Press Releases07 Jun 09

Archbishop of Armagh's Address at 2009 RUC George Cross Day Service

2009 RUC George Cross Day Service, Enniskillen

The Most Revd Alan Harper, OBE, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, gave the address at the 7th Annual RUC George Cross Day Service, held on Sunday 7th June 2009 at 3.00pm in St Macartin's Cathedral, Enniskillen.

Transcript of the Archbishop's address:

My first words today must be words of thankfulness: thankfulness for the opportunity to take part in this service, but thankfulness also for that other kind of service represented by the organization and the individuals we respectfully recall and celebrate today. The continuity and the length of that service I saw for myself on a very wet evening in May when, with others, I was given a conducted tour of the Royal Ulster Constabulary George Cross Garden at Knock.

In that segment of the garden devoted to retelling the story of policing in Ireland I re-established contact, as it were, with someone I have known about all my life but to whom I had paid inadequate attention – Sir Robert Peel, that pioneer of policing, who first established a police force for Ireland in 1814. Peel more than stands comparison with those other two petulantly competitive rivals of 19th century history, the flamboyant Disraeli and the morose Gladstone.

Why have I lived all my life in desultory contact with Peel? Because in his day he represented my home town in parliament and his name and statue are to be found in many places in Tamworth, where I was born.

Peel was an innovator: not only did he virtually invent organized policing, he also invented the political manifesto. You may not think this such a wonderful thing in view of the way in which manifestos are sometimes now treated (no sooner printed than quietly shelved,) but the notion that candidates for election should actually say what they stand for and how they intend to govern and serve the community if elected is surely, in principle at least, a very good thing. That all began with Peel and the Tamworth Manifesto.

As is frequently the way of the world, Peel fell from power without having either the opportunity to see the full benefits of the good changes he made or the chance to remedy his mistakes. In that he was not alone.

In the Old Testament Lesson appointed for this service we hear of that old visionary, Moses, poised on the borders of the land promised to Israel and to which he had led them through the harshest of environments and against the most severe of trials, only to be told by the Lord, as Moses stood on the heights of Pisgah,

This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, “I will give it to your descendants.” I have let you see it with your own eyes, but you will not cross over into it.

And Moses, the servant of the Lord died there in Moab. He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no-one knows where his grave is.

It fell to the new leader, Joshua, the son of Nun to lead the people into their long hoped for home in what formerly had been known as Canaan. Moses had accomplished all and perhaps more than he might have been expected to achieve yet the time had come for the baton to be passed to a new regime, and passed it was.

Notice that it was not that the old man had lost any of his vigour:

His eyes were not weak, nor his strength gone.

Rather, Moses had accomplished all that was required of him and for a new land and new ways of life – settled life not constant migration and flight through hostile territory – the time had come for a new regime, a new leader with new skills, new ways of seeing things, new visions of opportunity, different ways of life to pioneer, different tasks to address.

This is not to say that there was no continuity. On the contrary, the new man was Moses’ man:

Joshua, son of Nun was filled with the spirit of wisdom because Moses had laid his hands on him.

Joshua was taking up and taking on the work which had been the life’s work of Moses his mentor, but shaping his responses to new times.

I wonder if I am alone in seeing in this a kind of parable of what has happened to policing in Ireland since Peel passed into law his Peace Preservation Act of 1814. From the Peace Preservation Force to the County Constabularies, from the Royal Irish Constabulary to the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the Garda Siochana, and now, in Northern Ireland, from the RUC to the PSNI, the shape and the social circumstances of policing have responded to change with a continuity of commitment to maintaining the law and securing the safety of the citizen over the period of two extremely turbulent centuries.

It happens that my wife is the daughter of an RUC officer, a constable who served principally in East Belfast throughout the Second World War and well beyond. Interfacing on the streets of Belfast with the men, women and children of the community he served at a time of danger uncertainty and privation. He saw and rejoiced in the dignity of ordinary service exercised with concern for people. And, of course, when we speak of ordinary service we actually mean extra-ordinary service.

Joshua, Moses successor, was also committed to the service of his people and of their God, exercising his gifts through a new age of conflict. He received from his mentor the spirit of wisdom, and the spirit of wisdom almost always conveys with it the common touch. Yet, I think that the inheritance Joshua received from Moses must have been more than just the common touch. His vocation was not only to serve but also to lead and leadership is a multi-faceted exercise.

For a sense of what those extra qualities might have encompassed – qualities which I believe the RUC can with utter confidence commend to its successor, the PSNI – there is no need to look any further than the words attributed to Paul and read as the second lesson at this service.

The passage is about the qualities you need, the attributes you require, to equip you both for service and leadership with integrity in the community.

Paul writes of the belt of truth buckled around your waist.
He refers to the breastplate of righteousness.
He speaks of being shod with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.

Witnessing to truth; giving embodiment, as far as in you lies, to a generous code of righteousness; and walking in peace with all people, never counting the cost; these are qualities that the RUC might wish to commend to the PSNI.

But Paul does not leave it there. He goes on to write of the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God. In other words he speaks of the necessity of maintaining a firm grip on spiritual things in order fully to experience and fully to model the ethics and values that make for a whole and a wholesome society.

The spiritual is what fills with content the ethical. The ethics of truth, righteousness and peace are all very well but there is more to truth than cold facts, more to ethics than logic and self interest, more to righteousness than a cold unwavering code, more to peace than merely the absence of hostility. It is the spiritual that animates these things to give them life. They are warmed into life through faith, hope, love, mercy, self sacrifice, joy, and most of all grace. Grace, that unmerited gift, treats the unworthy as worthy, the inadequate as endued with potential, the powerless as deserving of the highest esteem and the unloved as nevertheless lovely. Grace is at the heart of loving service.

Pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests, Paul wrote. When you pray, and especially when you remember in your prayers your successors in title to policing in Northern Ireland, the PSNI, pray especially for faith and for grace to animate the service they give. Service which is directed towards the secure rooting of peace and harmony in a society now offered the opportunity to establish the kind of community life and community institutions that are a transformation of a painful past into a proud, hopeful and generous future.

Through the legacy you pass on and the prayers you still offer the new chapter will become a tribute to the love, service and sacrifice that went before. As the success of Joshua’s leadership of the settlement in the land was the fulfillment of the hardships and sacrifices of the wilderness years that had brought the people, under Moses, to the frontiers of their promised land. So the longed for success of a new dispensation in Northern Ireland may become the fulfillment of our wilderness years.

Therefore, I conclude by paraphrasing the famous words of Paul:

Be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.
Put on the whole armour of God so that you can take your stand …for the  struggle… is ultimately spiritual.

ENDS