16.11.2012
Discovery Thanksgiving Service Hears of Changing Face of Ireland
The Discovery Thanksgiving Service took place in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, this afternoon (Sunday November 18). The annual service celebrates the work of the Dublin and Glendalough Diocesan Committee for the International Community – commonly known as Discovery. Both the Discovery Gospel Choir and the Redeemed National Choir performed at the service. Dean Dermot Dunne welcomed the congregation to the Cathedral. Readings were given by Dr Alan Bruce and Dr Vincent Jacks. Others who took part in the service included Stella Obe (Diocesan Lay Minister), the Revd Obinna Ulogwara, the Revd William Deverell and the Revd Martha Waller. The sermon was delivered by Canon Horace McKinley. It is reproduced in full below.
‘Discovery Thanksgiving Service’, Christ Church Cathedral, 18 November, 2012.
Sermon by Canon Horace McKinley.
“The Dublin and Glendalough Diocesan Committee for the International Community” – what an almighty mouthful! Well, that was the official title given to that Committee, when it was first established, under Archbishop Neill, by Dublin and Glendalough Diocesan Councils. I remember thinking to myself at the time – “Imagine having to say all that, every time you referred to its name”. I recall mentioning this in my own home at the time. And one of my sons – some of you might know him, Philip – came in to the room where I was working, and said: “Da, I think I’ve got a better title – what about ‘Discovery’?”. And so, ‘Discovery’ it’s been and ‘Discovery’ has stuck. It’s a highly imaginative word. We talk about “a voyage of discovery”. It’s about journeying together, about keeping on learning new things along the way, of discovering more and more about the mutual riches that lie within each others’ identities.
Over the past twelve years, significant immigration has wholly changed the people texture of this island. In the recent Census in the Republic, foreign nationals accounted for 17% of the population, or 766,770 people, an increase of 25% from the 2006 Census. Our beloved land has been greatly enriched by many new and diverse arrivals, some of whom are now citizens, people who can also endorse the Psalmist’s sentiment that “My share has fallen in a fair land. Indeed, I have a goodly heritage” (Psalm 16, v. 5). As the Taoiseach stated to the new citizens at the most recent new Citizenship ceremony in Dublin Castle: “Since you arrived on these shores, you have enriched your communities, enhanced your work places, bringing new light, new depth, a new sense of imagining, to what it means to be a 21st century citizen of Ireland”. At a seminar I attended, on behalf of the then Archbishop, at Croke Park five years ago, I learned that 17% of native Irish people held third level qualifications, but that 36% of the immigrant population held such qualifications. That is but one example of how our national “gift economy” sector is being enhanced.
But immigration hasn’t only changed the face of our social society. It has changed the face of the Irish Church too, for good. A few years ago, the newly–released Directory of registered Migrant Churches indicated that there were at that time 370 new migrant–led churches on this island, of which over 90 were here in Dublin alone. Researchers tell us that immigration is here to stay and also that we are now living through the period of the greatest ever movement of people on earth in human history. This is one spin–off of globalization.
If you ask me what I think the core motto of ‘Discovery’ is, I would say it starts by extending pastoral welcome and solidarity to the stranger, in the name of Jesus Christ. And if you also ask me what I think key targets of ‘Discovery’ should be, I would personally suggest three particular points of importance:–
1. First, I believe a much higher profile should be given by our Church to both the challenges and opportunities of Ireland’s immigration. I see this particularly applying to the continuing in–service training of clergy and people and also, of course, to all who are training for the ordained ministry. I want to see and hear more signs and sounds that all those involved in leadership in these specific sectors are placing the premium on this that I believe it really deserves. Immigration needs to be much more ingrained in to the whole Church “System”. In past Church history, the great movements of spiritual renewal have always also resulted in life–changing social and societal reform. I think back on the 19th century Anglo–Catholic revival, and all the heroic priests (‘slum priests’, they were called) and laity, who set up vital social projects in Victorian inner–cities that were scarred by abject poverty and terrible deprivation. I think back, too, on the 18th century Evangelical Revival, which similarly raised up equally heroic clergy and lay people who sparked off such effective initiatives of social justice that their impacts persist to this day. But such people are not that easy to find in today’s Church. “The Book and the Bread” – “the Book” for evangelicals and “the Bread” for Anglo–Catholics. But if, “the Book” and “the Bread” are solely confined to the inner sanctuary of the cosy huddle, but are not then brought out and engaged with all the issues in the world around that God died for, then (in St. Paul’s words) “we of all people are most to be pitied”. There are few who would not hold Sister Stan, Fr. Peter McVerry and the Franciscans in very high esteem in our own society today. But please don’t leave it all to them. The Solas Project, based in C.O.R.E. (St. Catherine’s Church, Thomas St.), is a very timely opportunity for the people of this United Dioceses to get involved in fresh ‘social gospel’ tasks that would surely warm the heart of Jesus.
2. A second ‘Discovery’ target, I suggest, is to work to keep minds alert and concentration strongly fixed on the Church’s prophetic role. In a few weeks time, we shall hear again of John the Baptist, likened, as he is, to “a voice crying in the wilderness”, fearlessly preparing the way for the coming of the Lord. At the “Show Racism the Red Card” competition in Dublin earlier this year, President Higgins encouraged people across Ireland who are fighting against racism to continue to do so. “We must all work together”, he said, “to create an Ireland where diversity is genuinely celebrated and difference is not just tolerated, but welcomed as the foundation of a just society, rich in creative potential”. Of particular concern in several E.U. states has been the rise in recent years of extreme right–wing political parties, neo–Nazi, even, and racist in tone, whose emergence may be just one consequence of the severity of the current and deep economic recession. It is to the credit of the Irish people that no such political movement, to my knowledge, exists here. But one of our great Irish patriots, Edmund Burke, famously said that “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. It is christians who must particularly maintain this watching brief and vocation of prophetic vigilance. One effective way this can be done is to challenge the myths about immigration, and there are too many wildly inaccurate, ill–informed and sometimes very dangerous myths around.
3. The third and final ‘Discovery’ target I have in mind is something that applies to all the older, much longer established Churches, like the Church of Ireland, on the island. Immigration continues to be a real opportunity for their renewal and enrichment, full of possibilities, too, for growth and fresh expression of Church. Some life aspects of our older, native Churches are tired and low on energy, and are not immune from the potentially terminal self–preservation syndrome of the “cosy club”. We should already be seeing, but sadly do not, a much higher immigrant representation on our various Church Councils and Synods, for example. The same applies, of course, to representation of young people, and to a lesser extent, women. ‘Discovery’ should act as a continuing catalyst and prophetic voice in and to the body of Christ itself, for stimulating fresh thinking and action in relation to mission and ministry, as a result of immigration. My hope and prayer is that the ‘Discovery’ voice, like that of St. Paul in the letter to the Romans, will go on being a gospel “nuisance” to the Church, by not failing to cry out the urgent Advent call, “that now, it is high time to wake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13, v. 11).