CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FOR R.T.E. – 2002
MOST REV. SEÁN BRADY, DCL
ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH
PRIMATE OF ALL-IRELAND

I am delighted to welcome Archbishop Eames here and all of you who have joined us. We appreciate this opportunity of once again sending you Christmas greetings from Armagh.

One of the most popular stories at this time of year is a A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. It is a story of a man who has forgotten how to be happy. He is too busy making money, doing deals, getting as much as possible for as little as possible. But he has forgotten why he is doing all of this. Then he remembers once again his childhood days and begins to relive the family warmth, the friendship and the sharing. He wonders how he ever lost this spirit. It was, of course, because he had turned his back on love. Then one day he saw a small, sick child. The sight of this child turned his heart to flesh once more from the stone it had become, and helped the miser to see himself with new eyes and made him care again. The Christmas Child has come to help us all to see again.

Talking of sick children and the need to see anew reminds me of Malawi and Zimbabwe. Recently a delegation from Trócaire visited there. One of them told me he was moved to tears at the sight of the children and of their matchstick legs, bare ribcages and tired, listless eyes. We think of them and of their families on this Christmas day and pray earnestly that the threat of famine, which they face, may be averted.

The children of our own country have a hunger of a different kind. Not so much a hunger for material things, though that still exists, but more a need for values, for ideals, which will guide them to find personal happiness and make their contribution in life. In their search for fulfilment the young look to adults for role models and examples.

This year, in Armagh, the arrival of Sam Maguire has provided outstanding inspiration for a new generation of aspiring champions. This historic victory has renewed the energies of those who dedicate themselves to the discipline of sport.

Last July, many young people travelled to Toronto for World Youth Day. There they met and prayed with Pope John Paul II. They came away inspired and refreshed in their faith.

But this Christmas, failures of Church and State and of the wider society to children, both in terms of care and example, are keenly felt by many. The Church especially, by command of the Lord, who said “suffer little children to come to me” should be to the forefront in the care and regard for the welfare of young people. We are deeply sorry for our failures in the past but where we have failed, we will learn for the future. We continue to pledge our support to those whose childhood has been disfigured or taken away.

As we reflect on maimed childhood, we think of those whose bodies continue to be maimed in assaults, stabbings and punishment beatings. Let there be an end this Christmas to the on-going brutality of such deeds. Apart from the pain and suffering involved, there is also the message that it sends – that violence is the way to resolve conflict, and brute force the means of providing order.

This may have been the way of Herod, but it is not the way of the Prince of Peace.

In Northern Ireland the political parties have much to reflect upon this Christmas. Once again they hold the future stability of society in their collective hands. It is a great responsibility and our prayers and hopes are that they find the wisdom and the courage to discharge this responsibility.

I love Patrick Kavanagh’s poem, Christmas Carol 1942. It captures for me something of the renewing power of childhood and of the Christ child.

Sing of the Childhood
That renews for us all –
Banker or farmer
Or soldier in armour –
The laugh of the soul.
Sing the Child in the stall.
May you, and all those whom you love, enjoy a peaceful Christmas and a New Year of health and happiness.

ACCORD
RSE – LAUNCH
5 DECEMBER 2002
ADDRESS BY MOST REVEREND SEÁN BRADY, DCL
ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH

I thank and congratulate all associated with the production of this Report and Teachers’ Resource Book. These materials have been produced under the aegis of ACCORD. ACCORD, as you probably know, is the Catholic Marriage Care agency. It is tasked with helping couples who are preparing for marriage. But, ACCORD also helps people who are seeking to enrich their marriage, or who are experiencing difficulties in their marriage relationship. I thank especially, Fr John Hannan and Ms Deirdre O’Rawe, respectively National and Regional Directors of ACCORD.

ACCORD is a voluntary, predominantly lay organisation. I gladly avail of this opportunity to thank most sincerely the hundreds of ACCORD counsellors. They are attached to the fifty-seven (57) ACCORD centres throughout Ireland. Up and down the length and breadth of this country these marvellous people provide a voluntary, yet most professional, service in the promotion of a better understanding of marriage. They do so at considerable inconvenience to themselves. Their work involves a huge investment of time as they generously help people to initiate, sustain and enrich their marriage and family relationships. People in difficulty seek their help. The ACCORD counsellors patiently and confidentially offer counselling and support in a non-threatening, non-judgmental way. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. The marriage relationships and the family life of a huge number of people, would be so much the poorer without the wonderful help of ACCORD.

ACCORD also offers help to schools. In June 2001 ACCORD Northern Ireland secured funding from the Community Fund of the National Lottery. I thank the Community Fund in the person of Professor Kearney for this funding. The purpose of this funding was to appoint an Education Officer. His name is Michael McGowan. Michael’s brief is to formulate a Catholic approach to teaching relationships and sexuality education at post-primary level.

(That same summer, the summer of 2001, all schools in Northern Ireland received a circular from the Department of Education calling for the provision of relationships and sexuality education. So, the task of the Education Officer is to ensure that such a programme will be developed for the Catholic Post-Primary sector).

ACCORD therefore aims to produce a programme that will help to meet many of the needs in this area. ACCORD works in partnership with parents, teachers, pupils, Diocesan Advisers, education bodies and other professionals.

The first step in the provision of this programme is the publications which are being launched today.
A major piece of research has been carried out by Dr Catherine Loughrey, who has examined the attitudes, the beliefs and experiences of the Catholic community in the area of relationships and sexual education. Another part of that first step is the publication of a Teachers’ Resources Book, written by Michael McGowan himself. It is first and foremost a summary and an analysis of the research, which has been undertaken. It explains the reasons why RSE should be taught in schools as well as in the home. It sets down the parameters of the programme. It suggests an approach to sensitive issues while addressing the practicalities of implementing the programme.

I thank and congratulate Dr Loughery and Michael McGowan and all who assisted them.
Step two is the provision of video pack with materials for teachers and pupils.

Step three is a training programme for parents and for teachers delivered by ACCORD personnel. This training programme for parents is most important. Parents are the first teachers of their children. This training programme will show how the school can assist and support parents and guardians as they discharge this important responsibility.

The title of the resource book is, Love Rejoices in the Truth. The challenge that faces every parent, every educator, every teacher, is to speak the truth. It is to speak the truth about human relationships and to speak the truth about human sexuality. The truth is that sexuality is a very important part of every human person. It is a gift given to us by our Creator, something good therefore. The Christian vision is that human sexuality has been seriously wounded by sin, but sin no longer has the last word because Christ has redeemed us and has redeemed our sexuality.

The happiness and the quality of our lives here on earth depends to a large extent, on the quality of the relationships which we manage to build with other people. That takes time and effort and understanding and patience. Above all, it takes respect, respect for the other person. I suggest that to understand human sexuality and its place in our lives and in our relationships with other people, we need to refer to the Maker’s manual, the book of instructions. Fortunately, we have got that in the revelation which God, the Creator of each one of us, has given to us. We find it in the Church, which has been given the task, by Jesus Christ who is the fullness of God’s revelation, to go teach all nations.

The truth is that human sexuality concerns the innermost being of the human person. Sexual activity is one of the most intimate forms of bodily behaviour. That behaviour is, or should be, the expression of a profoundly intimate personal relationship, and should take place within marriage, which is the most profoundly intimate human relationship. In marriage, two people commit themselves to being close to each other in all circumstances until death. Obviously such a union should be built on an intimate form of friendship and love. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

Three years ago Columba Press in Dublin published a book called When Strangers Marry. It is a study of marriage breakdown in Ireland. It is based on the experience of eighty marriages that ended in separation. Now you might think that strangers marrying is a thing of the past. However, the facts suggest otherwise. We may not have progressed, as much as we would like to believe, from the days of the matchmaker. In those days couples sometimes met for the first time at the foot of the altar. And of course it doesn’t rest easily with our concept of modern living, that a man and a woman would marry without knowing each other.

When Strangers Marry, shows two lovely young people, dressed in their wedding gear, stepping up to the altar, blindfolded. It is suggesting that couples can still stand side by side in the presence of God, family and friends and commit themselves to a life long relationship with someone they do not know – a stranger. This study of eighty marriages, which ended in separation, looks at the couples’ childhood, their courtship, their married life, their unhappiness leading to separation. By finding common elements in the experience of these couples it aims at a fuller understanding of why marriages fail. The author, Albert McDonnell, found that most of the couples married without actually giving much serious thought to what they were doing.

And so the marriage, which depends on an inter-personal relationship, was always at risk due to the failure to create a close inter-personal union in courtship. “The most striking factor in every case” he says was “the pain and the suffering that separation had brought to the couples themselves and to so many others”.

I hope that those of you who are teachers will find this material very useful as you go about your noble work of helping young people grow into maturity. You don’t need me to remind you that education is about developing all the talents of the pupils entrusted to your care. Yes, it is about developing the physical gifts, hence the importance of PE and games, and of course it is also about preparing for and passing examinations in order to develop intellectual gifts. It is also about developing their moral talents.

That involves giving people a sense of responsibility and teaching them how to use their freedom wisely and well. In other words, it is about the formation of conscience and the formation of character. We form character by directing our freedom to loyalties outside of ourselves. Christian character, for example, is formed by directing our freedom to the life and words of Jesus Christ. But education is also about the formation of conscience. Conscience is formed in dialogue with several sources of human wisdom. As human beings we consult our own human experience as well as the experience of others. Hence the value of surveys. As Christians we turn to the Scriptures and to the lives of people who led outstanding moral lives. As Catholics we pay attention to our rich heritage of stories and practices as well as to the official teaching of the Church. Pope John Paul repeats the teaching of the Vatican Council – “In forming their conscience the Christian faithful must give careful attention to the sacred and certain teaching of the Church”.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus taught with authority. He also taught with courage and love. One day someone came to him and said, “Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life”? Jesus said to him, “If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments”. As we walk the path of life there is always an echo of that question. What good must I do to have eternal life? Each one of us must address that question to the good teacher. To make the encounter with Christ, the good teacher possible, God willed His Church.

The Church exists so that each one of us may be able to find Christ and know Christ in order that He may be able to walk with each one of us the path of life and answer our questions. He is the only one who can answer them with the fullness of truth. When Christians ask Him that question, which rises from their conscience, the Lord now replies in the words and wisdom, which he has entrusted to his Church. May we all strive to teach with authority and win for ourselves not only the title ‘good teacher’, but also the prize of eternal life.

I warmly congratulate all concerned on these fine publications. They will, I know, prove to be invaluable resources for post-primary school teachers. I am convinced that they will contribute to many young people becoming more responsible, confident and mature in their approach to relationships and sexuality. A wonderful service has been done.

MESSAGE FOR GAA COMMEMORATIVE PUBLICATION
ARMAGH ALL-IRELAND VICTORY 2002
MOST REV. SEÁN BRADY, DCL
ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH, PRIMATE OF ALL-IRELAND

The delayed victory is perhaps the sweetest! To succeed after having experienced much disappointment, to achieve your objective after much toil and tears and a century and more waiting, is perhaps the greatest success of all!

Many non-Armachians would scarcely have been aware in the past that Armagh had never secured a senior All-Ireland title. That such a strong footballing county should be deprived of the ultimate prize seemed unjust. But sport, like life in general, can be unfair. Memories of 1953 and 1977 were deeply embedded in the minds of Armagh people, from Crossmaglen to Lurgan, from Middletown to Newtownhamilton. The wounds of defeat on All-Ireland Day do not easily heal, especially when the cup has never been lifted.
But healing would come. 2002 was the year when the dream would come true, the young men in saffron and white would do the business in Croke Park and “The Boys from the County Armagh” would be sung the length and breadth of the Orchard County and well beyond, with a gusto and pride as never before. An irrepressible hunger had been sated, a gaping vacuum had been filled.

To congratulate Joe Kernan and his assistants, Paul Grimley and John McCloskey, and their mighty band of thirty men, while obviously appropriate, seems completely inadequate. Our first word should in a sense be one of thanks. For the unmitigated joy which they have brought, for their resolute generosity and commitment to their kinsmen and -women, we are truly grateful. They carried our fragile dreams and hopes with the greatest of care and attention and realised them for us with a skill and finesse well beyond our wildest anticipation. I heard of one woman in Armagh who watched the match on television with her 93 year-old grandmother. After the game they toured Armagh City to imbibe the atmosphere, to soak in the joy. What one old woman lived to see and perhaps thought she would never live to see, several others died without having witnessed. To complete the work, not just of this generation but of several previous generations, is quite an achievement.

Very soon after All-Ireland Sunday I had the privilege of attending in Coalisland, Co. Tyrone, a youth alcohol and drugs awareness rally. Benny Tierney, the Armagh goalkeeper, was present and spoke. His presence and words obviously resonated with the young people in a way mine couldn’t. To the Armagh players for being such wonderful role models in so many ways to young people, indeed to us all, we say thanks.
Sport is a wonderful gift from God. It demands all that is best in the human heart, the greatest to which the human being can aspire. To the Lord and to all who have made a 2002 an unforgettable year in Armagh we say thank you.

The Archdiocese of Armagh is comprised of territory from four counties – Armagh, Derry, Louth and Tyrone. While I pray that Armagh may continue its winning streak, I hope that Tyrone will also soon experience the irreplaceable and irrepressible joy of lifting the “Sam Maguire”!

ARMAGH OBSERVER
SPECIAL SOUVENIR SUPPLEMENT
COMMEMORATING ARMAGH REACHING THE ALL IRELAND FINAL
WORDS OF CONGRATULATIONS AND ENCOURAGEMENT FROM
MOST REV. SEÁN BRADY
ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH

Armagh people, and our friends everywhere, are overjoyed to know that their senior football team has reached the All Ireland Final. Their credentials to be there are excellent. Three Ulster Titles in four years, a Championship Campaign which saw them oust the current league-title holders and friendly rivals and neighbours, Tyrone, excellent victories over plucky Fermanagh, a gallant Donegal side and a much under-rated Sligo team plus two replays ……. this championship has had everything, or almost everything. One thing it has not had is dirty play or un-sportsmanlike tactics.

Granted that en route to the Final the Armagh team has on occasion exercised the cardiovascular mussels of their supporters to a great extent but it was all for a good purpose. It was in preparation for the dream final. The orchard verses the Kingdom, the apple verses Puck, the pride of the North verses the jewel of the South.

This Armagh team has given outstanding sporting displays. They are great Ambassadors for their county and for their province. I wish them well and am confident they can carry the day.

So, roll on September 22. Samuel Maguire prepare yourself for a diet of Ulster fry and apple tarts over the next twelve months!

September 10, 2002

CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF PRESENTATION BROTHERS, DUNGANNON
HOMILY GIVEN BY CARDINAL SEÁN BRADY
MASS OF CELEBRATION – SATURDAY 27 MAY 2002

“Father, you give your gifts of grace for every time and season, as you guide the Church in the marvellous ways of your providence”.

This evening we are gathered to give thanks to God for His gifts of grace. The grace of the presence of the Presentation Brothers here in Dungannon over the last 100 years. We praise God for this presence and see it as part of the guidance God gives to His Church in the marvellous ways of His providence. Providence is another name for God – a God who cares for His people and provides for His people at all times and in many different ways, on their pilgrimage through life.

This evening we come together to give thanks for that care. We give praise to a God who takes the ups and downs of human experiences, the losses and the gains, the successes and the failures, and allows the blending and blurring of one experience into another, to create the whole that is human life. As pilgrims, we can see in all of these experiences, the gracious presence of God. In faith we can assess, with the passage of time, the meaning hidden in events from the past.

In the Gospel, Jesus was talking to Nicodemus. Earlier in that chapter, St. John tells us how Nicodemus, a Pharisee, a good man, a thoughtful man, a leader among his people, came to Jesus by night. He had seen the signs, which Jesus was doing – changing water into wine at the wedding in Cana in Galilee, purifying the temple of the wheelers and dealers and moneychangers.

Nicodemus thought about all of this and saw that it was good and drew his own conclusions, namely, that this man had come from God. “Rabbi” he said, “we know you are a teacher who has come from God”. Jesus compliments him on his shrewdness, thoughtfulness, reflection, whatever you like to call it – his wisdom. He says, “Very truly I tell you no-one can see the kingdom of God, without being born from above”.

What Jesus is saying is, yes, you have done well in deciding that God is present and at work in my words and actions. You have listened to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. You are right in that. Here we are listening to a discussion between teachers. Later on Jesus says to him, “Are you a teacher in Israel and yet you do not understand these things, namely, that everyone must be born of water and the Spirit in order to enter the kingdom of God”.

Tonight we thank God for the Presentation Brothers. Teachers, who came from many parts of the country, many different counties – Leitrim, Cork and Clare, who came here but also who, we believe, have come from God, to do God’s work, to bring the Good News and the message of God to the people of Dungannon. Tonight we thank God for Blessed Ignatius Rice and the inspirations, which he received from the Holy Spirit.

Ignatius Rice was a wealthy, pious, charitable man who had considered becoming a monk after the death of his young wife. He, himself, had been educated in one of the so-called ‘Hedge Schools’ during the times of the Penal Laws. Because, like Nicodemus, he was a reflective man, a thoughtful man, a prayerful man, he saw the need there was for education. He was struck by the great number of young, good, Catholic boys, who wandered the streets of his adopted Waterford, but had no education and no real preparation for life.

He asked himself the question, What must be done? He probably prayed about it and then decided that the Holy Spirit was inspiring him to use his wealth to rent a barn and to start his first school. Very soon other people – other young men, who gave their services to teach without any financial reward, joined him. They lived in community; they followed a rule of life, which they took from the Presentation Nuns, which were founded by Nano Nalgo some years earlier. They were known as Gentlemen of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple. They presented themselves to the Lord for this work.

Edmund Rice and his companions lived as a community. That means they prayed together, they attended daily mass and they taught. They took vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They devoted their lives to the Christian education of young boys – especially the poor. In other words, they gave up any ambitions they had of becoming rich in the things of this world, preferring to try to become rich in the sight of God. They lived a vow of chastity, which means that they gave up their option of marrying and having their own family and having the affection and the love of a wife and children. They did all of this for the sake of a greater good, so that they could be free to dedicate themselves totally to their teaching and to their prayer life. They also took a vow of obedience. They gave up their freedom.

All of this was so that they could be a sign. A sign to the rest of the world, the people they met. A sign of another world – another life – a life beyond the grave. They are a sign that we have not here a lasting kingdom. That is obvious, the fact of life and death tell us that every day. No, we have not here a lasting kingdom. We seek One that is to come. We forget that truth very easily. We act as if we had, as if there is no other purpose to life than to eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.

This evening then we give thanks to God for the presence of religious Sisters and Brothers and priests in the world – in our midst – in the Church. More specifically we give thanks to God also for the vision and the inspiration which Dean Burn had 100 years ago to invite the Presentation Brothers to come to Dungannon.
As Dean MacLarnon tells us in the Commemorative Booklet, it was an important decision for which the people of the parish would be ever grateful. I think the fact that the Parish has organised this evening’s ceremony and the events connected with it, indicates they are ever grateful.

Of course that decision was not without its troubles and trials. Dean MacLarnon says “in the early days it would appear that the function of the Brothers at infant level and at secondary level was a matter for some discussion and even disagreement between Dean Burn and the Brothers. As time went on, however, their work became more and more essential and valued in the parish.

Tonight we give thanks for the glorious success of the last 100 years. We give praise to God for the many dedicated and generous teachers who spared no effort in preparing their pupils for life in this world and in the next. We ask pardon for the flops and the failures. As this particular chapter draws to a close we once again put our trust in the love and protection of a gracious God.

Today we thank God for the decision to invite the Presentation Brothers to come here and for their generosity, which responded to that decision. When I think of the Presentation Brothers, Dungannon, I think of Brother Majella, Brother Aloysius and Brother Adrian who, now that their formal teaching is ended continue to play an active role in many activities of the parish.

In the past I know that many Club choirs were trained under the supervision of the Brothers. Their care for the sick and the bereaved is famous as they tried to bind up the wounds of the broken hearted. All this work is placed under the seal of the Brothers of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the greater glory of God. All of this plus the Gospel we have just heard points to the real success of their presence here in Dungannon.

The challenge today remains the same. To tell people that God so loved the world that He gave His only son and to have people believe in Him and his eternal life.

AMEN

ST PATRICK’S DAY – 17 MARCH 2002
HOMILY GIVEN BY CARDINAL SEÁN BRADY
IN ST. MALACHY’S CHURCH, ARMAGH

Every new generation is another continent to be won for Christ. This weekend a group of young people arrived in Armagh to play their part in winning the young people of Armagh, of this generation, for Christ. Like St Patrick, they believe very much in the power of prayer. The first thing they did on arrival, at St. Catherine’s College yesterday morning, was to spend a long time in prayer. They then proceeded to distribute leaflets in the City and outside St. Malachy’s Church.

Those leaflets invite young people to join them on a weekend retreat, next weekend, Palm Sunday weekend, in St. Catherine’s. They are hoping to get at least 40 young people for the retreat. If they do so it could be the beginning of something great for this City. Therefore they ask the help of your prayers and your fasting for the success of the weekend.

I am sure that each one of us knows some young person who could benefit immensely from such a weekend. That young person may be one of you, here at this Mass. If we do, I think we should do all in our power to persuade them to sign up, to go along to listen to this call of God to come apart and spend some time with Him. They will certainly not regret it for I am quite certain that it is that same Holy Spirit, which guided these young people to our City as guided Patrick to Armagh in the first place. It is certainly the same Good News, which they bring – namely the Good News of Jesus Christ – Jesus Christ who was crucified for love of us and raised from the dead for our sake.

At the end of his Confessions, Patrick tells us that the only reason that brought him back to Ireland was the Gospel and the promises it contained. Those same promises are put before us in today’s Mass. Let us hear them again. Jesus said, “I am the Resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though he dies, he will live. Your brother will rise again”. There is no doubt about it that those are fantastic promises. But, every generation has got to make a choice – to put its faith in Jesus and in his promises or to put its faith in the idols of the age.

Please remember that an idol can take many forms. An idol is a false God. Anything that gets too much devotion, anything that gets first place in my life, the place that should be given to God, that is an idol, a false God. So, whatever keeps us up so late on a Saturday night that we are not able to get up or not willing to get up for Mass on a Sunday, whether it is devotion to the pub culture or the pop culture – that is an idol. Whatever keeps us so tired that we are not able to listen to the Word of God that may very well be an idol.

One of the stories about Patrick that captures the imagination, especially of young people, is that he banished the snakes from Ireland. We talk of a snake in the grass to indicate some danger lurking nearby which poses a threat. Every generation must identify and banish its own snakes. If, for example, the hunger for pleasure is so strong in my life that it occupies first place – that it comes before everything else – surely that is a snake in the grass that poses a severe threat to the prospect of my eternal happiness. That definitely is a snake, which must be banished. Remember pleasure is not the same as happiness – it is something quite different.

The arrival of these young people in Armagh this weekend caused me to wonder how did Patrick begin when he got here. Did he stop people in the street and ask for a moment? Did he visit homes? He certainly did not have St. Malachy’s Church. But he did have the very strong belief that he had something vitally important to tell. Maybe he met someone who was heartbroken at the loss of a mother or a brother and said to them the words of Jesus, ‘your brother will rise again and if you believe you too will see the glory of God’.

I wonder did Patrick begin by telling his own story and telling of his own close shave with disaster – the disaster of losing his faith – that at the age of sixteen he himself was not exactly Gospel greedy. Indeed far from it – like many of his peers, Patrick had forsaken God. Didn’t keep His commandments. They were not obedient to their bishops; he used to warn them for their own good.

One day the bubble burst, disaster struck. Patrick was carried off as a slave to Ireland along with lots of others. In time Patrick came to see it as a case of getting what you deserved. Listen to his own words, “God brought to bear upon us the wrath of His anger and scattered us among many peoples”. But, like the Prodigal Son in the Gospel, Patrick came to his senses. He said, “the Lord opened my unbelieving mind so that even at that last hour I should remember my sins and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God”.
The result was that Patrick had a conversion experience – God had mercy on his youth. He says, “He kept me safe and comforted me as a father would his son”. The fact is that in exile, Patrick had been robbed of the presence of his natural father but he discovered God as a real and powerful father.

In exile he learned a powerful lesson – yes he had been deprived of his freedom. It was a terrible wrong. A horrible injustice but in the process he saw that because of his own carelessness and laziness earlier he had been running the risk of suffering a far greater loss – the loss of his faith in God. “I did not know the true God,” he says. The result is that God stepped in a saved him from that far greater disaster. So, what appeared at first appeared to be the worst of bad news, namely his capture and imprisonment, in reality turned out to be a real favour.

You all know that Patrick escaped and eventually got home to Britain to his family. Then he came to the conclusion that God was calling him to go back to Ireland. He knew he had something valuable to offer the Irish people. He also met a lot of difficulties and obstacles. Some people cast up the sins of his life and told him he wasn’t fit for the job. Others reminded him that he was a foreigner, a stranger. The Lord came powerfully to his aid he says, when he was being walked upon and did not allow him to fall into disgrace. It appears that they had dragged up something he had admitted doing, as a boy of fifteen years of age. In any case Patrick weathered the storm and found his way back to Ireland as a priest – a bishop – to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ. It certainly was not all plain sailing. Patrick came to see it all as a great gift from God – the fact that he came to know God so clearly and to love him so much that he was prepared to forsake his homeland and his family.

These were very dear to him – his homeland in Britain. He tells us that he would have loved to pay them one last visit but he could not run the risk of being found guilty of betraying the task, which God had given to him. He just simply could not take the time off. There was far too much important work to do here in Ireland. Yes, he says, we were bound to spread our necks so that a great multitude and throng should be caught for God and that everywhere there should be clergy to baptise and exhort a needy and a thirsty people. As a result he says “In Ireland they, who had never had knowledge of God, have lately been made a People of the Lord and are called Children of God. Their sons and daughters flock to become priests and religious”.

Well, peoples’ needs do not change. The people of this generation are still needy and thirsty – thirsting for knowledge of God. You may have read recently that there is only one young man being ordained a priest in Northern Ireland this year. That is true. It is not a very good sign. Patrick tells us that in his days one obstacle he had to deal with as regards vocations was that very often they had to join up without their parents’ consent. Indeed, he says, they had to suffer both persecution and false reproaches from their families but nevertheless they came in great numbers. So today as we face this crisis in vocations, let us look at our own attitude, our own faith in the message brought by Patrick and of the need for priests to baptise and celebrate the Eucharist and hand on the Good News.

I recently went into a junior class in a primary school and one little lad greeted me with these words. “I know who your friend is. Who’s that? I ask. God he said. I answered, “I hope so”. One thing is certain, Patrick was a friend of God. He came to Ireland to help all of us to know God and to become his friend and to praise God’s goodness all the days of our lives.

His legacy is his gift of faith but also his immense humility and honesty. He begins his writings “I am Patrick, a sinner”. He alerts us to the temptations he had to endure from the Devil, “For he is strong”, he says, “who daily strives to subvert me from the fidelity and chastity I have undertaken”.

I think every Armagh person should know the Confession of Patrick inside out. It is a Confession of grace – a confession of faith rather than a confession of sins. Could I suggest that you try and get your hands on it and read it for yourselves. Could I leave you with its final words “One more time let me briefly set down the theme of my Confession. I testify that I never had any reason other than the Gospel and its promises, for ever returning to the land from which, in an earlier time, I had barely made good my escape from captivity. Now this is my prayer:

That if I have accomplished or brought to light any small part of God’s purpose, none shall ever assert the credit is due to my own uneducated self but regard it rather as a true fact to be firmly believed that it was all the gift of God and that is my confession before I die”.

St. Patrick, pray for us that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
AMEN

LAUNCH OF VOCATIONS WEB SITE
‘A PILGRIM PATH’
ARMAGH DIOCESAN PASTORAL CENTRE, MOUNT OLIVER
7 MARCH, 2002
ADDRESS BY
MOST REV. SEÁN BRADY, DCL

I join in the welcome to you all here tonight. I thank you, not alone for your presence here tonight, but also for all your work for the life of the Church in the Archdiocese of Armagh. I want to record in particular my appreciation of your work for young people and the part you play in helping them to prepare for life and to find their appropriate role in life.

I thank and congratulate Monsignor McEntegart and the Vocations Commission on the production of this excellent website. I congratulate Marion Mulhall and her staff on the excellent standard of the final product.

I remember once hearing on radio a journalist saying how she would not lift a finger to halt what she termed the “decline” of the Church in Ireland. However, she did hope that there might be a priest to say a prayer with her as she lay dying. In a sense this epitomises the mindset of many people today. We are distracted in so many ways, attracted by the ephemeral, caught up in the immediate and the urgent, involved in so many issues and matters which clamour and compete for our attention.

Yet deep down there is a very definite thirst for the spiritual, which often we stubbornly refuse to acknowledge or satisfy. The sense of the Divine is deeply rooted in the human person. Various forces may conspire to limit the way we sense the Divine within the human soul and to constrain our response. But the sense of God in the human person cannot be extinguished. Humanity’s reliance on our own efforts, and trust in what we ourselves can achieve by our own knowledge and technology, expertise and organisation, are at an all-time high, and consequently there is very often little sense of a need for God. Yet September 11 last is an awful reminder to us how fragile the world order is – how easily a world of relative peace, pleasure-seeking and prosperity, at least in the Western hemisphere, can seriously be endangered. Someone said that the two groups of people most sought after in the United States after 11 September were the priests and the psychiatrists – which says something for the needs of the soul.

I am convinced that increasingly throughout the Western world we will see the limitations of modern society – high abortion rates, high marital breakdown, unjust structures, personal and communal living without a moral compass. Prosperity and a healthy GDP will in themselves not bring fulfilment to the human soul. A world separated from God can never be at ease with itself. I am convinced in this country that as we work out the “baggage from the past”, as in union with the Western world we increasingly see the limitations of this “brave new world”, the desire to return to God and to nurture the longing for God, will be great. Then the hunger for God in the human soul, the need for the Church and for priests, will never have been greater.

To present oneself for ordination today is not easy. It is truly to be a sign of contradiction. It is to be generous and courageous in a way not affirmed or endorsed by the world. However, I am convinced that those who take this step can be happy and deeply fulfilled in this most challenging of walks of life. I unreservedly encourage young people to listen to the call of the Lord and not to be afraid of it. The Third Millennium is a time of great hope. It is a time for bold and determined decisions. I hope that many will answer the call from God to the priestly ministry.

I often try to remember how I came to offer myself to go to Maynooth in 1957. The words of Jesus, “Pray the Lord of the Harvest to send labourers into his Harvest”, resonated with me. As a young lad I loved helping out at harvest time on my father’s farm – saving hay, cutting corn, picking potatoes. I had a sense of playing my part in ensuring that there was food for the livestock and an income for the family over the winter.

Later on I came to see that there is another hunger, one deeper than that of the body, that is the hunger for happiness. When it was suggested to me that I might have a part to play in satisfying that hunger and in giving to people the Words of Eternal Life and the Bread of Eternal Life – I am certain that this consideration was a factor in my decision to enter the seminary and train to become a priest.
Recently I was fascinated to watch those who were called by RTE to audition for a new Pop Band. There was sheer delight if successful, total desolation if rejected. I have been trying to work out what was the secret of this appeal of such a life-style. I think the answer is wealth and fame.

But Jesus, the Son of God, taught us that true happiness is not found in riches, nor in fame, nor in power, nor indeed in any human achievement but rather in God alone, the source of all that is good and of all love. He said, Blessed are the Poor; Blessed are the Meek.

Before returning to His Father, Jesus gave very specific instructions to his disciples:

“Go teach all nations.
Do this in memory of Me.
Feed my lambs; feed my sheep”.

Now Christ lives and acts in and with and through His Church. He acts through the Sacraments. The fruits of his death and resurrection are made available to us in the celebration of the Sacraments. Holy Orders is the sacrament through which the work entrusted by Christ to his apostles continues to be carried out. When I meet young people I often ask for questions. Inevitably I get two. What is it like to be an Archbishop and why did you become a priest? There is an abiding interest in the hearts and minds of many people about who priests are and what they do. A tiny tot put up his hand, in one class, and said, “I know who your friend is.” “Who is that?”, I said. “God”, he said. That certainly surprised me and delighted me and what could I say except, “I hope so”.

In this website three priests of our diocese, one from Tyrone, Fr Peter McAnenly, one from Armagh, Fr Eamonn McCamley, and one from Louth, Fr Oliver Brennan, speak of their life as a priest. They share with us something of the joy and the satisfaction, the challenges and the difficulties which they meet in priesthood. But I know them and I know they are totally convinced that they are doing an essential work for the lives of the people they serve. Yes, we are servants of Christ first of all and of His Church and servants of the people of our parishes in our diocese. Sometimes our service perhaps is not appreciated. The truth is often rejected but we must continue to offer that service and launch out into the deep. We must continue to raise people’s awareness of the need for priests, the need not only to pray for vocations, to ask the Lord to send labourers into His harvest, but to put the prospect before young people, young people that we think are suitable. Perhaps before we do that we should try and identify people whom we regard as potential candidates. Then we could bring them before the Lord, in prayer, and the same thought might present itself to them. Surveys have told us that many young people do consider priesthood even yet. The level of questioning in the classroom would suggest to me that there is an interest there. But perhaps we priests have short-changed our listeners. We don’t talk enough about the happiness that we experience.

A barrister pleads for people before the Court of the land. A priest pleads in prayer before the Court of Heaven for himself and for his people. Priests offer the Eucharist – the greatest prayer of all – the memorial of Christ’s saving death and resurrection. They have power to change bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.

The aim of this Pilgrim Path website is to tell people what exactly a priest is, i.e., someone to whom Christ has entrusted a big job of work, a man of trust. The big task in question is that of continuing and carrying on the mission of Christ in the Church to the end of time. It consists of preaching His Word, celebrating His glory, dispensing His love and his pardon and his peace.

I like the title, Pilgrim Path. Life is a pilgrimage for us all. A spiritual life has often been described as a journey or a pilgrimage. Every human life is a mystery that unfolds, a promise that is gradually fulfilled. To be human is to be a pilgrim. The pilgrimage to priesthood is founded in the call addressed to Abraham, “Go from your country to the land that I will show you.” It is a pilgrimage where there are sometimes no road maps, no sign posts, sometimes no roads, but we know where we are going. We haven’t got the details of the journey but as pilgrims we have something more, we have the help of the Holy Spirit. The pilgrimage is also founded, of course, on the call of Christ, “Come follow Me”, and his assurance that He will be with His Church to the end of time.

I congratulate all those involved in this web site. I hope that the Pilgrim Path website might serve for some as a possible first port of call for information on the priesthood. I also hope that many young men and those who have greater experience of life will visit this site and find it useful. It is my prayer that those who feel that the Lord may be calling them to the priesthood, even if the call at this stage seems unclear and uncertain will find here food for thought and inspiration for prayer. I hope that those considering priesthood might find here something helpful to them in their own pilgrimage of faith and commitment to the Lord. It is also my desire that those who actively promote vocations to the priesthood and indeed all those who love the priesthood will find this site of interest.

I congratulate the three priests involved, Fathers Brennan, McCamley and McAnenly. The objective is to raise the awareness of people of the situation. We have nine seminarians at present. Three of these are due to be ordained deacons on Easter Monday next. Please God they will be ordained priests next year. The road to priesthood is a long road. It consists of six or seven years of third level education made up not only of study, but also of prayer and practical experience. A future priest has to grow in knowledge of God and in knowledge of himself and in knowledge of people. A future priest needs to be well prepared because the demands placed on priests these days are huge. The priest is a “wanted man”. He is wanted for baptisms and for funerals, for weddings and for wakes, for jubilees and celebrations of every kind.

If the supply is to continue then the foundations must be laid down. Vocations will come from a community of faith, people who believe in the Eucharist, who believe in the importance of the Mass. They will come from a community which sees that it really is the Mass which makes the Church, and which gathers together to worship and praise God. Vocations will come from homes where there is prayer, daily prayer, prayer of praise and thanks. Vocations come from families where there is generosity towards the poor and the needy. They come from people who are not full of self-love, but dedicated to the service of others, trained to sacrifice themselves and willing to conform their desires to God’s will. Vocations to priesthood come from people who are not full of self-love but dedicated to the love of God and the service of others.

Priests dedicate their lives to preaching His Word not their own word, not by their own authority but by the authority of Christ Jesus. We all love glory. Priests dedicate their lives to celebrating His glory, the glory that will never fade. Priests dedicate their lives to dispensing His love, a love that is so great that it brought Jesus to suffer and die for love of us.

When I was in Rome last October, Pope John Paul gave me a cross. It bears three Latin words, Duc in Altum. They mean, “launch into the deep”. Jesus spoke those words to Peter on the lakeshore. Peter had fished all night and had caught nothing. He wasn’t convinced that another try was going to yield a lot, but at the command of Jesus he was willing to try. The result is history. He caught “armfuls of fish”, as one young man told me earlier this week. The Holy Father urges us once again to launch out into the deep. We do so convinced that God continues to call people to serve Him in His Church and in the priesthood. We launch this website to challenge young men to see what path in life they will choose. Today some families are reluctant to encourage their sons to think about becoming priests. I can understand the reluctance but I would also like to call to mind that if God is calling somebody to do some good in this life, then I don’t think that person is going to be happy doing something else. Yes, the demands placed on the priest today are huge and are very heavy, but the returns are deeply satisfying and bring great happiness. I have been a priest for thirty-eight years – thirty-eight very happy years. I probably don’t spend enough time thanking God for all the happiness which my priesthood has brought me.

It is right that the priesthood of the Archdiocese should have a presence on the World Wide Web. I am very happy that we are employing the very latest and most sophisticated technology in bringing the idea of priesthood as a vocation to the world in this way. I am very grateful to the Armagh Diocesan Vocations Commission and their expert IT team who have worked so hard to make this site a reality. Pope John Paul II has spoken many times on the use of the Internet, encouraging local Churches throughout the world to avail of the Web as a tool of evangelisation. I am very happy that the Archdiocese of Armagh is engaging with the modern world in this most up-to-date of ways. I pray that this site may inspire and assist many men to be generous in the exciting vocational journey of answering the call to follow Christ in the ordained priesthood. I also hope that it will remind priests that the promotion of vocations must be a priority in their own life and work.

BI-CENTENARY OF CHRISTIAN BROTHERS
HOMILY GIVEN BY CARDINAL SEÁN BRADY
ST. MALACHY’S CHURCH, ARMAGH – 22 FEBRUARY 2002

In this, the bicentenary year, we remember the past 200 years – namely, the 200 years that have gone by since Edmund Rice set up his first school. It was in a stable in Waterford in 1802. We remember these 200 years with gratitude. Gratitude and praise in our hearts, to a God who always gives gifts of grace for every time and season to His Church. For, in every age, God guides and helps the Church through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Let us have no fear – God always provides – we may not always be listening.
Tonight we give thanks for the guidance and the help given by God to very many people in the Church through the Presentation Brothers and the Christian Brothers, founded by Blessed Ignatius Rice. We now see how God was present in this sacred story and in particular tonight; we give thanks for that presence here in Armagh from 1851 until 1999.

We remember how on the first Pentecost Sunday in Jerusalem the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles with the sound of a mighty wind. It was the fulfilment of Christ’s promise that they would receive power and that they would be his witnesses to the ends of the Earth. Later Peter had stood up and told his audience that what they were seeing was not men getting drunk but rather God fulfilling His promise.
Jesus became one of us, a human being like us, that we might have life and have it to the full. When he returned to the Father he sent the Holy Spirit to be with us. The Spirit comes to us to remind us to play our part in bringing the world to perfection. Tonight we celebrate the past; we give thanks for all that has been achieved. We ask pardon and forgiveness for the failures and shortcomings.

On the first day of Pentecost, 3,000 were baptised after the coming of the Holy Spirit and the preaching of Peter. We are told in the Acts of the Apostles that they spent their time listening to the teaching of the apostles.

In every age there have been people who are prepared to take up that task of handing on and living out, in their own lives, the teaching of the apostles. They have been attentive to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit and have responded to the Holy Spirit.

Recently I was in a school and I asked, What did it mean to be a witness? One young man said, it meant preaching the Gospel. I said, “Would you be prepared to play any part in preaching the Gospel?” He shook his head. I though it was an example of somebody who had a clear idea of what was involved but like the rich young man in the Gospel, was not prepared to give up what he would have to give up if he was going to be a preacher of the Gospel.

Tonight we give thanks to those Brothers who came here to Armagh, not to make a profit, not to get rich, far from it. We know that. They came not to do their own thing – to throw up their heels and enjoy great freedom. They came not to have children, wives and families and grandchildren of their own. In their choosing this way of life they were giving up doing without things which a lot of people rate very highly. They were prepared to do that because they felt that is what God was calling them to do – to be witnesses to Jesus Christ – to be witnesses to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

We remember once again the remarkable story of the two congregations founded 200 years ago. We try to become more keenly aware of the presence of the loving God in that story. We look more closely at how God has been moving and working. We look back to see what has happened during those last 200 years – trying to see where God has been moving. Normally the work of God is, in a deep sense, peaceful and consoling. We give thanks for all the good that has been accomplished. We ask forgiveness for the failures.

Our gathering this evening is not just one of nostalgia. We live the present at a time of new beginnings. This is indeed a time of new beginnings when we realise that the future of the Catholic school is very much in the hands of a lay Church. One big challenge for the future of Catholic education is to help lay teachers see and realise the central role they now play in the Church. I appreciate the work that is being done to equip and prepare new leaders and I am thinking of the

Always, the question of the ethos of a school is very important. It is now just as important as ever. Today teachers of religion point out how hard it is to teach this subject in schools. However, it is a task that cannot be avoided. God gives His great gifts of grace for every time and season. He will provide a grace as we work out the strategy for the present we go back again to the vision which Edmund Rice, Patrick Finn and Thomas Grosvenor had when they set up a school in a stable in New Street, Waterford, 200 years ago.

Yes, we live the present at a time of new beginnings. We examine this present era and its signs to detect there the presence of the Holy Spirit. We rejoice in the fact that vocations to the Christian Brothers are flourishing in Africa and India and in other parts of the developing world. This is in line with the increase in the number of seminarians worldwide, which has grown 73% during the last 24 years – that is, during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II.

Of course the number has dropped dramatically in this country. That raises questions, not about vocations to the religious life or about the Church worldwide, but about the Church here in Ireland, about the quality of our faith, about the depth of our relationship with Jesus Christ. While we recognise, with gratitude, the efforts to be open to the poor and the marginalised of the world we see that there is a spiritual poverty, and needs which need to be addressed. I see spiritual quotient is now being regarded as something important.

The 2001 issue of Network News is full of ideas and activities as it outlines the Programmes of Events to mark this bicentenary. I mention the Vision Conference in April; the Adult and Community Education Programme; the Catholic School Conference in March, “God is in the ordinary projects” and a whole lot of other projects. They indicate to me great vitality, great life, great strength, despite the smaller numbers, the smaller presence in schools and the ageing profile of the Province. I see there great signs of hope, great honesty and great obedience to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit.

Now, after 200 years we face the future. Yes, the age profile of the Province and the declining numbers introduce a note of uncertainty as regards the future but Jesus himself was clear that his future involved a certain amount of uncertainty, about being rejected by his fellow countrymen, about being handed over to the Romans and being put to death. In the eyes of the world it was a future of failure. His disciples got it hard to see that and to accept it.

You know what happened immediately after that fantastic promise which we heard in today’s Gospel, which Jesus made to Peter when he promised him the key to the kingdom of Heaven. Jesus began to say plainly to his disciples – “I must go to Jerusalem and suffer much. I will be put to death but three days later I will be raised to life”.

Jesus understood that the shame of the cross would lead to the glory of the Resurrection. His disciples did not understand and so the future was, for them, very uncertain. Peter, was spokesman for the rest when he expresses there their doubts. He says, “God forbid it, Lord, that must never happen to you”. Jesus turned around and said to him, “Get away from me Satan. You are an obstacle in my way, because these thoughts of yours don’t come from God but from human nature”.

I think that as we face the future, in order to share in the vision of Ignatius Rice, we must go back to this evening’s Gospel where Jesus asks, “Who do you say that I am?” and Peter answered, “You are the son of the living God”.

As we face the future we ask again, What was the vision of Edmund Rice? I would say that he and his companions saw themselves as primarily sharing with their pupils, faith in Jesus as the Son of the Living God. I would say that they saw their main task as one of handing on their faith to their pupils. They saw themselves as serving Jesus in the person whom they taught, because they were quite clear that when he said, ‘Whatever you do to one of these, the least of my brethren, you do to me’. I believe that they were interested in the development and formation of the faith and personality of their pupils. As baptised followers of Christ, they knew they were passing on the words of eternal life. They were part of the Church, sent to teach all nations and to be witnesses to Jesus Christ, to the ends of the earth. They knew that they were teaching in the name of Jesus Christ – a Christ who keeps his promises – who suffered and died – who was rejected by his own people but accepted by his Father who rose from the dead, who promised to send the Holy Spirit – and he did. He promised to come again to judge the living and the dead and he will, and will reward them according to what they deserve.

Peter was quite clear that the reward promised was high – “I will share in the glory that will be revealed”. What a headline he sets for all of us. Be shepherds of the flock God gives you – a shepherd feeds his flock, protects and guards them. Take care of it willingly as God want you to. Do your work, not for mere pay but from a real desire to serve – be examples to all. When the Chief Pastor appears – “you will receive the glorious crown, which will never lose its brightness”.

Dear brothers, parents, teachers, dear people of Armagh and beyond, let us never lose sight of that glorious crown. Let us press on every single day in our efforts to win that glorious crown.

MASS TO MARK WORLD PEACE DAY
1 JANUARY, 2002, 11.00AM
ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL, ARMAGH
HOMILY
CARDINAL SEÁN BRADY
WORLD CONFLICT

Today World Day of Peace is being celebrated in the shadow of the many and dramatic events of 2001 – the outrages of September 11 in the United States, the continuing trauma of world poverty and world hunger, floods of refugees and asylum-seekers, a growing contempt for human life, the widespread breakdown of the family. At first sight evil may appear to have the upper hand and the final say in the affairs of the world. Today, however, the Church dares to assert that evil does not have the final say in human affairs. As Pope John Paul says in his message for World Peace Day: “The merciful providence of God knows how to touch the most hardened of hearts and bring forth good fruit, even from what seems utterly barren”.

The Pope makes it clear that there is right to defend oneself against terrorist organisations. But the means must be morally defensible. The guilty must be correctly identified. There must be a commitment to relieving situations of oppression in order that the claims which terrorists make to justify their actions may be completely and utterly nullified. When terrorist organisations use their own followers, the Pope says, as weapons to be launched against defenceless and unsuspecting people, they show their contempt for human life.

Today the Church’s “no” to war and to armed conflict is a “yes” to peace – a “yes” to negotiations, a “yes” to the possibility of reconciliation. Today, Jesus, the Prince of Peace, dares the Church to have the courage to commit itself once again, humbly and patiently to the search for peace. It is a “yes” to the search, through dialogue, for peace, a search, which has gone on, is going on, will go on and must go on.

The light, which the Prophet Isaiah promised to God’s people in Israel 700 years before Christ, came into this world 2,000 years ago. But as the Gospel of John reminds us the darkness did not comprehend the light. Yes, the angels and the shepherds understood, as they rejoiced in the birth of Him, whom Isaiah had called, Prince of Peace. They proclaimed the message, which the whole world wanted to hear – peace on Earth. The Prophet Isaiah spoke of all the gear of battle, every cloak rolled in blood, being burned. He talked about the nations hammering their swords into ploughshares and hammering their spears into sickles. It is a magnificent vision for the world.

NORTHERN IRELAND

But this vision of the Prince of Peace is a task, which is, as yet, far from complete, even here in Northern Ireland. This is why the message of the Synod of Bishops last October to our political and economic leaders is important: “May the common good of all persons and people be your motive for action. We ask you to remember those corners of the world, which receive no media coverage and where our brothers and sisters are dying from famine and lack of medicine and to remember that the persistence of gross inequalities between nations is a threat to peace.”

A TASK FOR ALL

Here in Ireland a fragile peace process continues to make progress. Most of the time the discussion remains fixed on the negotiations of governments and politicians. As a result it is comfortably removed from the responsibility of ordinary citizens. Of course an agreed political settlement and a genuine cessation of violence are fundamental. But they are only just that – fundamental – that is, providing the foundation, not the completed structure of peace. At the social level the issues of reconciliation and sectarianism remain and will have to be addressed. Yes the search for peace is a process but it is also a task – the task of building the completed structure of a reconciled society at all levels.

RECONCILED SOCIETY

Building a reconciled society means building a new relationship between estranged parties. Let’s say that a married couple separates and are then reconciled. They come to a new sense of the hurt and pain they have caused each other and they forgive. But the reconciliation will last only if the wrongs have been set right and forgiveness has been offered and accepted. So reconciliation is a process of building a new relationship with the new party. It is a process of understanding the hurt and pain and grievance.

PILLARS OF TRUE PEACE – JUSTICE AND FORGIVENESS

Reconciliation implies forgiveness – a topic addressed by Pope John Paul II in his message for today when he says, “no peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness’. This has particular importance for the future of Northern Ireland. In the search for peace the emphasis has always been on justice. However, concerns for a reconciled community are important and the healing of relations between the victim and the agents or perpetrators of injustice are essential. The pillars of true peace are justice and that form of love which is forgiveness, the Pope says today.

Reconciliation is a task – a task of building a new relationship with the estranged party, a relationship of understanding – understanding the hurt and the pain and the grievances.

Reconciliation implies forgiveness – a topic addressed by Pope John Paul II in his message for today when he says, “no peace without justice, no justice without forgiveness’. In the search for peace the emphasis has always been on justice. Justice is the priority. However, concerns for a reconciled community and for the restoration or healing of relations between the victim and the agents or perpetrators of injustice, are very important too.

THE DIFFICULTY OF FORGIVENESS

Forgiveness is not easy. Too often we are locked in our past and unable to break out of the cycle of guilt and shame. Yet power to break that cycle is proclaimed to be the work of Jesus Christ. He came to free us from the burden of our past and give hope for the future. We call Jesus, Saviour of the world, and yet we often assume that the world cannot be saved but is doomed to perpetuating injustice and oppression and practice dishonesty and ruthless selfishness.

We call Jesus Prince of Peace and yet do we not restrict His peace to peace of heart and peace of mind? Too often we assume that the cries from the crib and the Cross leave us powerless while nations will continue to make war and to stockpile arms. Are we underestimating the power of the Prince of Peace?

FORGIVENESS BEGINS IN THE HUMAN HEART

Forgiveness begins in the human heart. It is a decision of the heart to go against the natural instinct to pay back evil with evil. Christ gave us the perfect example of forgiveness when, on the Cross, He prayed, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do’ (Luke 23: 34)

When we do wrong we experience our own human weakness. In a moment of weakness we decide to take a chance and do something foolish. If we are caught well then we want others to be lenient with us. Why not therefore do towards others what we want them to do towards us?

Jesus freed people from their past, for example, Zachaeus, so that they could enter into friendship with each other. The Jews had a very bad relationship with the Samaritans. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus held up a Samaritan as a model of someone who is most faithful to God. This set the people free from their prejudices against Samaritans. In all of this the forgiveness of sin was crucial. It was above all through forgiveness that Jesus seems to have liberated men and women from the burden of their past.

PEACE – A GIFT

Just in case we become overawed by the task, let’s never forget that peace is, first and foremost, a gift – a gift of God. Indeed the peace process is also a gift of God, a gift entrusted to human hands, hands that are weak. Therefore to pray for peace in our country is essential. To pray for peace is to ask God’s forgiveness for our own sins. It is also to beg the courage and the strength to forgive those who have trespassed against us in the sure knowledge that real peace will be made possible only through forgiveness.

The recent unhappy events in North Belfast reminded me of a true story from the USA. In 1960 in New Orleans an eminent American child-psychiatrist, Robert Cole, saw for himself the massive hostility of white parents to the desegregation of that city’s public school. One of the black children, six year old Ruby Bridges, attended her school alone. Her teacher reported that Ruby’s lips were moving as she passed the white hecklers on the footpath. Asked by him what she was saying out there she replied, “I was saying prayers for them”. “Ruby, you pray for the people there?” “Oh yes”. “Why do you do that?” “Because they need praying for”. “And why you especially?” “Because if you are going through what they are doing to you, you are the one who should be praying for them”. And then she quoted what she had heard in Church. The Minister had said that Jesus went through a lot of trouble. He said about the people, who were caught in the trouble, “forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing”. Now here was little Ruby, in the 1960s, saying this about the people in the streets of New Orleans. The eminent psychiatrist was baffled. He finally came to the conclusion that forgiveness is a political possibility for many Americans black Christians because, for them, God is real.

May God be very real for all of us in 2002 and may we do a lot of praying for each other. May Mary, Queen of Peace and mother of the Prince of Peace, pray for us and support all our efforts for peace.

PRESS RELEASE
ST. MARY’S UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, BELFAST
LAUNCH OF BUILDING PEACE – SHAPING THE FUTURE
ADDRESS BY DR. SEÁN BRADY, DCL
ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH
WEDNESDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2001

I welcome you all here this morning. I thank you for accepting the invitation of the Northern Bishops to the launch of Building Peace – Shaping the Future. I welcome the Minister for Education, Mr Martin McGuinness, as I do the representatives of the Civic Forum and of the political parties, of the Department of Education and of education sector at all levels, of the Protestant Churches and of the various community and voluntary sectors. I thank all of you for the immense contribution you make to education. We are all partners in education and have much to teach one another and learn from one another. Together we can build a better and more enriched world for our children.

A TIME OF CHALLENGE AND CHANGE

At this time of great change and challenge in Northern Ireland the Catholic bishops not surprisingly deemed it opportune to reflect upon the Catholic school. We ask how schools, at present, can contributes to peace and reconciliation and how they can continue in the future to play a part in the on-going process of building the peace and bringing about reconciliation between divided sections of our society.

AT THE SERVICE OF SOCIETY

The Catholic school is at the service of society. It has a public role to play. The promotion of citizenship must be part of the life and mission of Catholic education. Catholic education aims at the common good of society. It prepares people for active participation in the life of the community. The promotion of citizenship must be as much part of the life and mission of Catholic education as it is of any other public or private institution of education. This means an education which promotes values and ideals, an education which aims at bringing truth and justice to all, an education which dismisses and rules out of order whatever silences the Gospel message. These values derive from faith, hope and love, which are the essential expression of a Catholic educational institution.

RESPECT NOT SUSPECT

It would be unfair to expect schools to heal all the divisions in our society. But they can play a part and I am quite sure that under the leadership of their principals and teachers and Boards of Governors they are willing to face the challenge of destroying divisions and of overcoming conflicts. I know there are many in Catholic schools who are already actively involved in quite a range of activities and local practices which try to promote mutual respect, peace and reconciliation. Too often the relationships, which we are seeking to transform, are marred by ignorance, misunderstanding and suspicion. I suggest they should be replaced – ignorance by knowledge, misunderstanding by understanding and suspicion by respect.

SECTARIANISM

To break out of sectarian situations a combination of responses is required: active and responsible leadership which refuses to be stampeded by its hardliners; education; structured dialogue; listening; an insistence on the human rights of all sides, rights which have to be impartially and effectively enforced. Last but not least, cultural change is required, for example, the refusal to use derogatory language about those who differ from us. Positive and generous messages also need to be sent out to others – the message that “we are not a threat to you,” “we are listening to you,” “we want to make room for you.” These messages may have to be sent repeatedly in the face of apparent rejection, or no response. It takes time and much reassurance for threatened groups to move out from behind their defences, whether such defences are territorial, cultural or religious. Sectarianism flourishes when groups remain a distance from each other. People often demonstrate sectarian attitudes to the other group, in general, while they make an exception for individual members whom they know and live with peaceably as neighbours. It is a time for great generosity, great willingness to give for the sake of harmony and security.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

The document launched today recommends that the social responsibilities of Catholic schools be clarified. It asks that Religious Education contain explicit instruction on other religious and social traditions.

Each Catholic school should evaluate the effectiveness of all their EMU programmes. Perhaps the EMU co-ordinator could present a progress report at one meeting of the Board of Governors every year. Best practice in curricular or contact programmes should be publicised and copied.

All schools should be welcoming and fair to pupils and staff from other traditions. The relationships with them should reflect justice and promote self-esteem for all concerned. Catholic schools should seek to increase their investment in projects specifically designed to improve the spirit of community within schools and between schools. Parishes should consider investing financially in programmes which would create links of friendship across social and religious divides. This would include involving representatives from other schools and traditions in school assemblies.

THE PURPOSE OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION

In summary therefore, our society in Northern Ireland has been characterised by profound conflict, and those charged with the education of our young people have an important role to play in breaking down barriers of ignorance, misunderstanding and suspicion.

In the midst of the divisions in Northern Ireland, the bishops have constantly reiterated that tolerance is at the heart of all Christian and human education.

While it is unfair to expect schools to heal all the divisions in our society, they are faced with a challenge to contribute as far as they are able to reconciling and cherishing diverse identities, creating a climate of openness, and encouraging young people to play a full part in a just and equitable society.

Catholic schools help pupils to achieve their full potential, to awaken in them a sense of their dignity and their worth for their own fulfilment, but also for the welfare of society and for the creation of a peaceful and just society. That is indeed a noble enterprise, worthy of the best efforts of the parents, teachers and the parish. Long may it continue.