Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’
Saturday 4 February 2012
Bishops’ Appeal Programme Launched
Last Friday the Church of Ireland’s World Aid and Development Programme, Bishops’ Appeal, launched its theme for 2012. ‘Educate for Life’, a focus on formal and informal education will see Church of Ireland funding being directed to such projects as a Tearfund women’s literacy and leadership programmes in Burma, a Mother’s Union adult literacy and development programmes in Burundi and a USPG school support project for 26 Anglican schools in Swaziland. Other educational projects that have already been identified are a Christian Aid agri–industry project in Haiti which not only trains farmers in the dairy producing business but also supplies milk to students in 80 schools and a CMSI project in Rwanda that will train farmers in diversifying and strengthening their crops, help them form co–operatives that ensure they have health insurance, and give them a stable income so their children have opportunities to attend and remain in school.
The launch of Educate for Life was attended by the Kenyan Ambassador Ms. Catherine Muigai Mwangi and by Discovery Gospel Choir singers who led singing in Irish, Xhosa and Swahili to highlight the partnership between Ireland and the countries it supports. The Bishop of Cashel and Ossory, Michael Burrows, who chairs the Bishops’ Appeal Committee, praised the efforts and the loyal contributions of the Church of Ireland that sees poverty reduced and in some instances eradicated in the communities where Bishops’ Appeal projects are funded. ‘We live in challenging economic times, but there are others whose situation is far worse. Educate for Life projects give us a chance to share and to have a sense of dynamic partnership with other parts of the global church.’
Tomorrow (Sunday) morning RTE radio will broadcast a celebration of the Eucharist for Candlemas with the choir of St Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny, and organist Malcolm Proud. The celebrant will be the Dean of Ossory, the Very Revd Katharine Poulton, and the preacher will be the Revd Ian Coulter. In the evening the choir will sing at the Candlemas Service in St Laserian’s Cathedral, Old Leighlin.
Canon Patrick Comerford, Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy in CITI, is one of five guest preachers for Lent Term in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge where the Dean, the Revd Dr Peter Waddell is from Newcastle, Co. Down. Canon Comerford will preach tomorrow (Sunday) at Choral Evensong. He has been a student at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge and has taken part in its annual summer school in Sydney Sussex College.
On Tuesday the first in a series of lunchtime lectures in association with the exhibition on the 19th century restoration of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, will be given at 1.15pm in the Irish Architectural Archive, 45 Merrion Square, Dublin. 2. Dr Kenneth Milne, Chairman of the cathedral’s Culture Committee, will introduce the series with an historical overview.
On Tuesday evening, at 4.45pm, in the Good Bookshop, Donegall Street, Belfast, Lady Brenda Sheil, will launch Moving Forward Together: Homosexuality and the Church of Ireland, edited by the Revd Dr Virginia Kennerley and Dr Richard O’Leary. The Dublin launch will take place on Thursday at 6.15pm in the Trinity College Chapel Gallery where the speaker will be Judge Catherine McGuinness.
The Connor Diocesan Vision Strategy will be launched at a worship service for clergy in St Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast, on Wednesday at noon. A part of the strategy will be three Lenten seminars by the Bishop of Connor on ‘Gospel and Culture Today’ which will begin later this month.
Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’