Irish Churches and Reconciliation: Breaking the Bondage of the Past

Abstract

Irish Churches and Reconciliation: Breaking the Bondage of the Past Fergus O’Ferrall Bear in mind these dead: I can find no plainer words … The careful words of my injunction are unrhetorical, as neutral and unaligned as any I know: they propose no more than thoughtful response.1 John Hewitt The current situation The continuing grave and unresolved situation on the island of Ireland calls all who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour to a costly ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor 5:18).Twenty years after the BelfastAgreement, reached on Good Friday, 10 April 1998, there remains a clear sectarian division in Northern Ireland – with largely Catholics on one side and largely Protestants on the other. This division is reflected in voting patterns for both Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), as well as for some other political parties. The result is stalemate in the governance of Northern Ireland, this continues to alienate many people from politics and to increase acrimony in public life. A further consequence is a lack of democratic decision-making across a whole range of matters vital to the wellbeing of the people living in Northern Ireland. The Brexit process now underway, resulting from the 2016 Referendum in the United Kingdom, has compounded an already very difficult and fraught context in Ireland in respect of the principles, values and hopes embodied in the 1998 Belfast Agreement, further elaborated in the 2006 St Andrews Agreement and in the 2014 Stormont House Agreement. Brexit, a unilateral decision by the United Kingdom, presents a very serious threat to the economic life of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The British-Irish Agreement that is based upon the Belfast Agreement, and which is an internationally recognised treaty, was made by Fergus O’Ferrall Studies • volume 108 • number 431 244 Studies_layout_AUTUMN-2019.indd 12 21/08/2019 09:14 ‘partners in the European Union’: this partnership facilitated and supported the historic Belfast Agreement as endorsed by referenda in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland. Brexit has the potential to do a great deal of further damage and harm to all the people on this island. The legacy of the decades of violence from 1968 to 1998, and indeed later, remains unaddressed: a population of about 1.7 million has an estimated thirty per cent of people living in Northern Ireland who were directly affected – 3,720 were killed between 1969 and 2006 and about 500,000 who were bereaved, injured or suffered in other ways. The extent of the pain, trauma, anger and victimhood which lies barely under the surface of everyday life in Northern Ireland must be acknowledged: dealing with this legacy remains a core concern for those who desire a better future for everyone in the North. The hurt and trauma continues to require great pastoral concern from the churches. There is at present yet another consultation underway initiated by the Northern Ireland Office on possible structures to deal more effectively with the legacy issues of the conflict and we await decisions in respect of this initiative. Reconciliation: a challenge for the churches The history of Irish Christianity, in all of its denominational expressions, has resulted in a deeply embedded sectarianism, which has greatly contributed to the formation of our political identities. So, as we explore reconciliation in Ireland, we must address how the Churches have fostered sectarian attitudes since the Reformation. Sectarianism has been given a working definition as ‘a complex of attitudes, beliefs, behaviours and structures in which religion is a significant component and which (i) directly, or indirectly, infringes the rights of individuals or groups and/or (ii) influences or causes situations of destructive conflict’.2 The Irish Church is not exceptional in a world context in being associated with violence, extremism and bigotry. In the twentieth century it was often assumed that religion would become ever more marginal to political life and to conflicts. Research, however, such as The Future of World Religions Report,3 shows an increasing religious affiliation accompanied by a repoliticisation of religion: this includes a rise of religious fundamentalism across all the major world religions giving rise to conflict and violence. It is...