Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from The Irish Times
Saturday 9th July 2005
New Visitation of Down & Dromore Published
Traditionally the principal functions of the bishops have been to ordain, confirm and to visit their dioceses. Confirmations continue to be a regular episcopal activity and so too, at least in the more populous dioceses, do ordinations. However, episcopal visitations, in the formal sense of an examination of the cathedral and each parish in the diocese to determine the physical condition of the buildings, the effectiveness of the clergy and the fidelity of the laity, and the recording of the results, is now rare. Of course, much of the information which visitation books contained is now recorded elsewhere and the bishops continue to pay pastoral visits to the parishes in their dioceses but it may be a mater for speculation if todays bishops are as well informed about their areas of jurisdiction as was the case before disestablishment.
These musings have been prompted by the publication of Build Your Church Lord which is the report of the visitation of the dioceses of Down and Dromore in 2004-5 by Bishop Harold Miller. The 434 pages are bursting with valuable detail ? information on age profiles, worship patterns, Sunday schools and parochial boundaries, all illustrated by graphs, pye charts, histograms and, most remarkably of all, maps of each of the parishes constructed by Canon Edgar Turner. But the information, valuable though it is in itself, is essentially a means to evaluate the state of the dioceses. The conclusions are not all comforting ? a decline in the size of worshiping congregations, a collapse in Sunday schools , a loss of young people after confirmation ? but there is also much to be encouraged about ? vitality in parish catechics, few clerical vacancies, growing links with the Church overseas, sound buildings made widely available for community use
There is much to ponder over in these pages not just for the bishop, clergy and people of Down and Dromore but for every diocese in the Church of Ireland.
This evening (Saturday) at 8 pm there will be an Open Air Youth Service in the grounds of the ancient church of Aghowle, a monastic site associated with St Finian, near Tullow, co. Carlow.
Tomorrow (Sunday) the National Day of Commemoration will be marked at Kilmainham where the Archbishop of Dublin will take part in the ceremony. In St Patrick?s Cathedral, Dublin, the choir of Grove City College, Pennsylvania, will sing in the morning while Evensong will be sung by the choir of St Paul?s Church, Mill Hill, London. The Cathedral Choir begins a tour to Galway on Friday.`
The Aughrim Summer School will conclude tomorrow (Sunday) with a service of Commemoration and Reconciliation in St Matthew?s Church which is near the site of the battle. The scripture reflections will be led by Bishop John Kirby and Pastor Robert Dunlop and the service will be broadcast of RTE Radio 1. In the evening in St Colman?s Church, Farahy, Co. Cork, there will be a candlelight recital by the Carducci Quartet from London.
On Monday the Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe will institute the Revd Marie Rowley-Brooke to the incumbency of Nenagh in succession to the Revd Sid Mourant who has retired. Mrs Rowley-Brooke, was trained at Cuddesdon and was ordained in 2002 for a curacy in Cheltenham in the dioceses of Gloucester.
St Mary?s Cathedral. Limerick, a wonderful Norman cathedral with a splendid acoustic, is the venue for a concert on Thursday at 8 pm when the tenor, Derek Moloney, will perform, accompanied by Oonagh Keogh (violin) and Jean O?Brien (piano).
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