REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ‘RELIGION 2000’ RECEPTION AT ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN THURSDAY
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE ‘RELIGION 2000’ RECEPTION AT ÁRAS AN UACHTARÁIN THURSDAY, 29TH JUNE 2000
Tá lúcháir orm fáilte mhór a chur romhaibh go léir chuig Áras an Uachtaráin inniu.
It is a great pleasure to welcome you today to Áras an Uachtaráin. This is a day of celebration, a day that I hope you will greatly enjoy, and a day for saying thank you – a warm and heartfelt thank you – to each of you for all that you contribute day in and day out to the life of our churches, our communities and Irish society as a whole. ‘Thank you’ are words that are offered rarely enough these days to the men and women, clergy and lay people alike, who form the lifeblood of our Churches. It hardly needs to be said that these past few years have not been the easiest of times for any of the Churches. But then, more than two hundred years ago, Jonathon Swift, with tongue firmly in cheek, claimed that: ‘I never saw, heard or read, that the clergy were beloved in any nation where Christianity was the religion of the country. Nothing can render them popular, but some degree of persecution’. Some of you would be forgiven for feeling that you deserve to be sky-high in the opinion polls!
Religion has always been of enormous importance in Irish life, shaping our values and priorities, our culture, our self-perception as a people, how we interact with each other. Nobody here would claim that the way in which the Churches have exercised this influence has been without fault. Recent years have brought increasing recognition of the hurt that has been caused, the energy that has been wasted by institutional complacency, vanity, neglect and bickering over the years. But owning up to past failures should not mean ignoring how much good was - and still is - done by and through the Churches. The lives of generations of Irish men and women have been immeasurably enriched by their faith, their inner life of prayer which at its best, connected seamlessly to an outer life of care and concern for others. That faith has inspired so much generosity of spirit, so much selflessness, kindness and decency – indeed so many of the qualities that we take pride in identifying as typical of the Irish people. Even in these days of uncertainty for the Churches in Ireland, I see those characteristics at work in every part of the country: in hospices for the dying, in voluntary groups that care for the mentally handicapped, in those who provide respite care for the families of disabled people, in people who fundraise tirelessly for charity, in men and women who have made a commitment to the religious life and stuck with that promise for better or worse.
We are at an important juncture in the religious life of our country. Much of the deadwood which obscured and distorted the core message of our religious beliefs, has been stripped away. It is a time of enormous potential for new growth within and between the Churches, a time for learning. It is a time when the old barriers between the Christian Churches are being eroded by the knowledge that what unites is far greater than what divides them, that their collective energies are better spent on addressing the needs of a people whose spiritual hunger has not diminished, but needs a fresh approach to fulfilment.
The crumbling away of old monoliths has also created an awareness of the growing part played by other faiths in the Irish religious experience. As we take stock of the new landscape that faces us, a kaleidoscopic landscape of different faiths and denominations, we have an opportunity to connect once more to a very ancient aspect of Irish religious tradition. It is the tradition of St Patrick and St Brigid - an understanding that there are many pathways and channels to God, that we are each of us His unique creation, each valued by Him, loved by Him. That entitles us to respect from others, it requires that we in turn respect the pathway others have chosen.
These days of doubt and soul-searching for the Churches may, ironically, prove to be a great blessing, an opportunity to recapture the pilgrim spirit, the simple prayerfulness, the spirituality, that is part of our tradition and is still buried in our consciousness. What better time, than this year of Jubilee, to find in that heritage, a roadmap for charting a new and exciting future.
I would like to thank you all once again for joining me here today, in the company of our musicians the Conservatory of Music Trio, Emma Mc Naughton on the cello, Claire McNaughton on piano and Micheline Kinsella on violin. I would also like to thank Clodagh Haughton our harpist whose beautiful playing welcomed you to the Áras. I know we will all really appreciate their beautiful music as we mix and mingle and enjoy our afternoon together.
Tá súil agam go mbainfaidh sibh taitneamh as an lá.