Harryville protest church to close; Cathedral’s blue-and-gold flag has got the town talking; President honours ‘Dove of Church’ who took flight; Dr Harry Grindle; The nuns’ story – why Magdelene orders feel they’ve no case to …; Archbishop angry over Catholic Church’s lack of concern for abused children
Harryville protest church to close
BBC News – A Catholic Church in Ballymena, County Antrim, that was the scene of loyalist protests for several years, is set to close.
It is expected that Our Lady’s in Harryville will eventually be demolished.
In a statement, the church said that the building had been unsafe “for some time” and that the cost of repair would be “prohibitive”.
Demonstrations outside the church took place in the 1990s.
They began in 1996 and were in response to nationalist objections to an Orange Order parade in the nearby village of Dunloy.
The protests eventually came to an end after the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
A statement on behalf of the parish of Ballymena said that problems of water getting into the building had never been “fully resolved”.
“For some time now the building has been unsafe and had to be taken out of use in February 2012,” it said.
“Now, because of the damage to the roof and the building and the consequent risk of electrical failure, the cost of repair would be prohibitive.
Read more:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-23383003
http://www.u.tv/News/Landmark-Ballymena-church-to-close/f44064b8-56f9-49c3-94fd-a102b4307c82
Cathedral’s blue-and-gold flag has got the town talking
Kilkenny People – The blue and gold flag flying from the central tower of St Canice’s Cathedral for the past week has had the whole town talking about it.
The flag’s name and symbolism have been the subject of much speculation, with one local wondering if Minister Phil Hogan was hosting an EU conference in the 13th Century church. In actual fact, it is the Compass Rose flag of the Anglican Communion.
Due to the confusion and controversy that can arise from the flying of flags on church buildings, the Church of Ireland’s General Synod decided that only two flags may ever be flown from church buildings or within the grounds of the Church of Ireland.
The two authorised flags are the Cross of St Patrick, which St Canice’s Cathedral raises once a year on St Patrick’s Day, and the Compass Rose flag of the Anglican Communion.
The flag is ultramarine blue, with a golden compass (the Compass Rose) at its centre, and a white shield with red borders and a red St George’s cross. Surrounding this is an inscription, written in the original New Testament Greek, which translates as ‘The truth shall make you free’, above which sits a golden mitre.
President honours ‘Dove of Church’ who took flight
Irish Independent – As the legend goes, it was the first island where St Colmcille could not see his homeland.
President Michael D Higgins paid tribute to one of Ireland’s great exiles when he travelled to the remote Scottish Hebridean island of Iona, from where the Donegal-born saint was credited with spreading Christianity to Scotland.
It seemed all 125 residents of the picturesque island, which has been a place of pilgrimage and Christian worship for the last 1,400 years, were there to greet Mr Higgins and his wife Sabina,
It was Mr Higgins’s second visit to the UK last week, following a two-day trip to England, and was to mark the 1,450th anniversary of St Colmcille’s landing on the remote Scottish Island.
In 563, the saint and 12 companions arrived, following his exile from Ireland after a dispute with St Finnian, prompting the folklore that he settled on Iona as it was far enough away to be out of sight of Ireland.
Mr Higgins yesterday paid tribute to the “Dove of the Church”, who is known as St Columba in Scotland, while condemning the sectarianism that sometimes follows migration. The comments followed his criticism last week of the riots in Belfast and a demand that community leaders there accept their responsibilities to act in the face of the violence.
“Societies benefit from hearing many voices, but surely no benefits are to be derived from voices raised against one another in hate or intolerance based very often on an abuse of myth and history,” he told an audience on the island.
“The prevalence of sectarianism or xenophobia within a community we know may be a symptom of its members feeling themselves ignored, rejected by those in power or under threat from wider socio-economic pressures. It is an atmosphere prevalent in European cities today.”
The President also spoke of how the last century had seen “intense conflict” in Ireland and other countries.
“To fail to recognise this would be to do a disservice to our history. But remembrance of a period of conflict or division does not, in itself, exacerbate such conflict,” he said.
After his speech, the President walked a short distance to the St Oran’s graveyard, where John Smith, the former leader of the British Labour Party, and where the grave os Scottish king Macbeth – who died in 1057 – is located.
More at – http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/president-honours-dove-of-church-who-took-flight-29436151.html
Dr Harry Grindle: Chorister revered as a master in the field of church music
Belfast Telegraph – Dr Harry Grindle, who has died aged 77, was a well-known composer, organist and choir-master who made an immense contribution to church music in Northern Ireland and further afield.
He was born in Bangor and educated at a local primary school and later at Regent House School in Newtownards.
At the age of seven he joined the choir of Bangor Abbey and became head chorister.
He later became the organist in Shore Street Presbyterian Church in Donaghadee and then Willowfield Parish Church in Belfast.
Harry Grindle read French at Queen’s University and the University of Strasbourg and later taught in London, where he pursued his musical studies with some of the most outstanding musicians of the day.
On his return to Northern Ireland in 1962, he was appointed organist of Bangor Parish Church and two years later he became organist and master of the choristers at St Anne’s in Belfast, where he made an immense contribution to the musical life of the cathedral.
In 1975, he became a senior lecturer in music at Stranmillis College and during this time he graduated with a First in Music from Trinity College, Dublin, as well as earning a Masters from Queen’s and a PhD from Trinity.
In 1986 he established the renowned Priory Singers and the choir gave many performances at home and overseas, including residencies at Hereford, Gloucester, Lincoln and Chichester cathedrals.
He was a noted composer and his hymn tune, Stranmillis, won a St Paul’s Millennium competition and is currently included in the cathedral’s hymnal. He was also the author of a definitive book on Irish cathedral music.
Dr Grindle was a deeply committed Christian and he received many honours, including an MBE, an associateship of the Royal School of Church Music and a Lambeth Doctorate in Music in 2005, which was awarded by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.
He is survived by Heather, his wife for 45 years, by his daughters Hannah and Rachel and by his wider family and many friends.
The nuns’ story – why Magdelene orders feel they’ve no case to …
Irish Independent – It’s highly unlikely that the distressed hand-wringing from politicians will change the decision of the religious orders not to contribute to the Magdalene Laundries redress scheme.
Of course, the fact that the sisters have maintained a steely silence on the latest controversy, choosing instead to refer to past statements, makes it largely impossible for the general public to understand where they’re coming from.
In private the nuns who were involved are more than willing to share their views.
The report into the laundries by Senator Martin McAleese was seen by the orders as offering a comprehensive picture of the complex involvement between church, State and the wider society that led to appalling situation where thousands of women were committed to these institutions.
And the opening line of the McAleese Report is one frequently cited by the nuns: “there is no single or simple story of the Magdalene Laundries”.
This, the nuns argue, proves that the issues at stake are more nuanced than simply asking the orders to hand over half of the estimated €58m cost of the Government’s redress plans.
I don’t speak for the nuns, nor am I an apologist for the mistreatment suffered by the women in the laundries. But I know from talking to the sisters that they believe there is a wider context.
They point to the fact that a quarter of women were committed by the State and a significant number were sent to the laundries by their families.
The McAleese Report reveals that there were also instances when women went themselves voluntarily to the institutions, that the average stay as a laundry was seven months, and that more than 60pc of women spent a year or less there.
Who should compensate women who went voluntarily or were sent by their families? Should the State? Should the religious orders?
They also insist that they have been supporting some of the former residents on an ongoing basis, long before the Government considered its own responsibility.
The questions turns to whether or not the orders can actually afford to pay in to redress.
There isn’t a uniform answer. It’s likely that some of the orders could afford to and others couldn’t.
Many of the sisters are elderly and themselves in need of expensive nursing home care. A 2010 review found that the average age of a Sister of Mercy was 74. More at –
Archbishop angry over Catholic Church’s lack of concern for abused children
IrishCentral – The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Dr. Diarmuid Martin has hit out at the church’s lack of concern for children abused by priests.
He was responding to a just-published report which was severely critical of three previous archbishops of Dublin including Cardinal Desmond Connell.
The report, Chapter 20 of the investigation by Judge Yvonne Murphy into abuses in the Dublin Archdiocese, was released for publication by the High Court on Friday although the rest of the judge’s findings were published in November 2009.
Chapter 20 was censored from the initial publication pending trial of defrocked priest Patrick McCabe.
The chapter, when finally published last week, found there was “shocking” Garda (police) “connivance” with the church authorities when one serious complaint was stifled, there was failure to investigate another, and McCabe was allowed by his superiors to leave the country.
Martin, hitting out at the lack of concern for children abused by priests, said Chapter 20’s criticisms of the church showed “there was concern for everybody except the child.”
“The priest was looked after, people were kept quiet, and many of those children weren’t even spoken to. There is no way in which the church of Jesus Christ should have treated children in that way.”