29.06.2026
Deepest Identity Found in Being Loved by God – Dean Dermot Dunne
Pride Evensong
Our belonging to God is deeper than any category by which society divides us, Dean Dermot Dunne told the annual Pride Evensong in Christ Church Cathedral on Thursday (June 25).
Preaching at the service, now in its fifth year, Dean Dunne explained that Pride is as needed today as it ever was. In one of his final sermons before retiring, he shared a number of recent experiences which had shocked him and highlighted ways in which LGBTQ+ people and their families continued to be excluded by the church both in Ireland and abroad. This reminded him of the importance of Pride.
“As we celebrate the joy of Pride this evening, I want to reflect on something deep that emanates from our very core, that is our universal human longing to belong. Beneath all the language, beneath all the politics, beneath all the anxiety and debate, there is a simple and holy truth: human beings long to know that they are seen, that they are welcomed and they are loved. That runs right through Scripture,” he stated.
The Dean observed that when Jesus gathered people around his table, he gathered the excluded, the uncertain, the misunderstood and the wounded. When Paul wrote that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, he was not erasing difference he was explaining that our belonging to God was deeper than every category by which society divides us, he said.
Human beings are tribal creatures, Dean Dunne said adding that there was nothing wrong with this as being in communities can nurture dignity and solidarity. However, he warned of a danger when any tribe, like the church tribe, becomes too rigid, too certain of itself and too dependent on defining who is in and who is out.
What mattered to Jesus was not that people fitted into approved categories but whether God was present, whether mercy was alive, whether dignity was honoured, whether human beings were drawn into deeper truth and deeper compassion, the Dean said. He suggested that one of the spiritual tasks of our age might be to learn how to hold identity lightly.
“Our deepest identity is found in being beloved by God… That’s why the church at its best is for people in need, not of certainty but of belonging. To accept mess, to accept ambiguity, to accept mystery, to accept the best of human life, to be a place where complexity is not feared, a place where questions are not silenced, a place where human dignity is never conditional, a place where people encounter grace before judgement,” he said.
Christ Church Cathedral’s annual Pride Service was first held in 2021. The partners in the service included Changing Attitude Ireland as well as community partners Belong Tod and OutHouse.
The service was sung by the Cathedral Choir and the large congregation was welcomed by Matthew Zaradich of the cathedral’s Community of St Laurence. Readings were by Caleb O’Connor of OutHouse and Kieran O’Donovan of Belong To. Prayers were led by Dr Scott Golden of Changing Attitude Ireland.
