Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from 'The Irish Times'
Saturday 1 August 2009
The Church and Europe
It is not surprising that the Church of Ireland’s ecumenical and European concerns frequently coincide. This is particularly the case where the implications of membership of the EU are concerned, an ecumenical approach to the workings of the institutions of the Union being essential. The assembly of the Conference of European Churches (CEC) held recently in Lyon, and attended by the Bishop of Meath and Kildare (Vice-President of the Irish Council of Churches) and Dr Kenneth Milne (Honorary Secretary of the Church of Ireland’s Commission for Christian Unity and Dialogue) studied the many current issues that confront the citizens of Europe from a Christian perspective. The over-arching theme of the assembly was ‘Called to one hope in Christ’, and while such statements can lose much of their impact by trite usage, the fact remains that ‘hope’, as distinct from ‘optimism’, ought to be at the heart of the churches’ response to the present social and economic crises.
Addressing these major challenges many well call for radical changes in thinking and organisation. CEC came into being during the cold war, when the European churches were divided by the Iron Curtain. That has now disappeared, but while there is now an EU of 27 member states, east-west relations still pose problems, not least for churches, and new concerns like the current crisis in capitalism, globalization and climate change have emerged. The churches have already indicated to the leaders of the EU their deep concern that palliative measures will only deal with the symptoms of our present disorders, and that a radical rethink of economic and social policies is called for, doubtless confronting the churches themselves with the need for reappraisal. CEC itself has established a working-group to examine its present performance and make proposals for whatever re-shaping and re-prioritizing may be called for in the light of the new situations in which we find ourselves.
Many of the matters that arose at the CEC assembly in Lyon were discussed at a recently-held round table discussion on ‘Christian values and the EU’, held at the Institute for International and European Affairs, of which the Church of Ireland is a member. Dr Milne, who chairs the Working-group on European Affairs of the Church in Society Committee, and Dr Adrian Empey, a member of the working-group, were invited to make a presentation. The Institute’s website (www.iiea.com) carries full reports on this and other events.
Today (Saturday) Evensong in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, will be sung by the choir of St Andrew’s Church, West Taring, who will also sing the services tomorrow (Sunday).
Tomorrow (Sunday) there will be a Summer Service in Templeconnor Church, Clonmacnoise, at 4pm. Templeconnor Church is part of the Athlone union of parishes where the rector is the Revd Graham Doyle.
On Monday in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Evensong will be sung by the choir of Christ Episcopal Church, Grosser Point, Michigan.
On Thursday evening the performers in the St Barrahane’s Church Festival of Music in Castletownshend, Co. Cork, will be Elizabeth Cooney (violin) and Redmond O’Toole (guitar). The festival, which is in aid of the church fund, continues until the end of August and full details may be obtained on their website, click here. St Barrahane’s, described by Archbishop George Simms as ‘that beautiful little church on the hill’ is the parish church of Castlehaven in the diocese of Ross. The present church, designed by James Pain, was built in 1826 and is best know for its associations with the writers Somerville and Ross.