Sound and fury
The Church of Ireland synod votes against Drumcree
by Laura Friel
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The Church of Ireland was spawned in the same supremacist pond as the
Orange Order and Ulster Unionism. Together they presided over a grotesque
sectarian state.
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The vote was overwhelming but the outcome less than certain. The Church of
Ireland synod endorsed a motion last week calling on the rector of Drumcree
and his vestry to withdraw their invitation to the Portadown Orangemen to
attend the July 4 service if they do not adhere to three pledges of good
behaviour. The pledges amount to a call for the Orange Order to abide by
any ruling by the Parades Commission to reroute them away from the
nationalist Garvaghy Road.
The synod message was clear. Prayers not protest are to be the order of the
day. The Church of Ireland will not endorse another rerun of the ``siege of
Drumcree''. The image of `the church on the hill' has become a byword for
bigotry and disorder. It's an evocation the Church of Ireland no longer
believes it can ignore. It has taken four years, seven deaths, and the
international humiliation of seeing the annual orgy of loyalist violence
splashed across the world's media for the dam of complacency to be broken.
But has the tide really turned?
Certainly the image of Reverend John Pickering as a simple country parson
overtaken by events on the ground has gone. A lone figure still, the
Drumcree rector is now identified as isolated in opposition to his peers.
No longer on the fringes of the Orange controversy, Pickering, the Church
of Ireland would have us believe, is now central to the dilemma they face.
Voting against the motion, Pickering warned the synod that he had no
intention of turning Orangemen away from Drumcree church whatever the
circumstances. ``Public worship is open to everyone and I won't prevent
anyone from attending the worship of Almighty God,'' said Pickering. The
synod may squirm but can they get off the Drumcree hook?
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The niceties of theological debate will cut no ice with a world which
already views Drumcree as a carnival of sectarian reaction. Polite debate
rather than decisive action will be viewed as an abdication, not the
exercise of moral responsibility.
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``Make no mistake,'' Church of Ireland Primate Robin Eames told the 800
delegates to the syno, ``a Drumcree situation could occur outside any Church
of Ireland, Methodist or Presbyterian church.'' There is nothing that makes
the Church of Ireland more ``Orange'' than any other Protestant church,
reiterated Canon Charles Kenny of the Catalyst group. It was an accident of
geography, the proximity to the Orange citadel of Portadown, that has
thrust the Drumcree crisis into the Church of Ireland's lap, he argued.
Not only are the Church of Ireland's hands clean, it is their theological
duty to sit on them. All reformed churches place individual conscience at
the centre of their practices, we are told. There was a deep reluctance to
``legislate'' against Reverend Pickering. The Church of Ireland prefers to
work ``to encourage mature counsel and responsible action than the exercise
of individual responsibility by coercion,'' the sub committee on
sectarianism concluded. The Church of Ireland is powerless to deal with a
recalcitrant pastor, or so it would have us believe.
Powerless or not, it is doubtful if the Church of Ireland can continue
indefinitely to survive the mockery of Drumcree year, after year, after
year. The overwhelming endorsement of the motion, passed by 363 to 65,
shows a deep disquiet within the church. But the niceties of theological
debate will cut no ice with a world which already views Drumcree as a
carnival of sectarian reaction. Polite debate rather than decisive action
will be viewed as an abdication, not the exercise of moral responsibility.
For Northern nationalists, the unwillingness of the Church of Ireland to
act against Pickering and his Orange congregation is rooted in its history
not its theology. The Church of Ireland was spawned in the same supremacist
pond as the Orange Order and Ulster Unionism. Together they presided over a
grotesque sectarian state.
The dilemma facing the church is not differences between North and South,
pulpit versus pew, nor the strategy option of theological persuasion over
clerical discipline. The prospect is far more daunting. Can the Church of
Ireland break with its past, shed the trappings of its history and by
rejecting the old sectarian agenda move with us into future? If not, the
tale told by the synod may be ``full of sound and fury'' but it signifies
nothing.
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