wfn.org | Methodist Presence in Ireland

[owner-umethnews@ecunet.org]

"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3182 notes).

Note 3181 by UMNS on Sept. 20, 1996 at 15:17 Eastern (5937 characters).

SEARCH: Ireland, Methodist, Mary Robinson, troubles, Northern
Ireland, division, healing, Protestant, Catholic
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Thomas S. McAnally                  467(10-21-71B){3181}
          Nashville, Tenn.  (615) 742-5470          Sept. 23, 1996

Ireland's President says Methodist presence
brings balance, fairness to troubled land

by Kathleen LaCamera*

     BELFAST, Northern Ireland (UMNS) -- In a ground breaking
meeting with Methodists, the Irish head of state President Mary
Robinson paid tribute to the voice of the Methodist Church in
Ireland and in Europe.  
      "Methodists have approached the Troubles in Northern Ireland
with fairness and balance and [they] are a welcome and important
presence on this island," President Robinson told delegates from
more than 20 European countries gathered for a consultation on
reconciliation.
     She went on to applaud the efforts of many individuals and
local groups who day after day quietly go about the practical work
of building peace in a place where religion has been both a
divisive and healing force for hundreds of years.  
     "The way forward will come by doing, reaching out, finding
common ground ... we far underestimate the strength of so many
groups on the ground in achieving reconciliation."
     President Robinson's presence at this meeting of European
Methodists proved controversial, not so much with the nearly 100
conference participants, but with some in Northern Ireland's
Protestant community who fear an increasing influence of the
majority Catholic Republic of Ireland in their lives.    
     "People here are living on a knife edge" said James White of
the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.  White was born
in Northern Ireland, but left in 1958 before the violent period
known as "the Troubles" began in the late 1960s.  "The common
people are disgusted," he said. "I sense a real anxiety that this
could go over the edge". 
     Underscoring their solidarity with the Methodist Church's
deep commitment to reconciliation in Northern Ireland, the heads
of the Irish Catholic Church, Cardinal Cahill Daley; the Irish
Anglican Church, Archbishop Robin Eames; and  the Irish
Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Harry Allen all attended the
Conference's opening worship and extended their personal
greetings.
       "I hope that Methodists from across Europe gathered in
Northern Ireland with all these church leaders sends a strong
signal to people here that they need to keep on hoping and working
in the face of their anxieties," said White.
     Northern Ireland was but one of the many European
trouble-spots discussed at the 4-day meeting.  
     Anka Bogateva of Bulgaria confessed that reconciliation in
her country seems almost impossible. "Bulgaria's hearts and minds
are divided between the old communist way and the new way forward. 
This winter, the people will have nothing.  No bread, no heat, no
electric ... What will we do?" 
     Conference moderator, United Methodist Bishop Walter Klaiber
of Germany noted that those attending the consultation do not come
with easy answers.
     "There is so much unreconciled among us. In Germany there is
tension between former East and West Germans, between foreigners
and residents. There is so much need for reconciliation."
      Getting down to the nuts and bolts of actually building
reconciliation, keynote speaker, Elizabeth Salter, told delegates
to "go to the heart of things" and "no longer skate over the
surface of painful, but not fully healed wounds." A Quaker and
former Commission member of the World Council of Churches, Salter
has had to come to terms with the evil of a Nazi Germany that
murdered 39 of her own Dutch family.   
     "Had I the right to forgive them for all those silent dead?
.. Can we ever truly be reconciled with the past -- forgive our

enemies and do good to those who hate us? ... The ministry of
reconciliation was passed on to the Church as an essential task,"
she challenged, answering her own question.  "This means that we
must initiate the reconciliatory process, not wait for the former
oppressor to take the first step."
     Her words and those of President Robinson were picked up in
small group meetings where the nearly 100 delegates discussed the
practical obstacles to reconciliation, both inside and outside the
churches throughout Europe.  
     The Rev. Stephen Plant, European secretary for the British
Methodist Church described a discussion in one of the small groups
where a Catholic priest and a Protestant minister from Northern
Ireland confronted one another.   
     "They weren't being polite", he said, "rather than saying
'let's be friends' and ignoring the real issues, they actually
challenged one another in a way that led to genuine repentance."
     Delegates came to the conclusion that for real reconciliation
to occur there has to be a critical moment of dissatisfaction,
when people say to each other "there must be a better way than
this."
     Throughout the conference it was the small, many times unseen
efforts of ordinary people in Bosnia, in Germany, in Northern
Ireland and in many other places that were credited with building
the real bridges to reconciliation and peace.  
     "This event was a celebration of small things, of small group
actions showing what the powerless can do," said the Rev. Brian
Beck, secretary of the British Methodist Conference.  "The Gospel
is the impulse for reconciliation.  Unless you believe it is God's
world and that things can change you can't read hope out of the
situation you are confronting.  We must believe God can change
things."
                              *  *  *

     * LaCamera is a United Methodist News Service correspondent
based in Europe.

       

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

 To make suggestions or give your comments, send a note to 
 umns@ecunet.org or Susan_Peek@ecunet.org

 To unsubscribe, send the single word "unsubscribe" (no quotes)
 in a mail message to umethnews-request@ecunet.org

-----------------------------------------------------------------------