Clogher representatives play their part at General Synod 2005

Archbishop Eames welcomed members from all parts of the Church of Ireland to this year’s General Synod, held in the Stillorgan Park Hotel from 10-12th May.

In his presidential address, he spoke of the “dehumanising and demeaning aspects of modern Irish society” which “would have struck our Victorian predecessors as totally unacceptable.” He noted the intolerable strains on family life, whereby “children are dropped with minders as early as six or seven o’clock in the morning and may not be reunited with parents until twelve hours later. I hear of young mothers whose only waking time with the baby is when the little one wakes crying during the night before a working mother has to stagger back out on the commuter trail at an astonishingly early hour next morning.”

Quoting a Save the Children Report into Child Poverty in Northern Ireland and its finding that 50% of children in the province are living in poverty he announced an initiative bringing together Government and Church representatives, aid organisations and charities. “I have called this project “De-Coding the Culture” and I hope it will be one effort to look honestly at a situation which contrasts so sharply with the picture of an affluent Ireland. The Christian conscience demands that more is done for Irish children who are enduring the poverty-trap in their earliest years.”, he said.

Dr Eames highlighted post-conflict criminality, violence and racism as three of the major challenges facing society, especially in Northern Ireland. Noting the results of the recent election he called on elected representatives to recognise that “in politics as in much more power is a privilege which carries with it moral responsibility.”

The vital topics of Mission and Ministry were on the agenda for the first afternoon (Tuesday). The need to overcome major shortcomings in the structure of ministerial training for Curates Assistant was the focus of the Commission on Ministry’s report.

It recommended that the model of training for ordained ministry should in future be spread between college-based training and training in the parish environment. Curates Assistant should, in their first three years, undertake parish based training leading to further qualification. Rectors who undertake the role of trainer should themselves undergo a week’s residential course.

The report criticised the current (though not universal) practice of placing curates with recently qualified ordained ministers or, in parishes with inadequate capacity to oversee training, observing that these postings ’should not continue’.

Introducing the Council for Mission report to the Synod, the Revd Patrick Comerford (Dublin) described it as “a manifesto for the mission of the Church of Ireland” and added “it can apply as much to your diocese and parish as it can to the Council for Mission.”

“We cannot engage in mission, working with refugees in Uganda or Sudan, without being concerned about refugees at home,” he said. “We cannot engage in Muslim-Christian dialogue in Cairo and Alexandria if we are not committed to it in Dublin and Armagh.”

At the Synod service in St Patrick’s Cathedral that evening, the special preacher, Bishop James Jones of Liverpool brought the Synod back to basics by asking ‘Do you love Jesus?’ and spelling out what that meant.

On Wednesday, the Synod considered the major financial challenges facing the Church to meet its obligations in future years, as the Representative Church Body presented its report. There was a special presentation on the work of the Priorities Fund, currently celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary. Projects assisted by this funding included Ardess Parish Centre and the proposed Cleenish Pursuits Centre, both within our own diocese.

The debate on the Standing Committee report was inevitably dominated by its response to the Windsor Report. Speeches addressed the Report, which looked at ways to maintain fellowship within the Anglican Communion, and also the cause of the current breach, namely the debate on human sexuality. Those who spoke reflected the spectrum of opinion current within the Church of Ireland, from conservative to liberal. From the Diocese of Clogher, Rev Stephen Crowther expressed concern at the lack of clear teaching from within the Church and said that many were wondering whether this silence represented an unwillingness to engage with the issue. Another speaker from Clogher, Precentor Brian Courtney claimed that the Windsor Report had put structures in the place of truth.

Other speakers emphasised how they valued being part of a listening church that was generous, welcoming and inclusive to all. Some wondered whether a loving same-sex relationship could be described as ‘evil’.

The Bishops had announced their intention to appoint a group of people with particular expertise to advise the church further on matters related to same-sex relationships. It was also proposed that the Standing Committee would establish a Working Group to study and reflect on the Windsor Report. This Working Group is to be representative of different theological strands within the Church, and is to make an initial report to the General Synod next year.

The Honorary Secretaries to the General Synod had been meeting with representatives of freemasonry and in a statement Canon Ian Ellis, an Honorary Secretary, referred to the different aspects of freemasonry, social, charitable and religious. With reference to this last aspect the Honorary Secretaries concluded that the practice of freemasonry does not equate with the fullness of the Christian teaching of the Church of Ireland. However, participation in and membership of the Masonic Order was a matter of personal conscience and a choice to be made by individual members.

Standing Committee had decided that proposals to correct the present imbalance in synodical representation could not be brought to synod. However, Precentor Brian Courtney insisted, this did not mean that the issue was dead. The present imbalance is based on population figures from 1870 and means that dioceses in the south and west have a greater say in the affairs of our church than their numbers would permit. Synodical reform would not go away, Canon Courtney said, and it was a basic issue of justice which ought to concern the whole church.

Members also spoke about the Hard Gospel programme. It envisages a three-year project, which would devise ways of enabling the Church of Ireland to deal positively with difference, to examine current policies and practices within the Church at local and national level.

Bishop Michael Jackson called for support for this worthwhile programme. “The Hard Gospel Programme offers to us an opportunity, which we should squander at our peril, to take our place and to make our contribution to the well-being of others in two mature democracies which are part of a maturing Europe.” He spoke of the need for such a programme in a society which needs the “constructive, critical, compassionate voice of Christianity.”

The Bishop later propose the Christian Unity Committee’s report to General Synod, and stressed the Church of Ireland’s continuing commitment to ecumenism at international and national level.

He told Synod that the “new ecumenical Architecture” was becoming clearer with forthcoming changes to the body Churches Together in Britain and Ireland (CTBI), which plans to become more closely integrated with the national ecumenical bodies (in Ireland, the Irish Council of Churches and the Irish Inter-Church Meeting) and to adopt a more flexible structure. The Bishop told his listeners, “There will be a greater role for the local ecumenical instruments and, as with so much in the contemporary world, the new arrangements will be as good as what we and others put into them and make of them.”

On Thursday, issues such as the European Constitution, care for the environment and alcohol in the lives of young people came to the fore as the Church in Society committee’s report was considered. The Committee has a wide brief, with seven working groups which continue to interrogate and contribute to the social, theological, legislative, political, environmental and medical development of Ireland, both North and South.

Canon Trevor Gillian, introducing the report of the Board of Education (Northern Ireland), expressed concern at the current funding situation in education, saying that although there had been real increases in funding, a large proportion of those increases had been used in funding salary increases. The Department, he said, must be asked why it had not fully funded these increases. Canon Gillian also spoke of the additional unplanned costs that had arisen in delivering mainstream education to children with special needs, and exhorted the Government not to stop at responding to the rights of special needs children in law, but also to make sure that they provided adequate resources for those needs in practice.

This concern at lack of funding was echoed by Dean Raymond Thompson, who warned Synod that education in Northern Ireland was seriously under-resourced. He feared that many of those who served on boards of governors, who had struggled with problems of under-funding and low morale for many years, would not be willing to go forward for re-appointment.

The Board of Social Responsibility reports from North and South highlighted the issues of disability and the church, and immigration and asylum seekers.

In a response to a request for information tabled by Canon Brian Blacoe (Down) and Rev Bryan Kerr, Bishop Richard Clarke of Meath and Kildare spoke about the work of the Doctrine Committee established by the House of Bishops. It was created to advise the Bishops on matters of Christian teaching, and was currently looking at the authority of the Bible within the Church. It was hoped that an initial statement on this might be produced by the end of the year, he added.

Next year the General Synod will meet in Armagh and members expressed relief that the twin frustrations of Dublin traffic and limited parking spaces at the venue would not be repeated. Those who attended considered it a worthwhile Synod with a maturity of debate even on contentious issues.

Bishop Jackson addressing General Synod 2005