Irish Times Notes23 May 20

Church of Ireland Notes from ‘The Irish Times’

Summer Search

The summer issue of the Church of Ireland journal, Search, edited by Canon Ginnie Kennerley, will soon be popping through subscriber’s letterboxes.

Discussions of the effects of the Covid–19 crisis are a dominant theme in this issue. Lord Eames offers his thoughts on the crisis. Ordained in 1963, and having served as a curate, rector, bishop, and crucially as Archbishop of Armagh during the darkest days of the Troubles, he has a long perspective and an intimate knowledge of crisis. Two younger clergy reflect on their experiences of the crisis. The Revd Aonghus Mayes, Rector of Moy in Co. Tyrone, and the Revd Daniel Nuzum, Chaplain to Cork City Hospitals, write on how they have been meeting the challenge in parish and hospital chaplaincy respectively. And for a broader theological perspective, Dr Jacob Erickson. Assistant Professor of Theological Ethics in the School of Religion at Trinity College Dublin, considers an eschatology for today’s world.

The development of ordination and ministry training in the Church of Ireland since the 1960s has been remarkable, every decade bringing new initiatives. Only a small part of the story was told in last year’s book of essays, Irish Anglicanism 1969–2019. In this issue Dr Áine Hyland, who was Professor of Education at University College Cork from 1993 to 2006 and served on the Theological College review team appointed in 2002, gives a fuller picture of its evolution and its leadership under Canon John Brown, Canon Jim Hartin, Canon John Bartlett and Canon Adrian Empey.

One of the challenges in church life in recent years has been the amount of clergy breakdown in the face of increasing secularisation and administrative overload. Psychotherapist Sue Phillips offers some helpful thoughts in this connection, noting the lack of effective counselling structures to help maintain clergy wellbeing. Another challenge is that of encouraging and enabling ‘every member ministry’ in the churches. In this, the Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church have been moving forward on slightly different paths, which hopefully can enrich one another. The former Dean of Kilmore, the Very Revd David Godfrey, now living in Lucan, and Maria Murphy, a Minister of the Word in St Patrick’s church, Esker, from overlapping church communities in West Dublin, share their experience and hopes for an increasingly lively ‘ministry of all believers’.

A different challenge is Brexit which is discussed by Dr Kenneth Milne who is a member of the Working Group on Europe of the Church of Ireland’s Commission for  Christian Unity and Dialogue and has served as Convenor of the Irish Council of Churches’ European Affairs Committee.

Those who wish to renew their subscription, take out a new subscription or order single copies should contact Michael Denton at subscriptions@searchjournal.ireland.anglican.org or 10, Dun Emer Drive, Dublin D16 F788. Single copies cost €7.00/£6.33 per copy plus €2.50 postage, while an annual subscription for 3 copies posted to subscriber’s address is €22.00/£19.00.

Tomorrow (Sunday), there will be a service honouring frontline healthcare workers from Christ Church, Taney. It will feature a number of parishioners who work in healthcare: two nurses Kara Sheppard (who works in a nursing home) and Nimrah Dass (who works in the Mater Private), a physio Heather Corrigan (the Beacon) and the Church of Ireland hospital chaplaincy coordinator Hilda Plant (primarily based in St Vincent’s). The service will be led by the Rector, Canon Robert Warren and the Curate, the Revd Nigel Pierpoint. It will be available on Taney Parish YouTube here.