YOUNG people, especially Generation Z, are searching for authenticity of experience relatively than “the yada-yada which passes for the discussion of religion and spirituality”, the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Revd John McDowell, told the Church of Ireland’s General Synod, meeting in Naas, Co. Kildare, on Friday and Saturday.
“For them, Christian leadership is an energetic expression of religion,” he said. “They have little or no time for ecclesiastical jargon. They can see that Christian discipleship will not be the road of least resistance in life, and their experiences of the ups and downs of their lives to this point commends that to them. It has the smell of reality about it. They are all too well aware of the arbitrariness and unfairness of life. They prefer a divine foundation to a polite atmosphere.”
The heartbeat of many parishes continued to be strong, he said. But, while rural and county-town religion appeared to have held up a lot better than inner-city and suburban religion, not more than about 20 per cent of people that saw themselves as Church of Ireland attended worship recurrently. Although that was not “the gold standard by which faithfulness to Jesus Christ and his teachings is to be measured”, it was of great significance, he said.
“But to make inroads into even the Church of Ireland shortfall, never mind wider evangelisation, we’d like leadership in parishes and within the Church generally which has three qualities: confidence, humility, and resilience. . . For every resurrection to rejoice, there’ll first be a cross to hold.”
Moving on to talk of reconciliation — which he declared firstly of his archiepiscopate could be his constant theme — he reflected: “For me, at the very least, it was encouraging to listen to An Taoiseach speak concerning the primacy of reconciliation across this island, as something that should be prior to any dramatic political developments. . .
“Whatever we make of it as a political statement, as disciples of Jesus Christ, we cannot sidestep our vocation to be peacemakers and reconcilers in the numerous and varied circumstances by which we discover ourselves.
“Reconciliation is the exchange of the bread of life for the bread of truth. It is the best way by which those whose humanity has been damaged in any way can tell their story and have their story listened to. It cannot draw a line under the past, but it will possibly one way or the other incorporate or miraculously integrate the past, with all its shadows and injuries, into future life.”
The Archbishop acknowledged as one in all the good obstacles to a reconciled society in Ireland the “huge and unresolved physical and psychological trauma that’s being carried, often unseen as a legacy of the Troubles. It is now intergenerational, and has left 1000’s of individuals with the unanswered query ‘Why does what happened to me or to an individual whom I loved not count?’”
Pastoral resources have been produced to assist members of the Church most affected by the legacy of the Troubles. The Synod called for these resources in 2023, from the Church and Society Commission. In the course of wide consultation with communities reminiscent of Corrymeela, and visits to frame areas, a working party, led by Zephryn Patton, heard what it described in December 2024 as a transparent message.
There needed to be, she reported, “a co-ordinated approach by the Church to acknowledge the hurt and pain of the past and the difficulties of achieving or grasping forgiveness. That prolonged to victims of the past who felt that their stories needed to be heard, and their pain recognised, with a purpose to help them start their steps to healing.”
The resources comprise a liturgical response through a service and set of prayers; a leaflet signposting victims to existing organisations well versed in coping with trauma, and in a position to provide meaningful assistance; and training for clergy in coping with trauma, as a part of the programme of constant ministerial education.
Reflecting on broader societal developments, Archbishop McDowell described immigration as perhaps “the difficulty that has dominated world and domestic politics, and the way it will possibly be responsibly and humanely managed.
“It will not be the fault of individuals coming into this island or anywhere else within the Western world that governments have failed to significantly address this dilemma of immigration in a way that respects treaty obligations and legal norms. In the mean time, significant numbers of individuals from the widest variety of nations have come to Ireland, North and South, fairly often with the intention of constructing this their home.
“By and enormous, the response of governments has been to bundle them into what are effectively detention centres, or to scatter them to far-flung corners of the country. When immigrants of any sort have been in a position to get a toehold in communities, often by their very own unaided efforts, they’ve contributed not simply to the range, but additionally to the productivity, of those communities and society at large. . . A really large proportion of immigrants, particularly from Africa, come from strongly Christianised societies.
“We have a Christian duty — indeed, a vocation — to keep up energetic solidarity with people, believers and unbelievers alike, who’ve turn out to be the topic of dehumanising and sometimes violent language and sometimes intimidating and discriminatory behaviour.”
Addressing the query of assisted dying, he reminded the Synod that the Church of Ireland had consistently opposed any such laws. Speaking for himself, he said, “any such laws would involve not only a technical change in medical procedure but would amount to a sort of cultural revolution in the connection between doctor and patient, and in addition in the idea on which judgements and decisions concerning the value of human life are made.
“Death is one in all the good facts of our existence, nevertheless it is a social fact in addition to a person one. . . In the case of the Church of Ireland generally, I feel we would want an excellent deal more persuading to depart from our stated position that life in its entirety is a present from God, and that what sustains people, even in probably the most horrible of terminal illness, is the understanding of human love and support right to the top.”
He concluded: “It stays a collective disgrace that the hospice movement stays pitifully underfunded by the State and so heavily depending on fund-raising activities.”
