Press Releases
Church of Ireland Group Meets With NI Commission for Victims and Survivors
Members of the Church of Ireland’s Social Justice and Theology Group (NI), a sub-group of its Church in Society Committee, recently met with the four Commissioners for Victims and Survivors in Northern Ireland in Armagh. At the invitation of the Church in Society Committee’s Chairperson, the Right Revd Michael Jackson, Bishop of Clogher, and initiated by the group’s Chairman, the Revd Kenneth Hall, the meeting was hosted in June at Church House, Armagh by the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, the Most Revd Alan Harper.
In an initial open and exploratory discussion, the four Commissioners – Patricia MacBride, Brendan McAllister, Bertha McDougall and Mike Nesbitt – outlined the nature of the Commission’s work, its definition of victims and survivors and the potential for the engagement of Church groups in the process of enabling people to speak about their conflict-related experiences. For its part, members of the Church’s Social Justice and Theology Group expressed the possibility for the Church to engage in a facilitative way between the Commission and victims and survivors within Church of Ireland congregations.
The Right Revd Michael Jackson welcomed the meeting and the Commissioners’ willingness to engage with the Church of Ireland directly. He said, ‘This was a fruitful and helpful encounter. The Church of Ireland hopes that the process being embarked upon by the Commission is a successful one especially in terms of ensuring that the voices of victims and survivors – not least those who have to date been "silent" ones – are effectively heard. There is a considerable task ahead involved in hearing people’s contributory voices, especially beyond "extreme" viewpoints. There are, of course, still great depths of hurt in our communities and many people for whom conflict is not simply something in or of the past. The Church has frequently been involved in holding communities together. The Church now may, through its clergy and where it is sought, be able to act as encouragers and perhaps facilitators of participation in the process at ground level. We trust that victims and survivors will be heard on their own terms and that the process will aid healing.’
L-R: Revd Kenny Hall; Commissioner Brendan McAllister; Commissioner Bertha McDougall; Most Revd Alan Harper, Archbishop of Armagh; Very Revd Patrick Rooke, Dean of Armagh; Right Revd Michael Jackson, Bishop of Clogher (Chairman, Church in Society Committee); Commissioner Patricia MacBride; Commissioner Mike Nesbitt.
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