Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from 'The Irish Times'
Saturday 1 March 2008
DUFEM Report
The Dublin University Far Eastern Mission (DUFEM) was founded in 1886 to engage TCD students with Christianity in China. The society , of which the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin are patrons and which is chaired by Canon Patrick Comerford, has had a long and distinguished history of supporting the Church in China through education, friendship and material care.
The context within which DUFEM works has changed since its foundation and the organisation now engages in ecumenical and secular endeavours whilst not losing sight our founders' original concerns. In recent years DUFEM has developed a summer placement scheme where young TCD students travel to China to work with the YMCA .
DUFEM is also engaged in examining the status of immigrants to Ireland from mainland China. This grouping constitutes a significant minority of the populations of both parts of Ireland. Many report experiences of racism and of discrimination. It is unclear what their spiritual and their social needs are and how they are being met. DUFEM and the China Educational and Cultural Liaison Committee (a Roman Catholic Church organisation) commissioned a sociological study into the religious values of the Chinese people in Ireland. This was undertaken as a first step to determine what pastoral care the Churches might offer and further to uncover issues which the Churches might not be able to directly address but of which our whole society must be conscious.
The launch of this report, Mainland Chinese Students and Immigrants in Ireland and their Engagement with Christianity, Churches and Irish Society by Dr Richard O'Leary and Dr Lan Li, will take place next Thursday at 6.15pm in the Chapel in Trinity College. As an ecumenical space within a secular university the Chapel reflects the ethos of DUFEM as it strives towards greater understanding through education and engagement. (Please click here for further details)
Today (Saturday) choral evensong in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, will be sung by the cathedral girls’ choir and the lay vicars choral. They will be joined by the Blackburn Cathedral Girls’ Choir who will also sing at the services in St Patrick’s Cathedral tomorrow (Sunday). At 8pm this evening (Saturday) in St Patrick’s Cathedral the Cathedral Choir and the Seafield Singers will perform Hayden’s oratorio, The Creation, in aid of the Coombe Women & Infants University Hospital.
Tomorrow (Sunday) morning at the Sung Eucharist in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin, the final sermon in the Hilary term series, entitled ‘Holy Irrelevant’, will be delivered by the Church of Ireland Chaplain, the Revd Darren McCallig.
In the Diocese of Brisbane three members of the Mothers Union will attend the first in a series of regional meetings at which members from a number of countries will share experiences and plan the work of the MU for the next decade. Roberta McKelvey from Belfast has chaired the committee which has planned these meetings and she will be joined in Australia by Margaret Schultz from the Diocese of Limerick and Geraldine Beattie from the Diocese of Clogher. (Please click here for further details)
A team from the Divine Healing Ministries, led by Brother David Jardine, has been conducting a mission in the city of Cali, Columbia, which is one of the main drug cities in South America. The team will be reporting back at a Healing Service in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, on Monday evening at 8pm. (Please click here for further details)
‘Religion and Politics’ is the theme of the ecumenical Lenten session in the Church of the Assumption, Rathfarnham, on Thursday evening at 8pm. The speakers will be Sen. Ronan Mullen and Irish Times journalist, Lara Marlowe.