Press Releases
REFLECTIONS ON THIS WEEK
Few can remember a week like it. Few will ever see such a week again in their lifetime.
The shock of the news from Paris, the bewilderment, the sadness and the frustration across the world, the endless questions, the constant press speculation - and the drawing together of the world through TV as the funeral service progressed at Westminster today.
In Northern Ireland it was as though most people had suffered a sudden family bereavement. From all sides of a divided community we were caught up in the same emotions which had swept across the world. We may never have met Princess Diana, we may never have spoken to her - but to a society well used to sudden death and bereavement something was happening. It did not seem to matter what religion we belonged to or what political label we wore - there was nothing else to talk about ...
A young woman so often criticised in life, so often the object of press attention and speculation, a young mother of two sons - woman who had been a 'fairy tale' Princess - somehow we were confronted by a wave of emotion which even her greatest admirers would not have totally recognised during her life.
Diana, Princess of Wales, had passed so suddenly from our sight in circumstances which made it all the more tragic. It took time to adjust to that fact and when we did one of the most remarkable phenomena of our time took place.
She had allowed the world to see her as she was. Not for Diana the constant protection of Royal privacy. Her happiness, her joy and her compassion shone through to that cynical and often uncaring world. But so did her sorrow, her anguish, her honesty and her frustration. She was recognised by ordinary people to be beyond the beauty, the privilege and the publicity - a human being. Her frailty, her weakness and her family experiences of broken hopes made it possible for people to get behind the facade of a very public person to glimpse something which was unique . The imagination of the world, the interest of the world and the sympathy of the world suddenly took on a new dimension. Diana was a real person.
Her interest in and support of the outcasts of society, her contacts with children , the sick, the bereaved and the dying only added to the mystic of a young woman whose complexities in life added to the fascination. Certainly Royalty and public figures had long been associated with charities and good deeds - but this was different. In the words of Pablo Casals:
"I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance."
When the events of this week pass into history what will future generations make of it all? Have we reached a turning point in how we regard public life? Did this week tell us much more about ourselves than about the Princess of Wales? Do we really and honestly understand what has happened?
Diana broke a mould. She achieved as an individual what no institution could achieve. The mass reaction to her death must seem in years to come to be in such contrast to the way in which she was treated in life. Has the reaction been some sort of community expression of guilt as much as regret? Has our emotion this week underlined that people as people are more important than historic institutions? Have her longings to be loved, to be wanted and to be understood touched the real chord of our ordinary lives and made us look again at what human love and compassion really means?
Our society has been without knowing it searching for 'identifiable' identities which beyond traditional structures have the common touch. Most people have a faith even if it is not expressed in obvious religious practice. Diana and all the Diana's of this world who are prepared to be themselves and to show that people matter more than things enhance our faith in goodness and compassion. We quickly forget the human frailty and we identify with the acts of kindness and caring.
For Royalty, for public life and for institutional practice nothing will be quite the same again ...
Human nature will live to see memories of this week dull and souvenir magazines gather dust on shelves and historians will ask questions - but something has happened. We have learned a great deal about ourselves this week... have we also learned more about what really matters in life?
Perhaps the greatest tragedy of a tragic week would be if we were to translate the Princess of Wales into an icon rather than to thank God for the memory of a beautiful human being who held up a great many mirrors towards us ...
Further information from:
THE CHURCH OF IRELAND PRESS OFFICE
Church of Ireland House
61 - 67 Donegall Street
Belfast BT1 2QH