24.02.2020
‘No One Tradition or Church Must Again Own the Narrative of Irish Identity’ – Annual John Sullivan Service
“John Sullivan was entirely Anglican and totally Roman Catholic and thoroughly Jesuit,” Archbishop Michael Jackson said at the annual service of commemoration and thanksgiving for the Dublin priest who was beatified three years ago. Speaking in the Church of St Francis Xavier on Gardiner Street, the Archbishop added: “In an era pulsating with social and religious wastage, John Sullivan today as a Holy Ecumenist can take us forward into the space we must all inhabit, as people whose identity is that we are made in the image and likeness of God, where no one party, no one tradition, no one church must again own the narrative of Irish identity”.
Archbishop Jackson observed that John Sullivan was revered as someone who grew up in one Irish tradition and moved to another Irish tradition with a sense of fulfilment in the present and without a sense of rejection of the past. He said that across Ireland today we are very conscious of traditions.
“They [traditions] matter to us because it is through our traditions that we give voice to our identities. Traditions and identities are to be shared and explained and offered openly to others as part of a cultural tapestry in today’s Ireland. They are not to be weaponized. Right across Ireland, opportunities of difference are opening up for self–understanding through the understanding of others. The churches need to take a role of compassionate leadership and attentive service over the next critical years. It is one thing to accept and to articulate that we are part of the problem; it is quite another thing to swallow our pride and open up the wounds for healing,” he stated.
Brexit had brought into sharp relief the years of uneasy truce and fractured identity of one hundred years of our modern history, the Archbishop said. He said that change and accommodation over the years had resulted in a cycle of political maturing. “It has brought with it the end of one–party monopolies in both parts of Ireland, whether we call it power sharing or coalition or whatever else. The difficulty with both is a cynical stalemate bred of self–interest; the excitement with both is shared values leading to the renewal of the common good. Both the church and politics are called to be midwives of shift – shift in values, shift in responsibilities, shift in futures,” he explained.
John Sullivan’s life straddled what are now two parts of Ireland, two traditions and two denominations, the Archbishop said noting that the Archbishop of Canterbury, during his visit last November, described the Church of Ireland as a ‘Church with no borders’. Archbishop Jackson said that this applied to all church traditions in Ireland who had a “vocation to be a church of no borders”.
Fr Sullivan was raised and spent half his life as a member of the Church of Ireland. He was born on Eccles Street in 1861, the son of Edward Sullivan who would become Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Elizabeth Bailey from Cork. He attended Portora Royal School near Enniskillen and then Trinity College Dublin before studying law in London.
He converted to Catholicism in 1896 at the age of 35 and was ordained a Jesuit priest in 1907. He taught at Clongowes Wood College until his death in 1933 aged 71. He was known for his life of prayer and work with the poor and ill.
You can read the full text of Archbishop Jackson’s reflection here.