A letter in the ‘Church of Ireland Gazette’

The following letter was published in the Church of Ireland Gazette on 22 May 2009 (p 8):

The General Synod

Canon Patrick Comerford is to be congratulated on his blog which justly won a prize at General Synod. It contains two references to me (8th May, though I am not named) which deserve comment.

First, as seconder to Bill No.1 (that the Church’s 1999 Declaration on the 39 Articles of Religion be printed in future editions of the Prayer Book), he says that I wanted the Bill “amended and watered down”. In fact, the Bill’s proposer and I both supported the amendment. It had been suggested that the unamended Bill might have the effect of changing the doctrine of the Church, which we had not intended.

The Legal Advisory Committee had (understandably and correctly) said that determining this question was beyond its remit; but it was universally agreed that if the amendment were passed (as it subsequently was) there would be no doctrinal implications. This is clearly what Synod intended.

Secondly, Patrick claims that I “pilloried” the Benedictine mystic Dom Bede Griffiths.

I said that Griffiths sought to persuade C.S. Lewis to integrate some aspects of Hinduism into his Christian thinking. I quoted Lewis as responding: “Your Hindus certainly sound delightful. But what do they deny? That has always been my trouble with Indians - to find any proposition they would pronounce false. But truth must surely involve exclusions?” I said that Lewis and Griffiths were lifelong friends; I did not intend to pillory, and I don’t think members of Synod would have taken me to be doing so.

Dermot O’Callaghan
27 Monument Road
Hillsborough
BT26 6HT

The debate continues

Patrick Comerford

In this week’s edition (Friday 22 May 2009), the Church of Ireland Gazette publishes the following letter on page 8:

‘The General Synod’

Canon Patrick Comerford is to be congratulated on his blog which justly won a prize at General Synod. It contains two references to me (8th May, though I am not named) which deserve comment.

First, as seconder to Bill No.1 (that the Church’s 1999 Declaration on the 39 Articles of Religion be printed in future editions of the Prayer Book), he says that I wanted the Bill “amended and watered down”. In fact, the Bill’s proposer and
I both supported the amendment. It had been suggested that the unamended Bill might have the effect of changing the doctrine of the Church, which we had not intended. The Legal Advisory Committee had (understandably and correctly) said that determining this question was beyond its remit; but it was universally agreed that if the amendment were passed (as it subsequently was) there would be no doctrinal implications. This is clearly what Synod intended.

Secondly, Patrick claims that I “pilloried” the Benedictine mystic Dom Bede Griffiths. I said that Griffiths sought to persuade C.S. Lewis to integrate some aspects of Hinduism into his Christian thinking. I quoted Lewis as responding: “Your Hindus certainly sound delightful. But what do they deny? That has always been my trouble with Indians – to find any proposition they would pronounce false. But truth must surely involve exclusions?” I said that Lewis and Griffiths were lifelong friends; I did not intend to pillory, and I don’t think members of Synod would have taken me to be doing so.

Dermot O’Callaghan
27 Monument Road
Hillsborough
BT26 6HT

Dermot is a good friend, I am grateful for his comments on my blog. I hope he keeps reading, and I have no intention of questioning his motives or his sincerity. But firstly, I, like many other members of the synod, was astounded that the seconder of a Bill could seek to amend it at the very beginning of the debate. It was only after the debate that followed this unprecedented move that the proposer of the bill agreed to accept the amendment. If that had happened to me I would have been shocked, to say the least.

Secondly, I found this reference to Dom Bede Griffiths in the context of the 39 Articles shocking. To me, the inference was that Roman Catholics – even those as ecumenical and broadminded as that great writer and mystic – were and are in the same category as non-Christian polytheists. This set the tone for other contributions to the debate in which speakers claimed to be polite but made totally negative comments about other Churches, whose representatives were seated in the front row as guests.

Dermot says: “… I don’t think members of Synod would have taken me to be doing so.” But this member of General Synod did, and I told him so outside the synod hall.

Prize-winning blog

Receiving the prize for the New Technologies (Blog) category at the media awards from Archbishop Alan Harper of Armagh on the last day of the General Synod of the Church of Ireland in Armagh (Photograph: David Wynne)

General Synod ends on a high note

Archbishop Alan Harper and Archbishop John neill outside Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, this morning

Patrick Comerford

This year’s General Synod of the Church of Ireland ended this afternoon in glorious sunshine that felt like summer was on its way.

After a morning stroll through the rolling hills and the fields filled with orchards and apple blossom just south of Loughgall, I headed into Armagh for the Synod Eucharist in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, which was addressed by both Bishop Trevor Williams of Limerick and Killaloe and Cardinal Sean Brady.

The lessons were read by the Revd Tony Davidson, President of the Irish Council of Churches, and Bishop Bruce Cameron, former Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the Gospel was read by Archbishop John Neill of Dublin.

Despite earlier media speculation, there were no controversies about who was taking part or who was present. The intercessions were led by people – clerical and lay – who had worked on the Hard Gospel Project.

This afternoon’s session of the General Synod opened with the announcement of the media awards in the competitions for the best websites, magazines and innovative use of modern media by individuals, parishes and dioceses.

It is a personal pleasure that this blog came first in the Blog category in the New Technologies Competition. This year’s winners are:

Parish magazines/newsletters:

Winner: Parish of Castledermot and Kinnegh, Narraghmore and Timolin (Four Churches One Parish);
Runner-up: The Columban, Saint Columba’s, Knock, Belfast;
Highly commended: Taney News, Taney Parish, Dublin.

Diocesan magazines:

Winner: N:Vision, Derry and Raphoe;
Runner-up: The Ambassador, Armagh.

Other organisations’ magazines:

Winner: Focus, Mothers’ Union Ireland.

Parish websites:

Winner: Saint Mary’s, Ballybeen, Dundonald;
Runner-up: Taney Parish, Dublin.

Diocesan websites:

Winner: Down and Dromore Diocese;
Runner-pp: Dublin and Glendalough Diocese.

Other websites:

Winner: Summer Madness, Ignite website.

New Technologies:

Winner: Canon Patrick Comerford’s blog;
Runner Up: Summer Madness’ SMS Bible Texting Service.

Canon Paul Draper, of the Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross, was the winner of the caption competition, with this caption:

“Same Socks Marriage”

The photograph is:

Our shared baptism in Christ

Patrick Comerford with Mrs Margaret Copeland, Official Visitor from the Methodist Church, at the General Synod in Armagh (Photograph: David Wynne).

Patrick Comerford

The General Synod of the Church of Ireland continues meeting in Armagh today. In the morning we had a lengthy debate on the finances of the Church of Ireland during the reports of the Representative Church Body and the Church of Ireland Pensions Board. Geoffrey McMaster, Eimhin Walsh and Ian Poulton raised important questions about ethical investments, the banks and the arms trade – but must have gone away with the feeling they had never been answered.

The Bishop of Meath, the Most Revd Richard Clarke, proposed and I seconded the debate on the report of the Commission for Christian Unity and Dialogue this afternoon. During the debate we also tabled Motion No 6, which says:

“That the General Synod is of the view that the time is right for the different Christian traditions in Ireland to explore afresh together a common theology of baptism and to share insights concerning their baptismal discipline and practice. The Synod accordingly instructs the Commission for Christian Unity and Dialogue to make this issue a priority on its agenda.”

Seconding that motion, I said:

“When it comes to enthusiasm and lack of enthusiasm in the Church, I can see your initial lack of enthusiasm for this motion as your eyes glaze over.

“But, in terms of enthusiasm, let me tell you the story of two churches that stood side-by-side on the same street, and tried continually to poach each other’s members.

“One hung out a banner that proclaimed: ‘We are the Easter people, and our song is Allelulia!’

“The other church promptly hung out a banner that declared: ‘We are the Christmas people, and our song is ‘Ding, Dong, merrily on high.’

“But we are the Easter people. In Baptism we have died with Christ and we have been raised to new life in him.

“It’s not signing the vestry roll that makes us members of the Church. It’s not paying into the sustentation fund that makes us members of the Church. It’s baptism that makes us members of the Body of Christ.

“And we tear the body of Christ apart every time we deny that someone’s baptism has made them members of the Body of Christ, and we tear it apart. If we really believed that would we need an Anglican Covenant? I regret the intemperate and rude words about our fellow Christians and sister Churches yesterday.

“I was moved to tears by the words in the hymn that we sang at our worship this morning: ‘The love of God is broader than the measure of our mind ... we make this love too narrow by false limits of our own; and we magnify his strictness with a zeal he will not own.’

“I am the godfather for children who have been baptised in both the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. My archbishop is here so I won’t say whether I have ever broken the rules in those churches when it comes to receiving Communion. But at grassroots, local level, the ordinary practice of lay people, the sesnus fidelium, is teaching us something: they accept our baptism, our eucharist and our ministry.

“Each time we deny someone who is baptised is part of the Body of Christ we tear that Body of Christ apart on the Cross once again.

“In baptism we have died to Christ and have been raised to live his risen life. But each time our words , our actions, deny another Christian’s baptism, we try to roll the stone back over the grave.

“There is only one baptism. It is foundational for our ecclesiology, our understanding of the Church.

“And so I have great pleasure in seconding this motion.”

General Synod opens in Armagh

Saint Patrick’s Cathedral stall at the General Synod in Armagh

Patrick Comerford

This year, the General Synod of the Church of Ireland is meeting in Armagh, the primatial capital of Ireland. The synod opened this morning [Friday 8 May 2009] in Armagh City Hotel, and the General Synod Eucharist takes place on Sunday morning [10 May] in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.

The normal format of synod has been changed, in the hope that there will be more open debate, and that speeches and speakers will try to look forward to what we should be doing as a Church, rather than looking back on the things we have done and left undone over the past year.

Speeches today were peppered with the usual synod humour, ranging from references to the colour of bishops’ socks – which vary from sombre black through technicolour, in the case of the Bishop of Limerick to traditional Episcopal purple – to references to the largesse of the Bishop of Cork and his supposedly large pockets.

In the morning, we had a lengthy debate on the place of the 39 Articles in the Book of Common Prayer and how they should be interpreted. Indeed, there sixteen members of the General Synod – five clerical and eleven lay – who didn’t even want to have this discussion and voted against the Bill having a second reading.

It is sad to see a seconder pulling the rug from under his own Bill by declaring in his opening speech that he it doesn’t have his full support and that he wants the Bill amended and watered down. It was shocking to realise that some of the speakers could still argue that the language of the 39 Articles can be taken out of their 16th and 17th century contexts, with the presumption that members of other Churches still hold to dogmas and doctrine as they were interpreted at the time of the Reformations.

I was taken aback that members of a sister Church could be patronisingly compared to misbehaving children who needed to be paternally reprimanded for smashing windows, or that the Benedictine spiritual writer and mystic, Dom Bede Griffiths, could be pilloried as a Hindu polytheist.

No matter how polite anyone may pretend to be, prejudice, sectarianism and bigotry never have an acceptable face. And I cringed as concessions were made in hope of bringing along those who misrepresent and vilify our Christian friends and neighbours, especially when they are seated as guests in the front row.

Earlier in the morning, in the context of prayers led by Bishop Trevor Williams of Limerick, we were addressed by the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, the Right Revd Dr D Patton; tomorrow [Saturday] we will be addressed by the President of the Methodist Church, and on Sunday Cardinal Sean Brady will speak at the Synod Eucharist on Sunday.

It was a privilege to be asked to have lunch and dinner today with the visitors from other Churches: Father Kieran McDermott, of Dundrum, Dublin, and Sister Catherine Kealy, a Cross and Passion nun (Roman Catholic); Bishop Bruce Cameron, former Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church; Bishop Michael Doe of the United Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (USPG – Anglicans in World Mission); the Revd Aian Ferguson and Mrs Margaret Copeland (the Methodist Church in Ireland); Very Revd Dr John Finlay and Mr William Scott (the Presbyterian Church in Ireland); the Revd Jan Mullin from Gracehill (the Moravian Church); and the Revd Tony Davidson, a Presbyterian minister in Armagh City, representing the Irish Council of Churches.

Tomorrow [Saturday] I am seconding the report of the Commission for Christian Unity and Dialogue and with the Bishop of Meath, Dr Richard Clarke, tabling a motion on exploring afresh with the different Christian traditions in Ireland “a common theology of baptism.”

A new publication on the stall of Affrming Catholicism Ireland

Before I left the hotel this evening for Loughgall, where I am staying, I picked up a new publication from the stand of Affirming Catholicism Ireland, Celebrating the Oxford Movement. This small, 52-page book, published as ACI Occasional Papers No 4, and edited by Donald Davidson, includes a collection of papers, sermons and addresses last year to mark the 175th of the Oxford Movement.

Chapter 1 (pp 5-34) is my lecture in Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Ballsbridge, on 29 November 2008. The other three chapters are sermons delivered last year to mark the anniversary: Bishop Michael Jackson (Chapter 2, pp 35-42) in Saint George’s Church, Belfast, on 8 October 2008; Canon Hugh Wybrew (Chapter 3, pp 43-46) in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on 23 November 2008; and Canon Michael Kennedy (Chapter 4, pp 47-51) in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, on 14 December 2008.

As I look out my window across the hills of South Armagh, the apple blossoms are coming to an end. The fruit will soon begin to fill out. If the first blossoming of the Oxford Movement has left us any fruit, let’s hope it will be the sweet end to sectarianism and divisiveness. Meanwhile, tomorrow is a new day.