Irish Times Notes
Church of Ireland Notes from The Irish Times
Saturday 6 May 2006
General Synod Meets in Armagh
The General Synod will meet next week in the Armagh City Hotel from Tuesday until Thursday. On Tuesday evening there will be a celebration of the Eucharist in St Patrick?s Cathedral at which the Archbishop of Armagh will be the celebrant and preacher.
The legislative programme will include bills relating to child protection, marriage regulations and cathedral administration and resolutions concerning proposed liturgical amendments. Among the issues which will also be debated are education; poverty, justice and fair-trade; ecology and the environment; disability and the Windsor report.
Unusually the Synod will provide the focus for the launch of several important publications. The most substantial of these will be launched by the Primate at lunchtime on Wednesday. This is a book of essays on aspects of the history of the clergy, edited by the Oxford historian, Dr Toby Barnard and the Secretary of the Church of Ireland Historical Society, Canon W.G. Neely. Among the contributions are specialist pieces on education by Dr Kenneth Milne and missionary clergy by Canon W.J. Marshall; biographical studies by the Bishop of Meath and Kildare and Canon John Crawford; and important narrative chapters by Professors Adrian Empey, Colm Lennon and Raymond Gillespie. The Clergy of the Church of Ireland, 1000-2000. Messengers, Watchmen and Stewards has been published by Four Courts Press.
Equally important but very different is the report of the Church of Ireland Bishops? Advisory Commission on Doctrine, entitled The Authority of Scripture. The report contains contributions from Canon Nigel Biggar, Professor of Theology and Ethics in TCD, Dr Andrew Pierce from the Irish School of Ecumenics, the Dean of Killaloe, Dr Stephen White, the Dean of Killala, Dr Susan Patterson and the Rector of Shankill, Dr Maurice Elliott. An introduction and postlude by the chairman of the Commission, the Bishop of Meath and Kildare emphasises that the purpose of the publication is ?to point to a place where reasonable and courteous dialogue on the nature and authority of Holy Scripture may become a reality?. The report has been published by Church of Ireland Publishing and is available from the Resource Centre Bookshop, Dublin (01-4972821) and the Good Bookshop in Belfast (0289024 4825)
Finally, Life Beyond Boundaries. A Theology of the Hard Gospel seeks to provide a resource for dealing with the practical implications of Christian witness in challenging areas of life such as reconciliation, disadvantage, community, prejudice and discrimination. The work of the Revd Earl Storey, Director of the Hard Gospel Project, the Bishop of Tuam, and policy and research consultant, Anne Brown, this publication aims to place living with diversity firmly of the agenda of the Church of Ireland. Copies will be available free from the Hard Gospel Office, Church of Ireland House, Church Avenue, Rathmines, Dublin 6.
Today (Saturday) at noon the Meath & Kildare GFS Diocesan Festival Service will be held in St Mary?s Church, Maynooth, and tomorrow the Archbishop of Dublin will preach at the Dublin & Glendalough GFS Service in St Michael?s Church, Athy, at 3 pm.
Tomorrow (Sunday) morning the ?Picture Sermon? in the Chapel of Trinity College, Dublin will be given by the Revd Christopher Woods, curate of Dundela, who will discuss Bellini?s ?Jerome Reading in a Landscape?. In the evening, at 7 pm, the patronal festival of the Church of St John, Sandymount, will be held. The celebrant will be Fr John McKay and the preacher Fr Henry O?Shea OSB, a monk of Glenstal who is currently Secretary to the Abbot Primate of the Benedictines at Sant? Anselmo in Rome.