Irish Times Notes14 Oct 17

Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

Reformation Celebrations

Next Friday a major conference on the Reformation begins in Christ Church cathedral, Dublin, and continues on the following day in the St Patrick’s Campus of DCU. That the conference has, for some time, been oversubscribed, is a remarkable testimony to popular interest in the subject but also may reflect the fact that this is an event organized by both the Church of Ireland Historical Society and the Catholic Historical Society of Ireland and so is an examination of the Reformation as a shared experience.
Proceedings on Friday begin at 3pm. Dr Scott Dixon (Queen’s University, Belfast) will begin the conference with a presentation on ‘Martin Luther and the Reformation’, followed by Professors Peter Marshall (University of Warwick) and Alec Ryrie (Durham University) who will lead an open discussion entitled ‘Tudor Brexit: How European were the British and Irish Reformations?’.

This will be followed by the launch of a book edited by Dr Mark Empey, Professor Alan Ford and Dr Miriam Moffitt, entitled The Church of Ireland and its past: history, interpretation and memory, which was co–funded by the Church of Ireland Historical Society.

Saturday’s proceedings begin at 10am, when Professors Alan Ford (University of Nottingham), Graeme Murdock (Trinity College, Dublin) and Jane Dawson (University of Edinburgh) will discuss reform movements in England, Ireland and Europe. This will be followed with presentations by Dr Alison Forrestal (NUI Galway) and Professor Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin (University College Dublin) who will examine the Catholic reformations in Ireland and Europe. Professor Mícheál Mac Craith (St Isidore’s Irish College, Rome) and Professor John McCafferty (University College Dublin) will then look at how the Reformation was written in Europe and Ireland. The conference will end with a roundtable discussion on commemorating the Reformation, which will be chaired by Professor Marian Lyons (Maynooth University).

Canon Patrick Comerford, priest–in–charge of the Rathkeale and Kilnaughtin group of parishes, will be the lecturer at Tarbert Historical and Heritage Society this evening (Saturday) at 7.30 p.m. in the Bridewell, Tarbert, Co Kerry, He will speak on ‘The Revd Sir William Augustus Wolseley (1865–1950), an exceptional curate in Kilnaughtin and Aughavallin’.

Tomorrow (Sunday) on RTE 1 television at 11 am the Very Rev Philip Knowles will lead a service of Harvest Thanksgiving with a choir and congregation from the parishes of Narraghmore, Timolin, Castledermot and Kinneagh. BBC Radio Ulster’s Morning Service will be broadcast from Bangor Abbey at 10.15am when Canon Ronnie Nesbitt will be the preacher. The Church’s Ministry of Healing will host its Annual Service of Wholeness and Healing in the Church of St John the Baptist, Clontarf, tomorrow (Sunday) at 3pm.

A new biennial seminar series will begin next Wednesday at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. The theme for the series is ‘Ministry in a Contemporary Context’ and the first speaker will be Revd Ian Parkinson, Leadership Specialist at CPAS, the Anglican Mission Agency, on ‘For the equipping of all God’s people: the practice and purpose of Christian leadership’. Admission is free and open to the public but due to a limited number of spaces participants should register by emailing admin@theologicalinstitute.ie

On Friday a half–day symposium will be held at Maynooth University Rocque Lab, Rhetoric House, starting at 9.45am to celebrate the centenary of the Maynooth Mission to China which was founded just a few decades after Dublin University to Fukien. Among the speakers will be Dr Kerry Houston who will speak on the history of DUFM and how its activities compare to those of the Maynooth Mission – register by e–mailing your name to marion.rogan.2010@mumail.ie