Press Releases22 Dec 05

Bishop of Connor's Christmas message

Christmas is often proclaimed as a family time and a time especially for children. It certainly should be those things, yet the sentiment is put in sharp context by all that has happened in the world since we celebrated Christmas Day 2004. Earthquakes, the tsunami, hurricanes, warfare and terrorist outrages have destroyed homes, scattered families and left vacant places at many a seasonable dinner table. Let us celebrate Christmas with gusto but let us remember those who will find this ?family? time an occasion of pain and loss.

Let us also remember the many homes in Northern Ireland where genuine poverty, often associated with serious debt, will transform Christmas into a time of anxiety and even despair. Poverty and child poverty in Northern Ireland has many causes and manifestations, but two statistics are particularly striking. They concern the plight of lone parents: 67% of lone parents in Northern Ireland are living below the poverty line, (and, of course, a lone parent living in poverty means a child or children also livingin poverty.) Worse than that, the younger the lone parent the higher the risk of poverty so that of lone parent households at risk 79% are headed by someone aged between 16 and 34.

Christians do well to recall that Mary, the mother of our Lord, could have ended up as a lone parent were it not for the care and commitment of a man who was not the biological father of her son. It was Joseph who provided stability and took responsibility for the safety and well being of Mary and her first born. My Christmas prayer for 2005 is that we may re-establish ?family? as the partnership, best expressed through marriage, of a man and a woman committed to one another and also to the care and nurture of the children of their household. Someone once said that the best thing any man can do for his children is to love and care for their mother. May God bless and guide all parents and all children through Christmas into a future marked by commitment and real hope.