is to match champions’ skills, interests and time availability to the countless opportunities that exist to promote positive mental health in the Church of Ireland and the wider community. Anyone can be a mental health champion, whether they have personal or professional experience in the area of mental health or not.If you have a query or would like to express your interest in training or becoming a mental health champion, please email the project team at mhp@rcbdub.org or fill out the contact form on the home page of its website: https://mindmatters.ireland.anglican.org
Although in the past two years I had begun this address by saying how strange it was to be meeting online, it now feels very strange to be meeting in person; strange do be doing for the first time in two years what we had been doing for 150 years. I suspect though it won’t be strange for long, as we get back into the swing of normal synodical business.
What is not strange is the warm feeling of meeting together again, seeing old faces and making new friends. In my first Presidential Address in 2020, I had talked about changing from being an Archbishop-Elect to being an Archbishop-Virtual. Today I can say with my hand on my heart for the first time in two years I feel like the real Primate of All Ireland. It is good to be in a place where Ballymena can kiss Blarney again. And it is in that frame of mind that I want to thank all of those in the Church who have prayed for me and for others who have had the task of trying to steer us through what has been a very difficult and potentially hazardous period.
We are in the year of grace 2022 and I would hope that this Synod and this address will be about the future, but I do want to say a few words about our experience since March 2020. You know at the beginning it was very difficult to know what to do. Today we are all now used to making judgements in the light of public health statistics and a range of both political and medical information that comes our way. Back then everyone was feeling their way through a fog of half-understandings and very erratic claims and predictions.
And in those circumstances I can honestly put my hand on my heart and say “we did our best”. Contrary to what many people believe the Church is not some vast bureaucracy which can draw on limitless human and financial resources in the face of a unique set of circumstances. Taking what we could from the advice being given by public health authorities in both jurisdictions a very small group of people (some staff and some bishops) put together our Protocols and rolling guidance. What we came up with may not have been perfect, but it worked, in the sense of keeping people safe and (by and large) sane and providing some solid ground on which the set our feet.
Beyond that small group who drafted and revised there were the many hundreds of volunteers in parishes, who refused to be daunted or overwhelmed and who made the rough tools they had been given work in their circumstances. Everyone on Select Vestries up and down this island got a baptism of fire into what it meant to be charity trustees, with a heavier weight of responsibility than normal. (and heaven knows the statutory weight of governance is more than heavy enough). That, together with our trust that the Church of God is an anvil which has broken many hammers, has seen us through to a place of much greater security. Even if we can’t quite be optimistic yet, we can at least be positive, and it is a great privilege for me to be able to stand here “in person” to thank everyone here and those who have worked so hard to get us to where we are now, from that rather gloomy place we found ourselves in during the Spring of 2020.
There has been much suffering on the journey, for some far more than for others, particularly the old and the vulnerable. Mistakes and costly misjudgements have been made, but I hope we, along with our governments and public health authorities can learn together from our experiences. The best of what we achieved as a society, was achieved together and as we try to dig deeper into what was not done as well as it might have been, I have confidence that it will be recognised that the closer the co-operation and trust that existed between civic society, governments and public health authorities, the better the outcomes have been. In one form or another it has been a lesson in how to do and how not to do participative democracy.
And that brings me nicely to the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special of 1977. One of the sketches in the show had Eric and Ernie dressed as Roman senators. Ernie asks Eric “Brutus, have you the scrolls” and Eric replies “No, it’s just the way I’m standing”.
However, it’s not the feebleness or otherwise of the joke that’s important; it’s the fact that the programme was watched by over twenty-three million people, and almost all of us who watched it (and yes I was one of them) would have laughed our heads off. We would have got the joke.
The programme was shown at a time when in most democracies in western Europe, social capital was high, institutions were strong and there were many shared national stories. In today’s world even any public commentator would be hard put to name any public figures from the past about whose virtue broad agreement could be reached.
And of course social media is the single biggest contributing factor to this atomisation of the public space. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that social media is largely to blame following the turn it took when it became less about people connecting with other people, and more about people performing for like-minded people – dissolving social capital, chronically suspicious of institutions and (to use the jargon) refusing any meta-narrative.
The effect has been, as one commentator has put it, to turn nations into ungovernable protest movements. That in turn has led to governments even in some democratic countries, to choose, to manage these divisions by deepening them rather than by healing them.
And it is important, in fact vocational, for a number of reasons, that civic society, including Churches, contribute to public debate on these matters.
The first reason is that politics is about the art of living. Ultimately the subject matter of politics is everything that happens in individual and social life and, in a properly functioning democracy, all citizens are themselves political actors to a greater or lesser degree. In addition, from a Christian point of view, there is no aspect of my life over which God does not say“that is mine”.
Successful parliaments and governments are those who become both the source and the expression of that creative social and spiritual interaction. If I could borrow a phrase from Professor Anna Rowland’s lecture in the Jesuit Church in Gardiner Street a couple of weeks ago, they will create “… participatory and genuinely co-created social bodies … guided by a vision of human dignity and a just distribution of the earth’s goods … ”.
And that leads me to my second point, if Professor Rowland’s description is to become a social reality, governments need middle bodies – an engaged civic sector, including the Church – who will not only rage and lament, but will encourage and struggle for the common good in partnership with those who govern. “Who,” as a friend of mine says, “will let the good things grow”. We may not have much agency around the just distribution of the earth’s goods, but we do have the ability to sharpen a vision of human dignity.
However for the Churches to achieve this or to contribute to it we must once again become properly and truly trans-generational bodies, who have the patience and humility to learn from those who we have marginalised in the past, particularly the young.
It would be easy to miss the hinge moment which it seems is facing much of the western world including Ireland. Will the door to a sane and sustainable future swing open or slam shut? In five years’ time will it still be the case that four out of ten young people are afraid to have children because of how they envisage the future. Are we really prepared to say to them: “Sorry, but that’s the best we could do for you”?
Creation Care
In last year’s General Synod Address I mentioned that we hoped to sponsor and organise a Conference on Creation Care in the Spring of 2022. With the assistance of the Church and Society Commission (CASC) and some money from the Church Fabric and Development Fund, but mostly through the enthusiasm of Canon Andrew Orr and Mr Stephen Trew, the event was held inDromantine Conference Centre in April. It was a remarkable event and a remarkable success. There were many very lively and helpful speakers, but for me there were two stars of the show, who in their own way helped me to begin to see the way forward for us as a Church.
The first was a young woman called Hannah who is a Church of England ordinand, a climate activist and a very popular blogger. Among the questions she posed to the Conference were these:
“How will young people know that the Church loves them?”
“How will the Church become a holy people in the world again?”
Of course the answers to the two questions are linked and have a lot (although not everything) to do with creation care.
The second star of the Creation Care Conference was not an individual but a group of young people from the parish of Mullingar who are part of a much larger group of young people taking part in an environmental project called ‘Lighten Our Darkness’. In many ways they answered Hannah’s second question, because not only were they well-read in the theology of creation, but they were out in their communities rewilding church graveyards and glebe land, and showing the world that holiness is not wordy and aloof, but is the involved goodness of God’s people in God’s creation. They had dirt under their fingernails.
Last year the General Synod noted the extraordinary achievements of the RB Investment Committee and Investment Department Staff in divesting, ahead of schedule, from companies who invest in fossil fuel extraction, and to “continue the positive work of collaborative engagement, increasing investments in renewable investments and reducing exposure to fossil fuel producers, so that by 2022, companies where more than 10% of turnover is derived from fossil fuel extraction, will be excluded.” The investment professionals will continue to do their excellent work on our behalf.
But the rest of the task is over to us. If we are to be true to ourselves and also begin to answer the questions around how we show love to our people and become a holy people in the world again, we need to do what that group of young people from Westmeath are doing.
That is, to work on ways of inspiring and equipping parishes to do everything possible to contribute to net zero targets, and to get creation care into our church culture. However in doing this and in asking others to help us achieve it, we need to bear two other linked matters in mind.
The first is that the backbone of the Church of Ireland throughout this island is the rural parish. Farmers and what they do are very visible and because of that can carry the can for the sins of others, in retail and in agri-food. Any leadership or initiatives which we explore as a Church, especially as they trickle down to parish level need to recognise that our method is always to understand, to learn and to persuade.
In fact the only leadership which we in the Church can exercise in any sphere is in the literal Christian sense moral. And by that I mean it is an authority that is part of the Gospel itself. It is not even a set of principles derived from the Gospel, but an integral part of the Gospel. It reflects the character of God in Christ in its absolute respect for human freedom. It is not the authority of the law (which two parties were ever reconciled in the sense of a restored relationship, in a court of law?), it is the authority of grace, which accepts its defeats and limitations, because it is all too well aware that to love with Christ’s love is always a victory, often despite appearances.
It is easy to criticise that sort of leadership but it’s a method based on humility but is also only made possible by having wide sympathies; and its very essence is trust in the Holy Spirit who leads the Church.
The modern sense of the word leadership in one way says too much but in another way says too little about the how we become a holy people in the world again. Too much in the sense that there is nothing of the command and control of an army about it; nor of the pitiless, grinding millstone of the modern bureaucratic state.
But too little because in the servant leadership of the Christian Church, we are called to proclaim the Lordship of Jesus Christ over the whole of mankind, while at the same time illustrating that Lordship by serving others for Jesus’ sake.
It is only by holding the two together that either can be rightly fulfilled. To preach creation care or the cure of souls and not to serve is not really to preach at all: for it is distinctive of Christ’s religion that it requires a harmony of word and deed. Jesus and he alone could offer his own conduct as an illustration of his teaching, summing up his moral demand in the words “Follow me”. And it is a moral demand because, first and foremost, it is an appeal not to the intellect or even to the will, but to the conscience.
If we would be worthy of our calling there must be congruity of life and doctrine. To preach a Lordship of Jesus which is not expressed in loving service of his people is a certain recipe for failure. As the Article asserts, it is indeed true that “… the unworthiness of the ministers hinders not the effect of the sacrament …” but it is no less true that people will not long consent to receive the sacrament from the hands of ministers whose hands offends them. People are very quick to spot a counterfeit whether in the pulpit or in the public square.
And that is particularly true of a small close-knit society in Ireland where people are still able to judge by St Paul’s measure: “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal”.
Indeed, as I speak I am wearing a pair of bamboo socks which I was kindly given as a gift for participating in the Creation Care Conference, and I’m prepared to show them to anyone who’s interested for a small consideration.
Mothers’ Union
You will remember that at last year’s General Synod, as part of the report from the Church and Society Commission, we had a presentation from the Mothers’ Union about the importance of addressing-both in our communities and in our churches – the appalling scourge of gender-based violence, and in particular domestic abuse. Throughout the year the MU have used every opportunity to reinforce that message, particularly through the Global Day of Action which occurs annually during the 16 Days of activism.
They have also, as a body and as individuals, responded to a number of government consultations. In Northern Ireland the MU response to the consultation on a new Domestic and Sexual Abuse Strategy and an Equally Safe Strategy were submitted as the Church of Ireland’s official response as was their work on the Third National Domestic, Sexual and Gender-based Strategy in the Republic of Ireland.
A new online resource, developed in association with the help of Bishops’ Appeal and Tearfund –
called ‘Equipping the Church to Take Action to End Domestic Abuse’ – is being piloted at present and will be launched in the Autumn. It will provide us with a real opportunity to make a difference at parish level and I commend it whole heartedly to you.
Ethnic Diversity Project
You may remember that last year I mentioned a piece of research into ethnic diversity, inclusion and racial justice in the Church of Ireland that I had commissioned. The research project was designed by Dr Lucy Michael (a member of this Synod for the Diocese of Dublin) and in collaboration with a small group of clergy and readers from a range of ethnic backgrounds.
The results of the research survey have been written up over the past week or so and will, I hope, form the basis of some practical work closer to the ground which will be planned and rolled out in the coming year. As I have said repeatedly in General Synod and elsewhere, any family (and the Church of Ireland is a family) derives its vigour and interest, not from the family resemblances of its member’s, but from the differences that exist between them, including differences of ethnicity and colour.
The results of the survey show that we are indeed a welcoming Church, but also that we are hesitant about what to do after we’ve said “hello”. To generalise from what I have been able to take in from the hard data of the survey, it seems we are more likely to go on to say “I hope you are able to enjoy the riches we have on offer”, rather than “tell us about your experience of God and your thoughts about his Church and his World”, much less “how can you help us deepen our experience of these things?”.
I think the results of the survey show that we recognise the benefits of inclusion, but are uncertain about how to turn that recognition into meaningful participation. We need to do some work on that.
Although perhaps not the finding of the survey with the most far-reaching implications, the one which stands out most prominently is around an insufficient acknowledgment by the Church of our entanglement in the past with slavery. As far as I can tell it’s not a statue-destroying militancy, but a heartfelt desire for an understanding based on accurate facts and an appreciation of the legacy that the gruesome reality of slavery has left. Nor is it about the “enormous condescension of posterity” (there is also an appreciation of the part the Church played in the abolition of the slave trade) but an appeal for clear-eyed appreciation of our actions and inactions in the past, and a willingness to address them.
Up until now this project has been something of a personal initiative of my own but the aim is to embed it much more widely throughout the Church of Ireland. This work is important for a number of reasons, not least perhaps in helping us explain to ourselves why, in a world of migration, the numbers of people of different race and colour, are very low in the Church of Ireland. It is true that many may not be Anglicans when they come to Ireland. But it is known that migrants are much more likely to “shop around” for a spiritual home when they arrive in their adoptive country. It might be useful to know why people have popped their heads around our shop door and decided “it’s not for us”.
But it’s important for a much more fundamental reason, which is that, regardless of numbers, Christian pastoral ministry is about the spiritual well-being of every individual. And to do that we need to make the effort to see what other people see and hear what other people hear. It is not only the Anglican Communion that is held together by bonds of affection, but each parish and faith community. And in this instance, as I’ve said repeatedly, it means that we can credibly consider ourselves as fully part of the Catholic Church.
As disciples of Jesus Christ we are not free to satisfy all of our appetites but we have a vocation to satisfy the desire for knowledge and understanding which the survey reveals. I look forward to the work which we can do in the year ahead to make this more of a reality.
Reconciliation
In my first General Synod Address I had talked about a need for an emphasis on reconciliation, and although not mentioning the word itself, reconciliation has been at the heart of what I have been standing here saying for the past twenty minutes or so.
However in order to earn the right to take part in the work of reconciliation we, as a Church and as individuals need to acknowledge that we too share a similar burden as political leaders in that we are associated with institutions which have, at least historically, benefited from the reinforcement of distinctions between social groups. And, as with political leadership, these differences are connected in some way with conflict.
A friend of mine was a student at the Polytechnic of the South Bank in London in the 1970s where he studied political science and sociology. Apparently there were more members of the Communist Part of Great Britain in the Sociology Department of that Polytechnic than there were in the whole of the rest of GB added together. At his first seminar he found himself sitting beside a very intense young man who introduced himself by saying: “I’m a libertarian socialist veering towards anarcho-syndicalism. What are you?” My friend said: “I’m a Methodist”.
Not as daft, or as provincial as it might seem. No doubt as individuals we will each have views across a whole range of public policy issues which will differ widely, and will have the same validity as any private citizen’s view on whatever subject is under discussion.
However our distinctive contribution to reconciliation is as disciples of Jesus Christ, and I think we should remind ourselves of that very often.
It is in the light of that primary, comprehensive and conclusive allegiance that we should find most of our analytical tools and our vocabulary to address any subject matter, including reconciliation.
The Christian experience of reconciliation is not transactional. It is not a case of me bringing my change of heart to God, which he then is almost obliged to reward by forgiveness and reconciliation. It is the presence of Jesus that creates my change of heart and I am his debtor for my repentance as for everything else in those transforming experiences and encounters.
Christian reconciliation is dependent on Christ and mediated through him. But Christ Himself and all the reconciling virtue associated with him are themselves mediated to us in numberless ways. As disciples we might consider how we can mediate that reconciling virtue by engaging, encouraging and exemplifying.
Engaging, not only with ourselves and our faith traditions (although that is vital and will be a good barometer of our effectiveness and sincerity) but with other agencies and groups in civic society.
Encouraging those, particularly in the sector who seek to bring wholeness to lives that are very damaged and usually overlooked. voluntary
Continuing to exemplify, by acknowledging that we remain captive to many sub-Christian influences and are struggling towards what might be called a more repentant ecclesiology. The hope would be that in doing so we help create the environment or platform in which self-examination can take place and where the virtue of self-suspicion is valued.
It has been our own experience that God treats us better, much better, than we deserve. And to remember his example, when as in the field of reconciliation is often the case, that our victories will be in private but our humiliations will be in public.
Ukraine
Unless it is to go on forever, an address of this sort cannot hope to cover everything that is on our minds or even which will be the subject of discussion during this Synod. Indeed it shouldn’t try to, as there are many able presentations and speakers yet to handle these matters over the three days we are together.
However, I want to conclude by saying a very few words on what is, for most of the world, the great matter of the day; the invasion and desecration of Ukraine by the Russian military and the Russian regime. When historians look back they will no doubt find it to be a war with many causes but with no justification.
I know that many of you will have responded to the needs of the Ukraine as individuals in a variety of ways already; through offering accommodation, or making donations of one kind or another. As a Church we have also made our modest contributions through the Bishops’ Appeal, and there are diocesan initiatives to provide housing and a place of worship in Dublin.
And I hope this Synod will agree with me in demonstrating our solidarity with the government and people of the Ukraine by joining with me in prayer as I conclude. You know, for all the weaknesses and faults that make us vessels of clay, we are still one of the few institutions which can act as custodians of the big long-term questions of our world, especially in the face of a relentless short-term electoral cycle. And there is nothing which requires that long-term care more than the rules-based order which emerged in the wake of the last world war.
And when we pray we are not suggesting to God something which otherwise would not have occurred to him. When we pray we are bringing his presence into whatever the situation might be, whether it is personal tragedy or an international conflict.
But before I pray, the other action which I hope we can take as a Synod is to send a message to our brothers and sisters in Christ in the Russian Orthodox Church and especially to Patriarch Kirill. When one part of the Body of Christ is wounded, even when those wounds are self-inflicted, the whole body suffers.
We live in an age when calls are made for resignations of those in public life for the most trivial reasons, yet no-one can say sorry for the most egregious failures. That should never be the case for Christian leaders.
So we appeal to the Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’ to think again about what lies behind this conflict and to use the grace given to him by the Lord of the Church, the Good Shepherd, to help bring this barbarous war to a just end.
Almighty God, from whom all thoughts of peace proceed: kindle we pray you, in every heart the true love of peace: and guide with your pure and peaceable wisdom those who take counsel for the nations of the earth: that in tranquillity your kingdom may go forward, till the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Honours were shared between Bishop Andrew and Rev Paul Lyons when they came face-to-face in a special ‘cook off’ in St Mary’s Church Parish Hall in Macosquin. The ‘Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook’ event was the brainchild of Select Vestry member, Lilian, Davis, and was organised as part of the Parish of Camus-Juxta-Bann’s 400thanniversary celebrations, which are taking place throughout this year.
The scores of parishioners and friends who crammed into the hall were treated first to a culinary masterclass by the renowned celebrity chef, Jenny Bristow, who made the preparation and cooking of a soda bread-Ulster Fry combination and a savoury tart look very easy. Regrettably, the Rector, Rev Lyons, and his Bishop followed soon afterwards and showed, very quickly, how difficult cookery can be.
Jenny – a native of Macosquin – had set their clergymen the task of making and baking a soda bread scone, followed by baked Alaska. Egged on by their enthusiastic audience, the would-be chefs threw themselves into the challenge wholeheartedly. At one point, word came through from the kitchen that one of the loaves of bread was a tad overdone but it didn’t put either man off his stroke.
Bishop Andrew was ‘up’ for the challenge. ‘He’s an awful nice fellow,” he said of his rival,”but he’s not much of a baker.” The Bishop was soon made to eat his words.
At the end of the cook-off, braver members of the audience had a chance to sample the fare before the hall voted to decide who had won. The result was a triumph for diplomacy, with the Rector coming out tops in the soda bread contest and Bishop Andrew ‘taking gold’ with his baked Alaska.The evening ended with a short reflection by Bishop Andrew about the staples in our lives – the things that matter most in our lives: food to eat, families who love us, homes to live in, job security. “It’s interesting that whenever Jesus comes into the world,” the Bishop said, “one of the messages that he tries to share with all of us is that the staple for life – the everyday necessity for life, the thing that sustains life, that blesses life, that enriches life – is being close to God. That’s what matters. The one thing that Christians say is unchangeable, unshakeable, unconditional, is God’s love for us. As one writer says, there’s nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there’s nothing we can do to make God love us less. He loves us. And it strikes me that whenever we go ‘off staple’, whenever we go off what really matters in life, that’s when we end up running into problems and into difficulties.”
The All-Ireland President of Mothers’ Union, June Butler, joined Diocesan President, Jacqui Armstrong, and members of the Derry and Raphoe Mothers’ Union at a tree-planting ceremony on the outskirts of Londonderry on Thursday, to mark the Queen’s forthcoming platinum jubilee.
The women were greeted by blue skies and glorious sunshine as they gathered at Brackfield Wood, which skirts the River Faughan, just off the main Derry to Belfast Road near Killaloo. The area has been earmarked by the Woodland Trust for the cultivation of a centenary wood, and will eventually include 40,000 native trees commemorating soldiers who lost their lives during the First World War.
The MU members were met by staff from the Woodland Trust who provided them with spades which the women used to plant 70 trees – a mixture of native oak and cherry trees. They were also addressed by one of the Trust’s ambassadors, Peter Cregg MBE, who outlined the organisation’s plans for the wood.
The Diocesan President led the women in a prayer of thanksgiving for Her Majesty’s 70 years of faithful service. Mrs Armstrong said the Queen had shown kindness and compassion, great integrity and wisdom. She had never been afraid to stand up and say, “I believe in God; I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is my rock and my salvation. She has had her roots firmly planted in the ground.”
The tree-planting ceremony was the idea of Mrs Kathleen Finlay, who had written to the Queen to explain what the diocesan MU would be doing to mark the platinum jubilee. In her letter, Mrs Finlay said they hoped for only one thing for today’s event – a sunny day – and the ladies certainly got their wish.Ms Armstrong thanked the All-Ireland president and Mr Cregg for coming to the ceremony; the women (and Rev Canon Robert Clarke) for planting trees on behalf of MU; and two of the Woodland Trust’s staff – Dave Scott and Tommy Pringle – for advising on and assisting with the tree-planting, and for providing the tools.
Today will mark the end of an era in the Diocese of Derry and Raphoe as Rev Canon David Ferry retires after 20 years’ service as a hospital chaplain in Londonderry. “I’ll miss the miracles,” the Tyrone man says of his “special calling”. He will be succeeded from tomorrow by the Rector of St Augustine’s Church, Rev Nigel Cairns.
Canon Ferry retired as Rector of the Balteagh group of churches in 2019 but carried on ministering to patients, families and staff in Altnagelvin and Waterside hospitals. It was a role he had first embraced under the late Bishop James Mehaffey.
“Chaplaincy’s a special calling,” Canon Ferry says. “It’s one of the ministries that Christ set apart – care for the sick, care for the disadvantaged – so to be called to that, and to be involved in that, always spoke to me about some sort of special vocation. It’s just an enormous privilege. To be with people, to hear people’s stories, to have the end of life conversations with people, to be the last person to say a prayer with them, it’s an amazing privilege.
“The last two years have been particularly trying, given how Covid has affected hospitals. Canon Ferry and his colleagues found themselves supporting not only patients and relatives, but staff too. “That was a big part of it, but I think their lives were being refined too. There’s nothing like a good furnace to do a bit of refining – so Scripture tells us. There was a whole mixture of bad things [during Covid] but, in that, there was a whole lot of good stuff happening as well, an awful lot of good stuff.“
The last two years tested your vocation,” Canon Ferry concedes. “Everybody in the hospital was tested, whether they knew it or whether they didn’t. Nurses in here were trying to organise not only their nursing life but home education for their children, so everybody was tested.
“We [chaplains] did the same thing [we always did] but we just did it differently. We had FaceTime with patients. That to me was so far removed from how I would do ministry – I take people by the hand, but we couldn’t do that. The staff were very good, though; they kept us all safe; they advised us what PPE to use. Families really appreciated it. We would make a telephone call. I found it very difficult because it wasn’t the way I operated, put it that way. But you’d say to the family, put your phone on speaker and I’ll pray for you all. And it didn’t matter where they were sitting – they could be at home – and I’d say put your phone on speaker and I’ll pray for you all. It was different. It was very different.
”Hospital chaplains are confronted with death and serious illness on a daily basis, but Canon Ferry says the relentlessness never got him down. “As Christians, we’re called to a great hope,” he says. “The world tells us that death is the end of all things. As a Christian, as a Christian chaplain, my hope is – for them, and for me – that death is not the end. Death is an experience we will all have in life. It’s the only thing in life that makes us all equal. But it’s not the end. Whenever you are there with a family and can reassure them through scripture – ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions and I’m going to prepare one for you’ – whenever you bring people to that sort of understanding, then death becomes….different.
”The prospect of retirement holds little appeal for Canon Ferry. “I’ve no clue about what retirement’s going to be like,” he says. “I’ve always tried to live each day in God’s plan as best I can, but it’s not something I’m really looking forward to. I’d love to have a gripe about the Bishop, or the Church or the hospital – it’d make it easier to go – but I don’t. I never ever had a gripe. I don’t know what a gripe is. I’m sure it’ll be great some morning when it’s teeming out of the heavens and I don’t have to get up.
”Will he miss chaplaincy work? “Oh aye. I’ll miss the miracles,” he says. “You see, as a hospital chaplain, every day you see the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear and the dead raised. You see those miracles every day. Somebody comes in here not able to walk, they go down to surgery, in two days they’re skipping. They come in here, they can’t see, [surgeons] take off their cataract and they see the very best. Put a hearing aid in…we have become so used to that, and we don’t see the miracle.
“I’m not going to start preaching but I think we need to look, we need to see the miracles. I often say – it’s a Presbyterian thing – but I always say you need to see the burning bush. There’s loads of them [miracles], loads of them, so I’ll miss the miracles. I’ll miss what the patients teach me: they teach me to be thankful, to appreciate the people I need to appreciate.
After twenty years in the hospitals, what in his opinion are the qualities that make for a good chaplain? “I think a good chaplain needs to stay out of God’s way and to know that we’re neither in control nor responsible,” Canon Ferry suggests. “I’m not in control of your life, I can’t keep you alive no matter what prayers I say. If it’s God’s decision that you’ll pass away today then you’ll pass away today. It’s my job to tell you that: God’s in control, not me. And I’m not responsible for you if you pass away; I’m not responsible for where you end up eternally. My responsibility – as the good book tells us – my job is to stand in the gap between God and his people, and as a chaplain that’s what I do, I stand in the gap between God and the patient.”
Canon Ferry has certainly earned his retirement. From tomorrow on, the task of ‘standing in the gap’ between God and the patients in Derry’s hospitals will fall to the Rector of St Augustine’s Church, Rev Nigel Cairns.
During his training for the ministry, the new chaplain watched his predecessor at close quarters, so he has a good understanding of what he’s letting himself in for. “I did a placement with Canon Ferry,” Nigel says. “It’s a frighteningly big commitment, but I enjoyed hospital chaplaincy very much. I appreciated the opportunity to journey with people through the worst of times and through the best of times.
“Miracles do still happen,” Nigel says, “and sometimes hospitals are the places where we see them occurring.
“I regard it as a great privilege to step into Canon Ferry’s shoes. I would like to acknowledge the loyal and dedicated way in which David has nurtured and developed the role of chaplain, widening it to include not only patients and families but the hospital staff too. The importance of that was very evident during the pandemic.”
Bishop Andrew has paid tribute to the outgoing chaplain and offered words of encouragement to his successor. “Canon David Ferry’s ministry to the sick and dying, to anguished relatives, and to hardworking staff in our hospitals has been of enormous comfort, often at the most difficult moments in people’s lives. In particular, I’d like to acknowledge the immense work he and his colleagues did during the pandemic, when hospital visiting was severely restricted. I thank God for the many qualities David has which equipped him perfectly for the role of chaplain. Our Diocese is immensely grateful for all that he has done to further God’s kingdom.“
Obviously, David is a hard person to replace, but I am confident that in Rev Nigel Cairns we have found a worthy successor. Nigel has many of the same pastoral gifts as David, and I have no doubt that patients, families and healthcare staff will benefit greatly from his care and support as chaplain.”
Photo 1: “I’ll miss the miracles,” says Rev Canon David Ferry, who retires today after 20 years as a hospital chaplain.
Photo 2: Rev Nigel Cairns looks forward to journeying with. people “through the worst of times and through the best of times”.
The Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, Rt Rev Andrew Forster, brought a number of ‘furry friends’ with him when he visited Gartan National School in Donegal, this morning, along with the Rector of Conwal with Gartan, Rev David Houlton. It was the latest in a series of school visits Bishop Andrew’s making to schools throughout the Diocese of Raphoe.
The pupils and their teachers laid on a special assembly for the Bishop, who’s a patron of Gartan N.S. It included a number of hymns performed by junior and senior pupils, and prayers led by the seniors.
Bishop Andrew used a number of puppets as props to preach to the children about the Parable of the Lost Sheep, explaining to them how important each one of them was in the eyes of God. He also thanked the teaching staff, telling them that they – like healthcare workers – were among the ‘heroes’ of the pandemic, for the way in which they had performed their duties over the two years of the Covid crisis.
The Bishop and Rev Houlton were given a guided tour of the new extension to Gartan N.S. which is still under construction. The extension will double the school’s size when it reopens after the summer holidays.
The Church of Ireland General Synod’s 2022 meeting will take place from Wednesday, 4th May, to Friday, 6th May, in Assembly Buildings, Belfast. This will be the second meeting of the fifty-second General Synod, and the venue will facilitate the first in-person meeting of General Synod since 2019 when it met in Derry/Londonderry.
The General Synod consists of a House of Bishops with 11 members and a House of Representatives, which currently has a membership of 648 – 216 clerical members and 432 lay members who are elected by the diocesan synods and who hold office for a three-year period.
The primary purpose of the Synod is to enact legislation for the whole Church of Ireland. Less formal proposals are submitted as motions which, if approved, become resolutions. The Synod also receives reports from various committees and boards, which are debated by the members.
More information on the 2022 General Synod, including details for media accreditation, will be made available nearer to the time of the meeting at https://synod.ireland.anglican.org/2022
The 2023 General Synod is scheduled to take place in the Croke Park Conference Centre, Dublin, from 11th to 13th May 2023.
There was a healthy turnout of people from different parishes in the Diocese of Derry for the Evening Service in Christ Church, Limavady on Sunday March 13th to hear from a special visitor from the South Seas.
Rt Rev William ‘Willie’ Alaha Pwaisiho, a retired bishop of the Anglican Church of Melanesia, was in the North West at the invitation of old friend Rev Canon Mike Roemmele to share about ministry, life and culture in Solomon Islands, where the two men first met more than 50 years ago.
In the late 1960s, the young Mike Roemmele was teaching in the Solomon Islands with Voluntary Service Overseas and the even younger William Pwaisiho was a student in the school where he taught. The two have since completed many decades in ministry – in Rt Rev William Pwaisiho’s case as a bishop – before their well-earned retirements.
It was a busy day for Bishop ‘Willie’ who preached in St Columb’s Cathedral, Londonderry on Sunday morning before delivering another homily seven hours later in Limavady. In his address there, Bishop Pwaisiho talked about the Melanesian Church’s debt to people from these shores who brought the faith to the South Sea Islands, and who supported the church there with people, money and prayers.
The Rector of Christ Church, Rev Canon Aonghus Mayes, led Sunday evening’s Service. He was assisted by Bishop Andrew Forster, who welcomed Bishop ‘Willie’ to the Diocese. There was a third Bishop in church for the occasion – Rt Rev Patrick Rooke, retired Bishop of Tuam, Killala, and Achonry.
Canon Mayes thanked Bishop Pwaisiho and Canon Roemmele for sharing with the congregation. The Rector led the congregation in praying for the people of Ukraine, in light of recent events there, and for better stewardship of the earth’s resources.
After the service, Canon Roemmele gave a slide presentation in Christ Church Limavady’s Parish Hall, assisted by his old friend. Canon Roemmele brought along many artifacts and mementoes from his time in the Solomon Islands which were placed on display for their audience to view. The two men talked to the group about the impact of climate change on the islands – a number of which have been lost to the sea in recent decades – as well as the effects of decolonisation.
The evening concluded with Bishop Pwaisiho reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Pidgin English.
