Throughout recent weeks past experiences of bishops kept invading my thoughts. For the greater part the memories were comforting and unavoidably challenging.
Having grown up in Connor and been based there for most of my ordained ministry, I was most fortunate in the bishops who influenced me – from Cyril Elliott to James Moore.
I was confirmed and ordained by Bishop Cyril Elliott. His humour took many forms. Like my contemporaries, we still cherish the alarm clock the big bachelor bishop gave each one of us on the occasion of our marriages. But clearer than the last sermon I heard, is my memory of his charge to us on the eve of our ordination, and given that it was on a warm, drowsy, sleep inducing, summer’s evening for the five of us in the little chapel at Murlough House in Dundrum. The pitch and the cadence are still clear. “You are called to be leaders of the people of God. And that means you will be called to lead them along paths they do not wish to travel”, said Bishop Cyril in that most distinctive voice. That was 1967 and over the years since, both in terms of provincial and parochial events, those prophetic words have resounded periodically in my mind. They were comforting at times, and challenging at others.
He was followed by another Dublin cleric with experience of being an army chaplain but in a later world war. Arthur Butler, the former senior chaplain at the Anzio beach-head, wrenched me from my comfort-slot as curate assistant in Dunmurry to RC Ellis, (father of Judge Catherine McGuinness), and promptly installed me as his curate in charge of the daughter parish in Seymour Hill. I had a mere three years experience of ordained ministry, and four weeks after my introduction, I was in charge of the most recently consecrated church in the C of I – St Hilda’s, Kilmakee. I had been marched in as the builders were marching out.
By then all hell was breaking loose and not even the benign and excellent pastoral lectures by John Simpson Brown in Dublin, could have prepared us for what was coming at us fast and daily. I had an easier time than some colleagues elsewhere – but my lot included an attempted bombing by PIRA of the hotel on the edge of the parish, two terrorists running amok amongst parishioners homes after they had crashed their car leaving the scene, and evacuating three multi storey blocks of flats due to their ticking bomb. Add the tensions of the Ulster Workers’ Strike, so-called loyalist vigilantes and the interface with the area where Bobby Sands’ funeral took place from. And just when you felt you might have seen it all, two policemen are killed in the same incident. One a husband and father, the other the married son of parishioners. You never forget having to respond to a grieving mother’s request to take her to the scene where the flagstones were still stained with her son’s blood. Agnes Bell taught me a lot about forgiveness.
And in all this the support of Bishop Arthur could be taken for granted in the most positive way. His pastoral visits with me to the police families were exemplary and inspirational. His input at the funeral service was a help – not just to the families, the parish community but to myself personally and professionally.
I enjoyed his company. You could be open and critical with him, even differ strongly with him, but it never affected the personal relationships and banter between us. An especial memory is the visit his wife made to mine in hospital within a couple of days of the birth of our son.
Billy McCappin followed. A fellow rector from the diocese was now my bishop. But the friendship of him and his wife helped inspire and shape our views of husband and wife in the parish environment. In each parish they had ministered they had identified and encouraged lay talent. He was an efficient administrator worth emulating. Exceptionally well read theologically, you could not bluff him on current publications of interest. He was a good teacher.
I was not in parish ministry during Sam Poyntz’s time in office in Connor. But he involved all of us in sector ministries who were licensed in his diocese in all diocesan events. We were not ‘something other’. He was our bishop no matter our six county or other responsibilities. He maintained the high work rate and standards of his predecessors. I knew him from shared endeavours in the early days of the establishment of Bishops’ Appeal when he was Archdeacon in Dublin. I also knew that he would tell it as he saw it without fear or favour but with sensitivity. I used him with confidence as a sounding board on a course I was considering taking in my ministry. I took the opportunity of a chance meeting during a walk around Portrush, both of us taking time out on a diocesan clergy conference. Bishop Sam gave me an answer I didn’t want to hear. But he was spot-on both in his reading of the context of the C of I of the time and of the possible consequences for me if I followed my preferred course. His advice was a game-changer.
Jimmy Moore became another episcopal leader who earned my respect. He didn’t avoid difficult decisions or situations if they arose or persisted. However, it was his pastoral heart and skills which I remember most of all. My mother died at home with us. It was totally unexpected. I returned after conducting worship on a Sunday morning to be presented with this life-changing scenario. Bishop Jimmy came to our home, and in his visit he talked and prayed with us in somewhat similar style to what I hope I have done with my parishioners in like circumstance.
My mother’s parish – my home parish – was vacant and I had asked a couple of “mates”, whom my mother was fond of and knew well, to conduct the office. Big Jimmy came and sat with us in the pew whilst David Jardine and Robin Lavery ministered to us. Bishop Jimmy did not stand upon office.
I also have had the privilege of working closely with three archbishops namely, Simms, Armstrong and Eames. All three were inspirational. Work targets were taken without any compromise of spiritual values and within the best of inter-personal relationships.
I consider myself fortunate to have known and been ministered to by such people. So, if my expectations of bishops and archbishops are high, may we blame the company I have been fortunate enough to be in? I need the memories and the inspiration of their examples as I pray for those who now hold those posts.
Anyone attempting to draw up a job description for a bishop would do well to look in depth at these and other exemplary bishops which this Church of Ireland has enjoyed under God’s grace.
The common traits between the bishops and archbishops I mention above include personal spirituality; integrity in word and deed; practical, hard-working, day to day, efficiency including decision making; an abhorrence and avoidance of trite answers; personal reflective understanding of parish ministry; and their over-riding priority of being interested in their clergy, their clergy spouses and families, of being a true pastor pastorum, a servant of the servants of God.
Houston McKelvey