News
2007 Bishop Jacksons Clogher Diocesan speech
Address given by the Right Reverend Michael Jackson.
at the Clogher Diocesan Synod, held in St Margaret’s Hall,
Clabby on 4th October 2007
… full of grace and truth …
CHURCH AND SOCIETY: TODAY AND TOMORROW
INTRODUCTION
Last year, ladies and gentlemen, the Diocesan Synod met in St Patrick’s,
Monaghan. This year we meet in St Margaret’s, Clabby, a location well
suited to our purpose with church and hall once again close beside one another.
My thanks go to the Reverend Maurice Armstrong, members of the Select Vestry
and parishioners of St Margaret’s Parish, for their welcome to us both
in church and here in the Parochial Hall. It is not long since many of us were
gathered here in this Hall, on a wonderful evening, for the launch of a most
informative and well-researched History of Clabby by Mr Sam Morrow, himself
a son of this Parish and a highly respected and involved member of the diocese
of Clogher.
SOMETHING TO PONDER
During the course of my work this year, I had occasion to be in Jerusalem for
a period of no more than forty-eight hours. There was very little time to
do anything apart from work but I had twenty minutes to myself during which
I visited the Garden Tomb. Established in 1893 for the preservation of a
large tomb typical of the first century AD, The Garden Tomb Association has
maintained a substantial garden area in Jerusalem in beautiful condition
for the use of visitors and pilgrims alike. It stands outside the city wall,
close to the main roads to Damascus and Jericho, near an old quarry once
used by Jews as a place of execution by stoning and by Romans as a place
of crucifixion. The rock today stands starkly out against the skyline and
above the bus station. Whether this is the locality in which Jesus was crucified,
buried and from which he, as the first-fruits of them that slept, rose from
the dead – nobody knows. Yet to have had the privilege of being there
was an enrichment of my faith and an encouragement to my belief in the saving
work of God in Christ Jesus. The uncanny thing was that whether I had been
there or not, everything it was able to tell me was already in the Bible
as I had read it and tried to understand it. To see something like it was,
nonetheless, an inspiration to a faith seeking understanding.
All of this I say because, like so many of us here this evening, I have been
grappling in the hope of resurrection with the death during this year past
of Robin Wakely and Tom Moore. Both of them contributed tremendously to the
life of our diocese, the one in a brief period of time, the other across a
lifetime. To both of them we all, as members of the body of Christ, are indebted
for faithful priesthood, an obedience to God’s call to serve whatever
the cost. This instinct to faithfulness and service is to be treasured in a
world all too uncritical of its own achievements and unaware of its own limitations.
… grace and truth …
But: What of grace and truth? With both of these words we are talking about
the same Jesus Christ, in the thinking of John the Evangelist, a Gospel-writer
who sees no problem in piling big words on top of little people. Grace and
truth: often it is difficult to comprehend the truth, often it is our abiding
and besetting temptation to reduce the truth to the limits of our own understanding.
Grace, mercifully, is well beyond our grasp. In shrivelling truth by reducing
it to the scope of our own understanding, we achieve little more than the shrivelling
of ourselves. It is grace which equips us to be embraced by the truth. And
truth is the living expression of those big words of St John for little people
such as ourselves: incarnation, crucifixion, glorification, resurrection. We
need both the living Word of God and the big concepts which the Word carries.
In an Anglican world, fractured now by cunning cherry-picking and self-absorption,
we need both and we also need one another and we will certainly need the Word
of God full of grace and truth.
SOMETHING OF THE FUTURE
Sometimes it is exciting to look forward, to cast our eye into the future and
to make a stab at what some of the preoccupations and possibilities will
be in years to come. Often church people bemoan the fall away in church attendance.
I understand that in certain suburban parts of Northern Ireland church attendance
averages well below 10%, even below 5%, while we in country dioceses are
repeatedly conditioned to see ourselves as second-class citizens by virtue
of being ‘country cousins.’ Don’t believe a word of it!
Too easy would it be for us in moments of panic to see the boosting of numbers
of people attending church as the sole yardstick of effective Christianity.
After all, God began without the church and may well conclude without the
church. Again, too easy would it be for us, inside the church, to dismiss
the faltering, sometimes strident, sometimes imploring, but sincere cries
of those seeking faithfully to find the church out there, at work in the
world as not being Christians at all. We have much to learn and much to unlearn.
Politically in Northern Ireland you might well argue that the churches on
the ground have been caught on the hop. It seems that any time we are challenged,
there is every reason from tradition for us not to get involved. We hear it
and we say it: The time is not right or: It would cause offence or: That sort
of thing is better left to someone else – and so forth. Yet, the picture,
the image, the icon of life in Northern Ireland which has broken ground is
that of a jovial Mr Paisley and a jovial Mr McGuinness sitting side by side,
looking together towards the world which is beyond both of them. It was a picture
which many thought they would never see. It is a picture which many of us cannot
yet comprehend. I suggest that it is our challenge and our duty to take this
picture as fact rather than as fiction and also, when the rhetoric of its subjects
is that of those eager to please, to go deeper and to root for content when
what we hear is words. To my mind this is an urgent priority if the churches
are to make any contribution to the fashioning of a Northern Ireland of the
future. The future of Northern Ireland will be found in and through mature
devolution at all levels. And mature devolution requires not only peaceful
co-existence but pro-active co-operation on the part of those who, previously
enemies, now accept their need of one another as fellow-citizens. This, in
turn, necessitates an honesty and a trust informed by both grace and truth.
Has not the time come for churches to engage generously and critically with
the new political aliveness and to weave the best of what we are and who we
can yet become in the new Ireland now unfolding before us? This is a moment
to rejoice. This is a time to savour. This is a season to remember and to say:
I was part of it when it happened.
In no sense am I glib or naïve enough to think that the leap – significant
though it is – from violence to peace is in any sense a ‘let-out’ for
contemporary politicians on any side. It is not, nor can it be. Incitement
to diminish others different from oneself; intimidation to conform socially
or religiously to a shrunken or shrivelled definition of who we are; injustice
perpetrated in the names of ideas more imposed than agreed – we have
been there and we do not want to return. This is the sort of tyranny which
we hope no longer has a market value in our society. And our own Hard Gospel
Project has already said much on this theme and has much more to contribute.
It is a great pleasure to know that the Border Protestants Initiative for which
I called a couple of years ago in Diocesan Synod will be happening very soon
in conjunction with The Hard Gospel Project here in our diocese.
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION
We have recoiled from a Truth and Reconciliation Commission as much as anything
because we have become inured over decades to the rhetoric of the reconciliation
industry when we were too fearful and too battered to be able to demand truth.
There is a real dilemma at the heart of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission
in our context and it is this: in the human sphere without confession there
cannot effectively be forgiveness and without truth there cannot effectively
be reconciliation. I suspect that we are nowhere near that point yet. I wish
both Mr Denis Bradley and Lord Eames everything that is best in their current
endeavours but would hazard a guess that even they are admitting already
to themselves that they will do little more than scratch the surface and
both of them know how dangerous this is in Northern Ireland. I suggest respectfully:
How indeed can it be otherwise when there is no agreed definition of a perpetrator
and a victim and when a number of victims are also perpetrators and a number
of perpetrators victims? Speaking for us all I am sure, I should also like
to wish Lord Eames every happiness in retirement and to wish Archbishop Harper
every strength in his work as Primate.
Ecology and the environment: These are areas outside the west door of the
church and beyond the covers of our Prayer Books and Hymnals – or so
it might seem. Yet this is where there is a genuine passion on the part of
young people to care for the planet. If we look at our Bibles – from
Genesis to Revelation – we see unfolding before us the story of stewardship
faithfully executed and cruelly squandered. I think particularly of the tiny
Book of Ruth – emotional yet unsentimental – where in the human
story unfolding we find the presence of God in the actions that people take:
Ruth’s willingness to be an alien in order to support her mother-in-law;
Boaz’s heeding Naomi in leaving some of the harvest for the women and
outcasts to glean. Here we have a human ecology and an ecology of nature rolled
into one. From the incalculable richness of the Hebrew Scriptures Ruth offers
us an ethic of engagement which is unsurpassed in its directness and its effectiveness.
But the urgencies of the planet are, in a very special way, an area of life
about which we all can and must do something. On the global and the local level
alike, there is need to become involved and to make our individual contribution,
however small it may seem, and however small it may in fact be, to this vital
work of conservation and preservation of an unique environment. It will change
the way we think, it will change the way we farm, it will change the way in
which we dispose of what we no longer want or need. It also has to change the
way we pray and the way we worship. And churches should now play an increasing
part in this, if we are serious about connecting once again with the world
around us. Wouldn’t it be marvellous were we as Christian people to make
the connection, to draw the two together and to have a notice outside our churches
which said arrestingly yet responsibly:
You are welcome here to come and worship God. Please bring your rubbish to
church!
Education: Future provision for educational needs in Northern Ireland is now
a thorny subject. As much as anything this is because, under the Review of
Public Administration, we have reached the point where real and lasting decisions
have to be made and nobody seems to want to make them. While those who make
provision either as teachers or as governors for such a future at primary or
at secondary level genuinely agonize about making the most responsible and
imaginative decisions for future generations, whatever clarity there may be
at Departmental or Governmental level does not seem readily to come our way.
I use the word: our, because many of us here and many other members of the
diocese are involved. I appeal through this Diocesan Synod to the Minister
for Education to come clear and clean with us about a number of issues which,
so long as fog and fudge remain, make strategic planning for the Controlled
Sector well-nigh impossible.
A number may look towards the Roman Catholic Church and note the way in which
a radical plan for Fermanagh, through Clogher and Kilmore Dioceses, is already
on the table, has been offered for public consumption and may go on to wonder
why, in the Controlled Sector, there is no similar coherent statement or plan.
To speak plainly, it is because there is no agreement. I suggest a number of
reasons:
(1) we are not accustomed to being radical
(2) we still think that a benign past will somehow continue as it always has
done
(3) we suffer from an over-attachment to the plants which we have and we fear
the effects of centralization and maximization on what we are today reluctantly
forced to admit to be the small communities which we constitute.
The General Synod Board of Education NI in its response to The Costello Report
came out broadly in favour of the then proposals, and received little thanks
for it. It did so, however, for a reason which I believe will stand the test
of time: the best interests of the pupils. It did not do so in order to be
disloyal to the past or the present. It did so in order to be loyal to making
such provision for the future.
(4) integration somehow is a word we dread. I suspect that years of having
to live with the zapping effects of sectarianism have deprived us of the sense
of freedom and openness to opportunity which the word integration contains
and offers.
Increasingly young people think quite differently from the ways in which we
do. I thank God for that because, were it otherwise, there would be no tomorrow.
Frustratingly, religion itself seems to have most of its shares invested in
the past – antiquarianism at its most worrying. Young people today seek
more and more in terms of life-skills from their years in school. Talk to any
teacher – particularly in the primary sector – and you will hear
that the curriculum is full of add-ons. But the integration of which I speak
is the integration of vocational and intellectual education. These words I
choose carefully because both of them are properly academic and neither is
elitist. This is a reality of integration which has long been lost, and sadly,
from our understanding of secondary education. My prediction is that, within
quite a short period of time, the choices may well have been made over our
heads. If we find ourselves left behind, we have only ourselves to blame.
The scaffolding of a new society: More and more I sense that we are coming
to terms with the very broad range of choice in our society with confidence.
I would go further and say that while the church as an institution is agonizing
about what, at the point when change is happening, is being lost, other people
are getting on with their lives and, because of the calculated nostalgia of
the same church, are in fact making principled and pragmatic decisions for
themselves. The underlying danger is that, while the church exudes an air of
not wishing to engage with change, people generally will cease to think of
the church as an obvious ‘pit stop’ in their decision-making. Our
fear of change in the world around us is no less than a wilful desire not to
heed the Spirit of God active in the world. People are looking for what I might
call the scaffolding of a new society and increasingly they are appreciating
structures which give opportunity for personal fulfilment within the life of
a community. We need to come down from our perch and work in with them.
The social vacuum created and perpetuated by the years of The Troubles has
gone but we need to be careful not to let a new vacuum of social inaction move
in. I think that there is at the same time a parallel movement, a levelling
out of the heady sense of freedom-from-all-structures along with the recognition
that most of us simply cannot handle such freedom to our best advantage without
guidance and without a sense of belonging. Again my own opinion is that the
churches – together and individually – have a great deal to contribute.
But we need to be both gracious and adventurous. In a world where Christianity
is increasingly ‘on the rack’ and ‘on the ropes’ it
is difficult to see how initiatives which churches take in independent disregard
of one another will be taken seriously today, let alone tomorrow. Northern
Ireland is a microcosm of religious specialisms and within such a spectrum,
experimental, interesting, exciting and important things can and do happen – but
all too often outside the churches which regard themselves as mainstream. Who
would have thought that a church on the Shankill Road would, in good faith,
close and move to the Falls Road in order to facilitate new members for whom
it was difficult and dangerous to come to the Shankill Road to worship? Teaching
on its own is insufficient. Action needs to accompany it. Structures which
have long been in place may well be creaking under the strain of everything
they are now asked to bear. As well as seeking fresh expressions of church
we need, at the same time, what I might call old church done better.
ENNISKILLEN BOMB 20TH ANNIVERSARY
In our diocese and across the whole world, Remembrance Sunday 1987 in Enniskillen
will be remembered as one of the most dastardly and cynical acts ascribed
to the Provisional IRA during the period of ‘The Troubles.’ This
event is still dogged by a genuine failure on the part of the perpetrators
to accept any sense of reality about what they did; by the total absence
of any meaningful gesture of apology; by an unrealistic expectation which
hangs somewhere out there in the ether that the people whose lives and family
securities were shattered on that steely November morning could simply ‘move
on.’ It was not, in fact, until what we call 9/11 that international
terrorism, with its insidious tentacles entwining individuals and communities
everywhere, became an unmarketable product and we saw a sustained de-escalation
of terrorism in our land. In Enniskillen and elsewhere, there have been marvellous
examples of forgiveness and the absence of bitterness while at the same time
those who suffered most acutely retain a very fresh memory of those who were
killed and of the way in which they were killed. For many of those directly
involved, they have needed all of the days in those twenty years simply to
keep going. I applaud once again the dignity and courage of those who have
endured so much on top of such terrible tragedy.
MISSION IN THE DIOCESE
Since last we met as Diocesan Synod, we have had two visitors to Clogher from
the Diocese of Madrid and the Archdiocese of Kaduna in Northern Nigeria.
The first coincided with St Macartan’s Day in March when we were delighted
to welcome Bishop Carlos Lopez-Lozano and his wife Anna to Clogher. They
very much regard Clogher as their home diocese because in the late nineteenth
century Bishop Stack was one of the three Irish bishops who consecrated the
first Anglican bishop of Spain. Not only did Bishop Carlos speak of the foundation
of his church, with genuine pride in the Irish connection, but he also spoke
of the situation of the Anglican Church during the Spanish Civil War. He
addressed a packed Ardess Historical Society, the Clogher Historical Society,
members of the Mothers’ Union, clergy and lay leaders and visited the
Primary School in Lack along with Colaghty Parish Church and Hall and Monaghan
Collegiate School. Bishop Carlos has invited Mr Simon Genoe, one of our ordinands,
to work with young people in the diocese and in an initiative involving refugees.
He has also invited me to conduct his diocesan Clergy Residential at St Patrick’s-tide
next year. We are the first Irish diocese in recent times officially to have
welcomed Carlos and all of you as members of the diocese should congratulate
yourselves on such generosity and openness. Any time I have met him since
then he has spoken with great appreciation of his time in Clogher and of
its people.
Our second visitor was Archbishop Josiah Idowu-Fearon who gave us a tremendous
public lecture on Christian-Muslim relations in Northern Nigeria with a combination
of clarity and passion rarely seen. He also underlined for us the inadequacy
of simplistic definitions of mission. It was his first visit to Ireland. He
was offered the rare privilege of a Chairman’s reception by Fermanagh’s
First Citizen, Councillor Alex Baird; he met our two Church of Ireland MLAs,
Mr Tom Elliott and Mrs Arlene Foster; he participated in the sinking of a Macartan
1500 Time-capsule in the grounds of Belleek Pottery and addressed clergy, DPAs
and Readers. Out of his visit has come not only a more subtle and balanced
understanding of the place of Anglicanism in Nigeria but also a practical initiative
involving Christians and Muslims working side by side in developing economic
self-sufficiency on Jacaranda Farm. This sort of partnership is neither formal
nor trumpeted with full brass, but in both of the cases above the friendship
is genuine and reciprocated. In an Anglican Communion currently, so it seems,
happy to collapse in on top of itself we should be glad of such small mercies.
On your behalf I have already congratulated Archbishop Josiah on being appointed
by the Archbishop of Canterbury one of the Six Preachers of Canterbury Cathedral,
the first ever to be appointed from outside the Church of England.
MONAGHAN INITAITVE
Before the Diocesan Synod this year is a Motion in the name of the Diocesan
Council relating to the amalgamation of the Donagh Group of Parishes and
the Monaghan Group of Parishes with the attendant church closures this requires.
The substance of this Motion has been the stuff of many, many meetings including
a Special Meeting of the Diocesan Council. There has been widespread consultation
on the ground by Members of the Clogher Commission and in particular by the
archdeacon and the Diocesan Secretary. I should like to pay tribute to all
those who have put in extra work from the outset in this matter. It is, ladies
and gentlemen Members of Synod, a brave motion and I ask you please to give
it serious, thoughtful consideration. Those who bring it do so with their
eye on sustainable provision of ministry in North Monaghan. It has the support
of Diocesan Council. But, as you are well aware, only Diocesan Synod can
make the appropriate decision for the future.
NEW CLERGY AND NEW INITIATIVES
A number of new clergy has begun work and a number of new initiatives has taken
place in the diocese since we met in Monaghan in 2006. In early December
2006 the Reverend David Skuce was instituted to the Grouped Parishes of Maguiresbridge
and Derrybrusk. A son of the diocese, David has subsequently taken on the
further role of co-ordinating Lay Ministry in the diocese. We now have well
over forty people happily involved in a fulfilling lay ministry as Diocesan
and Parochial Readers and DPAs, a number in dual roles. This is something
to celebrate every bit as much as ordained clerical ministry, not least because
it is often more difficult to do this work among people who already know
you very well. The Reverend Bryan Kerr has undertaken the work of co-ordinating
support for DPAs and for this I am grateful. Since last year’s Synod,
seven DPAs have been trained, commissioned and deployed throughout the diocese.
In May 2007 the Reverend Robert Kingston was instituted to Carrickmacross
Group of Parishes. Robert brings with him vast creative experience of parochial
and pastoral life on the ground lived in a wide range of dioceses in the
Church of Ireland. Robert has already undertaken the position and work of
being Rural Dean of Monaghan. We wish him and Rosemary well in everything
which will unfold for them in Carrickmacrosss Group of Parishes. In June
2007 the Reverend Bryan Martin was instituted to Dromore Parish in the week
in which the Parish was celebrating fifty years since the laying of the foundation
stone of the present church building. We welcome Lesa and Joel along with
Bryan to Clogher Diocese, confident that Bryan has much to offer and a great
willingness to share his talents. The Reverend Colin Bell, after a term as
Chaplain to the Forces, is to return to Clogher Diocese and expects to be
instituted rector of Aghadrumsee Group of Parishes in November 2007. The
Reverend Derek Kerr has moved, on October 1st, to be incumbent of Drummaul
Group of Parishes in the Diocese of Connor. Throughout his time in Clogher
he played his part in mission, youth work and as a Clerical Secretary of
the Synod as well as in the life of the Grouped Parishes of Devenish and
Boho. We wish him well in all that will unfold for him in Randalstown. We
also wish the Reverend Ian Linton and his wife Amanda well when they move
from Enniskillen to Drumcliffe Group of Parishes in the Diocese of Elphin.
Ian has made a strong impression in the parish and the diocese in so many
ways in the time he has spent with us.
The Reverend Alison Seymour-Whiteley was ordained deacon on May 31st in St
Macartan’s Cathedral, Clogher. Likewise in Clogher Cathedral on June
9th the Reverend Elizabeth Thompson was ordained priest – to a rather
convincing local drum-beat which was more than a match for the technique shown
by the archbishop of York when he was with us in 2006 if those of you who were
present recall! These were tremendously joyous occasions in the lives of these
two individuals, their families and in the on-going life of the diocese in
both mission and ministry. Mr Charles Eames and Mr Simon Genoe continue in
training for the ministry and Mrs Lorriane Capper has already begun training
this year. We continue to appreciate the work of retired clergy and Readers
who make it possible for us all to be members of a Diocese which runs with
efficiency and where worship continues in a regular cycle availing of talents
of those who generously give of themselves in preparation for and conducting
of such worship Sunday by Sunday.
This is not the time to be complaining! It is indeed fashionable to say – and
I hear many people saying it – that nobody is ‘going into the church’ these
days. It has not always been the case and indeed it may not be the case in
the future, but as things stand we are tremendously fortunate in terms of ministry
in our diocese – and now is not the time to be grumbling. The vast majority
of our parishes have clergy. We have an increasing pool of committed, talented
Non-stipendiary Clergy. We have Diocesan Readers and Parish Readers who are
very much at ease with the people among whom they work and with the work which
they are doing. And, unique in the Church of Ireland, we have Diocesan Pastoral
Assistants who have made a tremendous impact and contribution across the diocese
in less than a year. All of this should encourage us to be in good heart and
discourage us from listening too readily to the prophets of doom on every occasion.
I wish to single out one Diocesan Reader in particular, Mr Robert Fyffe, who
has served for more that thirty-three years in this capacity in Fivemiletown
Parish and across the diocese. Robert is known to us all for his personal faith
in God; for his commitment to the ways of the Church of Ireland; and for his
consistency and care of others. His effective involvement in the life of the
community was recognized in New Year Honours as has also been that of Captain
Robert Lowry, also of Fivemiletown. As Mr Robert Fyffe has decided to retire,
we accept his decision reluctantly and wish that he be assured he will always
be welcome at diocesan events.
To our Synod today we have pleasure in welcoming The Reverend Ian Carton of
the Presbyterian Church in Ireland from First Monaghan; The Reverend Joseph
McGuinness of the Roman Catholic Church from Enniskillen and The Reverend Daphne
Twinem of the Methodist Church from Fivemiletown as Official Guests. I trust
that Members of Synod will join me in welcoming you and we look forward to
what you say to us later.
DIOCESAN OFFICE
Throughout the year we have been blessed by a very effective Diocesan Office,
a very efficient and pleasant group of people in Glenn Moore, Ruth McKane
and Kellie Beacom. All three of them instinctively go out of their way to
help any who approach them. So good are they at what they do that sometimes
I wonder if we make too many demands on their willingness to be of assistance
to us. Kellie who managed MACARTAN 1500 part 1 has moved to work in a project
closely associated with the lives of young people in Enniskillen and, although
we hope to see her with us from time to time, we wish her well in the new
sphere of work. The enhancement of the profile of Clogher Diocese among people
of all shades of opinion and religious persuasion we owe to MACARTAN 1500
and I wish to pay tribute to all concerned. This project has opened our eyes
to other people. It has also enabled us to facilitate discussion on things
which really do matter to people and to open up debate and to show the non-ecclesiastical
world that we are serious about doing business with it.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
I began with what may seem to have been a few jottings culled from Holy Scripture
in the form of no more than five words: … full of grace and truth … Those
five words, however, come from that part of St John’s Gospel of which
we never tire, the opening chapter. There St John makes the essential link
between the Word of God and creation itself and in so doing ties together
in that life-giving way the Word of God as person and the Word of God as
Scriptural witness to the definitive divine revelation. This, ladies and
gentlemen Members if Synod, is what it is to be an Evangelical: to carry
in one’s own person, by one’s own life, the Word of God in the
cross of Christ and through the pages of Holy Scripture. The urgency lies
with us, in our day, with our neighbour, to run with the responsibility which
is ours as those who have seen …his glory …to carry on and to
carry through the mission of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and
truth. (St John 1.14)
The spirit of Clogher remains well encapsulated in the Collect for St Macartan’s
Day: building and strengthening of the church, Gospel proclamation and leadership,
reconciliation and peace in society in our time. To this we are called again
in 2007:
Heavenly Father, we thank you for Macartan, faithful companion of St Patrick,
and builder of your church in Clogher: Build up your church through those whom
you call to leadership in this generation and strengthen your church to proclaim
the gospel of reconciliation and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
+Michael Clogher: 04.x.2007