A heartwarming story in the Church Times, after so much bad news in the last week or so, about the sense of hope that church leaders in Northern Ireland have for their community. And this, a day after Michelle O’Neill, First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, became the first senior Sinn Féin figure to take part in an official Remembrance Sunday ceremony.
The Anglican and Roman Catholic Archbishops of Armagh — the Most Revd John McDowell and the Most Revd Eamon Martin — have reflected together on the Northern Ireland Executive’s Programme for Government and given their views in a joint article in the Belfast Telegraph and The Irish News.
They describe the optimistic tone of the programme as “a welcome change to the often stagnant and stultifying rhetoric that characterised political commentary here while the Assembly was suspended”, and commended the programme for “daring to dream” of a better future.
The task of Christians, they suggest, is “not to wallow in disillusionment or cynicism but to do our bit to encourage work and pray for ‘the coming good’” And they ask the question: “Are we a people who respect and acknowledge the humanity of one another sufficiently to stand up for each other’s well-being?”
How refreshing for those of us that remember how divided and hostile communities were in Northern Ireland, before, and even to some extent after, the 1998 peace process.
Read the full story here.