Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from 'The Irish Times'
Saturday 27 October 2007
New Issue of Search Published
The autumn edition of the Church of Ireland journal, Search, is a special issue on the European Union, in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome and the impending referendum in Ireland regarding the Reform Treaty.
In recent years the European nations have struggled to come to an agreement on a treaty on which to ground the political and cultural life of the new enlarged Union. In church circles, there has been considerable concern about how best to acknowledge and safeguard the Christian heritage in which European life has been embedded for the last fifteen hundred years or more; and to do this without excluding those of other faiths or none.
Dr Kenneth Milne, the Church of Ireland’s leading authority on these matters, contributes the introductory article, offering “a Church of Ireland perspective”. Articles by the Rev. Matthew Ross, Conference of European Churches, and Mgr Noel Treanor, Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, reflect on both the ecclesiological issues and the structures of church participation in the European project, while Maurice Hayes, chairman of the National Forum On Europe, offers a useful exposition of our progress towards the EU’s Reform Treaty, on which the only referendum to be held next year may be our own.
The large Islamic population in 21st century Europe is one the Treaty must cater for also. Dr Maha El-Kaisy of TCD has experienced the issue of the double identity of European Muslims in her own life, and has contributed an exposition of the thought of Prof. Tariq Ramadan, the leading thinker in this area.
This issue of Search also offers the second part of research by Dr Susan Patterson, Dean of Killala, on collaborative ministry, currently under discussion in the western dioceses of the Church of Ireland, and some reflections by the Rev. Sonia Hicks, a Methodist minister of African descent, on the bicentenary of the British Government’s Abolition of Slavery. Finally, there are some thought-provoking book reviews, including critiques of Richard Dawkins’ recent arguments for atheism and the second book, by Dr Stephen White, Dean of Killaloe, in his current trilogy, A Space for Unknowing.
This weekend a delegation from the Dublin University Far Eastern Mission, comprising Eimhim Walsh (Student Secretary), Joseph O’Gorman (Secretary) and Dr Kerry Houston (Treasurer), will attend celebrations in Fuzhou to mark the centenary of DUFEM. They will subsequently meet Chinese mission partners in Shanghai and pursue links made with the Anglican Church in Hong Kong where they will attend the ordination of Ms Cindy Kwok who spent some time in Ireland as a guest of DUFEM.
Today (Saturday) there will be a recital by the Con Tempo String Quartet from Galway in Whitechurch parish church, Co. Dublin, at 3 pm, while in the evening at 7.30 pm in St George’s parish Church, Belfast, there will be a Concert in Celebration of Music at St George’s.
Tomorrow morning (Sunday) the Bishop of Connor, the Rt Revd Alan Abernethy, will preach in Christ Church Cathedral, Lisburn, at a special thanksgiving service to mark 300 years of worship in the building. The church was rebuilt following the great fire of April 1707 which largely destroyed the town.
On Thursday evening at 6pm there will be a Sung Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, for All Saints’ Day while on Friday, All Souls’ Day, the Clerks Choral will sing Faure’s Requiem in St Mary’s Collegiate Church, Youghal, at 8 pm.