Perspectives on religion & politics
Secretary of State Owen Paterson has published a summary of the responses to the Eames Bradley Report on dealing with Northern Ireland’s past, revealing an overwhelmingly negative reaction to it.
As the unionist newspaper the News Letter puts it, ‘Ulster Rejects Eames Bradley Report on the Troubles.’ So is this just another case of ‘Ulster Says No’?
Today’s Irish Times carries a commentary by Joe Humphreys titled, ‘Africa Should not be Defined by Single Events.’ Citing the recent example of the successful World Cup in South Africa, Humphreys notes how media coverage changed dramatically from hysterical predictions that tourists would be murdered, to nearly universally positive, even fawning coverage of the tournament and the country.
Humphreys asserts that our images of Africa are familiar and therefore even comfortable – either despairing to the extent that we feel helpless to see or effect any change; or positive in a caricatured sort of way, i.e. ‘Africans are always happy.’
Continue reading ‘South Africa & the World Cup: Challenging Stereotypes?’
Yesterday was Ecumenical Day at the novena in West Belfast’s Clonard Monastery. As I’m in a Northern Irish style ‘mixed’ marriage, and live close to Clonard, I appreciate the spirit behind ecumenical day and try and make a point of being there.
So last night I dropped in on an evening session, where Rev. Steve Stockman, the minister from Fitzroy Presbyterian, was speaking. The theme for this year’s novena is ‘Our Church: A Time for Hope,’ and the theme for ecumenical day was ‘a time for justice.’
Continue reading ‘The Clonard Novena: Steve Stockman on Ecumenical Day’
For many, the welcome reception this week of the Saville Report and the British Prime Minister’s apology for the failings of the British Army and the British state in regard to Bloody Sunday have signalled that Northern Ireland may be beginning to move on from its troubled past.
This morning on Sunday Sequence, the past was very much back on the agenda as William Crawley facilitated a debate, ‘After Bloody Sunday: a Truth Commission for Northern Ireland?’ I have been concerned that the recommendations of the Eames-Bradley Report are going to be quietly and permanently shelved, so I welcome the entry of this issue back to the public domain.
Continue reading ‘Putting Northern Ireland’s Past Back on the Agenda’
Ecumenism in Northern Ireland is in what might be described as a quiet stage. Gone are some of the outrageous events of the 1960s, when the Rev. Ian Paisley and his Free Presbyterians staged regular protests against ecumenism outside the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.
But ecumenism hasn’t gone away, you know. In some ways it is taken for granted, in that now there is an easier, more regular sharing of space in the churches throughout Northern Ireland. There’s still a long road to walk, though, to get beyond the hesitant beginnings of mutual understanding to a place of mutually enriching relationships.
Continue reading ‘Sharing Sacred Spaces in County Fermanagh – A Walk with the Churches Forum’
Norman Hamilton was installed as the new moderator last night at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. A pastor for the past 22 years at Ballysillan Presbyterian, in a tough part of north Belfast, Hamilton can speak from experience about the urgent need for improved community relations.
In his first speech as moderator, Hamilton used strong and vivid language to highlight the community relations issue, calling sectarianism ‘the demon among us’ and saying that the failure of politicians to agree a community relations strategy is ‘a public disgrace.’
Continue reading ‘Norman Hamilton Takes Presbyterian Post: Moderating a Shared Future?’
If the Pope’s team of apostolic visitors want to prepare for their upcoming visit to Ireland, a good place to start would be a new book edited by John Littleton and Eamon Maher, The Dublin/Murphy Report: A Watershed for Irish Catholicism? (Columba, 2010)
The book gathers an impressive array of perspectives on the handling of the sexual abuse scandals, and the pressing questions facing the Irish Catholic Church today. Among those are the questions posed by the editors in the introduction (p. 10):
Continue reading ‘The Dublin/Murphy Report: A Watershed for Irish Catholicism?: Book Review’
The Pope has announced the team of apostolic visitors who will conduct an investigation into clerical sex abuse in Ireland. The Irish Times’ Patsy McGarry remarks that the Vatican has sent in ‘heavy hitters.’ McGarry says:
Continue reading ‘The Apostolic Visitors are Coming: Wounded Healers and Healing for the Wounded?’
David Stevens, Leader of the Corrymeela Community, died from cancer on Sunday at the age of 62. A founding member of the Community Relations Council, Stevens also worked for 25 years in the Inter Church Centre in Belfast, serving for 12 years as General Secretary of the Irish Council of Churches and Executive Secretary of the Irish Inter Church Meeting.
Stevens’ book, The Land of Unlikeness: Explorations into Reconciliation (Columba, 2004) is essential reading for students on our Master’s in Reconciliation Studies. It is a theological work, grounded in the context of Northern Ireland. In it, Stevens asks Christians to honestly examine the past and reflect on what they might bring to the search for reconciliation.
Continue reading ‘David Stevens – In Memory of a Peacemaker’
Recently one of the students on my School’s Master’s in Reconciliation Studies programme told me that the most powerful book he had read during the year was Give a Boy a Gun: One Man’s Journey from Killing to Peace-Making, by Alistair Little (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2009). The book is the autobiography of a former UVF man, co-written with Ruth Scott, detailing his journey from paramilitary activity to conflict transformation and peacebuilding work.
Parts of Little’s story are relatively well-known. It was the basis of a BBC drama featuring Liam Neeson and James Nesbitt, Five Minutes of Heaven. This film presented a fictionalised account of a proposed meeting between Little and the brother of the man he shot dead.
Continue reading ‘Alistair Little Book Review: Give a Boy a Gun’
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