I delivered an address on ‘The Churches and Peacebuilding – Before and After the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement’ at the ‘Primacy of Peace’ conference on 24 October 2023 at the Marketplace Theatre, Armagh.
The purpose of the conference was to promote understanding and dialogue through the Robinson Library and the Cardinal Tomas O’Fiaich Memorial Library’s collections of the Primates of All Ireland, Archbishop Robin Eames and Cardinal Tomas O Fiaich. Two separate papers focused on the O Fiaich papers, so my presentation included more reflection on Eames’ contributions.
The full text of my contribution is below. (At times I refer to images on my powerpoint slides.)
The Churches and Peacebuilding
Thank you for the invitation to speak today. My task is to analyse the churches’ role in peacebuilding, before and after the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. I have had the privilege of researching religion on the island for more than two decades. Drawing on my experience, I focus on five areas, considering each in turn: pastoral care, mediation, statements, inter-church work, and dealing with the past.
Pastoral Care
By pastoral care, I mean emotional, social, and spiritual support. Throughout the Troubles, clergy provided pastoral care day and daily, helping people cope with the so-called ordinary difficulties of life. But the Troubles created circumstances where what we might call extreme pastoral care was required. Along with police and emergency services, clergy were among the first responders to violent events, ministering to the wounded and dying. Some clergy accompanied police officers to the homes of people whose loved ones had been killed, to inform them of the death. They conducted the funerals and visited the families afterwards, in many cases for many years. Other Christians, of all denominations and all walks of life, also supported bereaved and injured friends and relatives.
My book Considering Grace includes the stories of Presbyterian ministers. The image here is of Rev Ruth Patterson, the first woman ordained in the Presbyterian Church, whose ministry in a loyalist estate with a significant paramilitary presence included providing pastoral care for her own congregation and the wider community (p. 34-36). Although they were not churchgoers, some paramilitaries asked for her support during times of distress, and she prayed with them. Another minister profiled in the book (p 22-23), who chose to remain anonymous, recalled the names and manner of death of many people, saying:
‘You are sitting beside a widow who has just been told that her husband has been shot dead or blown to pieces – it’s not easy.’ Like other ministers, he had not been trained for this aspect of his job. [He said:] ‘You deal with it differently in each home. Sometimes you don’t say anything. There is nothing to say. What can you say? Except that you are deeply sorry. You sit with them, and weep with them.’
The pattern rarely varied. A phone call – “We have had a tragedy.” The details. An immediate call on the home with the local rector. The stunned silence and the tears. The relatives and neighbours flooding in. The endless descriptions of what had happened. … Words of comfort, words of consolation. Preliminary plans for the funeral. …
The day itself. Usually hundreds at the church. The great and the good. The media in droves. The slow march to the church, the route lined by many hundreds. The silence broken only by the music of the RUC or UDR band. How that music continues to haunt them to this day. What to say at the funeral service? Use the correct words. Don’t hurt them more than they hurt already. Say something about the event – condemn the killers – offer some solace to the family – speak of the Christian hope of what lies beyond the grave.
Then the grave. The solemnity of it all. The family round the grave. The familiar words.
Then the silence.
“What have you done to my daddy?” she asked. Seven years old, looking up to me in my robes. The grasp of my hand just before a relative reached to her.
What had I done to her father?
I had offered Christian burial. I had tried to offer comfort. I had tried to support a local clergyman. I had spoken of a God of love and compassion. But – the future would lead on after the crowds had gone. … A parish cleric was left to offer comfort. And Northern Ireland moved on to yet more atrocities and blame.
These stories demonstrate one of the churches’ great strengths – providing comfort and care in the face of unthinkable loss and grief. A potential weakness is that the focus on pastoring one’s own community meant that there was little time, energy, and will left for reaching out to the so-called ‘other side’.
Mediation
A few clergy instigated or engaged in secret talks when the violence was at its very worst. Fr Alec Reid, a Redemptorist in Belfast’s Clonard Monastery, was the main mediator in a dialogue begun in the late 1980s involving Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams and the SDLP’s John Hume, talks that sought a way for the IRA to end its violent campaign. Talks took place either in Clonard or at Hume’s home in Derry City. Fr Reid also carried documents between the various parties, which expanded to include representatives from the British and Irish Governments. These talks provided foundations for Sinn Féin to engage in the public peace process of the 1990s.
Archbishop Eames was also an important mediator. To give just one example, Eames worked behind the scenes with Presbyterian Rev Roy Magee to broker the loyalist ceasefire of 1994. Journalist Brian Rowan, quoted in John Brewer’s 2011 book Religion, Civil Society and Peace in Northern Ireland (p. 59) described Eames’ role:
Then in March 1994 [you] have a meeting between Robin Eames facilitated by Roy Magee and there are two representatives of the Combined Loyalist Military Command there and they at that stage present their terms for a ceasefire which they want Eames to take to the two governments. You then have that ceasefire being pushed away because of the killings that are going on. It then gets to the point of writing the Combined Loyalist Military Command ceasefire statement and Eames is behind the line of [them admitting] ‘abject and true remorse’ in the statement and [having] to say sorry. Eames continued to be involved in the background …
Fr Reid and his Redemptorist colleague Fr Gerry Reynolds also facilitated secret talks between Sinn Féin representatives and Protestant clergy, a process designed to enable Sinn Féin to better understand unionist perspectives. Fr Alec and Fr Gerry turned to their Protestant clergy friends because they knew unionist politicians would not engage in such talks, even in secret. In an interview for Brewer’s book (p. 63-64), Sinn Féin’s Jim Gibney confirmed the value of the talks, praising the way Clonard Monastery had ‘put itself at the disposal of the peace process’.
These stories demonstrate how some clergy used the legitimacy of their office and their institutions to secretly help push the peace process along.
Statements
During the Troubles, it was a fairly regular occurrence for church leaders such as the Archbishops of Armagh, the Presbyterian Moderator, the Methodist President, or senior bishops to make statements condemning violence. While this sentiment is admirable, the public impact is debatable. The already much-quoted Brewer has described such statements as ‘speechifying’: or in other words, too much talk but not enough action.
Statements also include spoken words such as sermons, homilies, or other addresses, the texts of which at times made their way into the media. This image is from the Church of Ireland Gazette, which carried many statements by Eames. The Robinson Library’s Eames Collection contains examples of such statements. I quote here from one of those, an address delivered at the Church of Ireland’s 1998 General Synod, just weeks before the Good Friday Agreement referendum:
The Agreement was and is a political document produced by politicians. It represents years of arduous work. It represents political possibilities of immense significance. But it is a political document. It is an important step on the long road – but it is not the end of the road. … I have often felt that one of the great dangers in the peace process in Ireland is that political agreement alone would ever be considered all that is needed. The Agreement is a vital point in the Irish pilgrimage of peace. But what really matters lies in the hearts and minds, the wishes and actions, the relationships and attitudes of the people of Ireland. How we relate to each other, how we regard each other, how we deal with each other – above all how we build bridges between the traditions will be the ultimate yard-stick for the quality of our lives in Ireland in the days ahead.
At a local level, some clergy used their Sunday sermons and funeral addresses as opportunities to quell the desire for revenge. To take an example from Considering Grace, Rev Russell Birney read out a statement written by local clergy in the aftermath of killings at Tullyvallen Orange Hall in 1975 (p. 26):
[He said:] ‘I read out a statement, pleading for peace and that there be no retaliation for this event.’ Russell invited those who agreed with the statement to stand. Not everyone stood immediately, so he waited. And waited. And waited – until everyone in the church was on their feet.
There were no revenge attacks after Tullyvallen.
In my own research, I have often found that church members are blissfully unaware of what church leaders say. It is nearly impossible to evaluate how far statements advocating peace impacted on church members, let alone the wider public.
Inter-Church Work
Inter-church groups were among some of the most significant grassroots peacebuilding initiatives. There are too many for me to mention today. This slide profiles Fr Gerry Reynolds, who was involved in several pioneering projects, including the Cornerstone Community on the Falls-Shankill peace line, the Clonard Monastery-Fitzroy Presbyterian Fellowship, and the Unity Pilgrims. Fr Gerry created the Unity Pilgrims, a group of Catholics who visit a Protestant congregation each Sunday to share in worship and fellowship, building relationships over time.
Also pictured are David Porter and Rev Heather Morris. Porter was director of Evangelical Contribution on Northern Ireland (ECONI). ECONI was one of Northern Ireland’s most effective peacebuilding organisations, because it encouraged evangelical Protestants to critique aspects of their own tradition that had contributed to division and violence – and to take steps to overcome them. Rev Morris, now General Secretary of the Methodist Church, has been a prominent advocate of inter-church work and reconciliation. I also have included the logo of the Irish Council of Churches, whose partnership with the Catholic Bishops Conference through the Irish Inter-Church Meeting has produced significant thinking on how the churches might address their contributions to division and violence. The Irish Council of Churches was deeply involved with the Irish Churches’ Peace Project (2013-15), as yet the only major initiative to involve almost all the island’s churches in peacebuilding at an institutional level. There are other groups like the Corrymeela Community, the Quakers, the Irish School of Ecumenics, the 4 Corners Festival, and more. But much inter-church work has declined since the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. Those who were involved in it have aged or passed away, and denominations have not prioritised it. Younger generations of Christians, by and large, also have not prioritised peacebuilding.
Most inter-church work was carried out by individuals and organisations, who were on the fringes of their denominations. This could be considered a strength, because it gave them the freedom and flexibility to take courageous steps. On the other hand, this could be considered a weakness because the denominations failed to support them – either morally or with significant financial resources.
Dealing with the Past/Apology
In the post-Agreement period, some within the churches have advocated reconciliation, in a wider context of ‘dealing with the past’. Christian leaders were prominent on the British Government’s Consultative Group on Dealing with the Past, co-chaired by Archbishop Eames, and also including David Porter of ECONI and Presbyterian Rev Lesley Carroll. The proposals of the Eames-Bradley Report, shelved in 2009, remain far better options than what is currently on the table in our current legacy bill. This slide shows the cover of the Eames-Bradley Report, and members of a civil society organisation, Healing Through Remembering. The woman pictured is Dr Geraldine Smyth, a Dominican who sits on the board and who lectured many years at the Irish School of Ecumenics.
We know from other contexts that apologies can help societies to better deal with the past. The Church Leaders’ Group, comprised of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Presbyterian Moderator, the Methodist President, and the President of the Irish Council of Churches, have led by example. The apology given as part of their 2021 St Patrick’s Day Statement is the churches’ most comprehensive confession ever for their historic contributions to division and violence. They said:
As Christian churches we acknowledge and lament the times that we failed to bring to a fearful and divided society that message of the deeper connection that binds us, despite our different identities, as children of God, made in His image and likeness. We have often been captive churches; not captive to the Word of God, but to the idols of state and nation.
But while this was a good apology, it may be limited in that it has come decades after the Agreement, in a context where the influence of churches is declining. We must ask: was anybody listening?
Conclusion
This image shows the clergy of West Belfast, out on the streets in the aftermath of anti-protocol riots, projecting an image of peace and hope. There are still individuals and groups within the churches who see peacebuilding as a core aspect of their Christian vocation. But challenges remain, not least of which is inspiring a younger generation of Christians to see peace, to use Archbishop Eames’ words, as an unfinished search which requires their attention and commitment.