Some remain aloof from the spirit of compromise; Steven King questions the need for the proposed civic forum in Northern Ireland
From IRISH TIMES October 12th, 1998
The current vogue in some circles in Northern Ireland is to boost the political
influence of civil society at the expense of elected representatives. The
notion finds its expression in the Belfast Agreement with the proposal for
a civic forum. The idea was ruthlessly pursued in the negotiations by the
Northern Ireland Women's Coalition. Many suspected its principle virtue
was to act as a convalescent home for those participants unelectable by
any fair voting system. As it turned out, only the UDP and the Labour Coalition
failed to find seats in the Assembly. The civic forum, in principle, is
as much a part of the Belfast Agreement as the other new institutions, the
prisoner releases and decommissioning. Doubts persist, however - and not
only in unionist political coteries - about the merits of injecting an undemocratic
element into the new dispensation. The advocates of a civic forum, when
pressed to reveal who they envisage serving on such a body, dwell on the
advantages of having the community and voluntary sector and the business
community involved. Many of those politicians who plied their trade during
the worst of the Troubles understandably feel apprehensive about creating
a bolthole for groups fronted by exterrorists - who caused most of the problems
- and those who saw no profit in political involvement and refused to infuse
the sectarian dogfights of the 1970s and 1980s with a moderating business
outlook. This is perhaps a malign view which is unfair to many in the community
and voluntary sector and which underestimates the barriers to political
activity. But taking a broader angle on civil society is no more encouraging.
Three of our largest voluntary associations have hardly covered themselves
in glory over recent weeks and months. Rather, in contrast to Northern Ireland's
politicians, the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, the Gaelic Athletic
Association and elements in the Orange Order have remained resolutely aloof
from the tendency towards compromise and self-examination. The Catholic
Church's new policy document on Holy Communion, One Bread, One Body, had
been in preparation for two years. It would have been better if it had not
seen the light of day. If this statement of belief "breaks new ground" as
was claimed at its Dublin launch, one shudders to imagine what a restatement
of traditional teaching would have contained. Apparently, for non-Catholics
to receive the Eucharist in a Catholic church it must be on the understanding
that this is on an "unrepeatable" occasion. In what appears to be a repetition
of the view of Protestants as heretics and Protestant communion as a sham,
"the Catholic Church claims, in all humility, to be endowed with all the gifts with which God wishes to endow his Church . . . the entirety of revealed truth . . . is found within the Catholic Communion of the Church" and that
the Catholic Church is "uniquely gifted". Do mixed-religion couples feel
"in all humility" that they face "an obstacle to the full unity of family life" which is not of the Catholic Hierarchy's own making? The Republic's
President, Mary McAleese, might not be a unionist pin-up but she is to be
warmly applauded for so ostentatiously challenging the doctrine of her own
church last December. First Minister David Trimble was movingly applauded
for disconcerting Orange hardliners by attending the Requiem Mass for the
three children from Buncrana murdered in Omagh in August, but what if he
had approached the Communion rail? Would Seamus Mallon, a Catholic, be publicly
rebuked if he were to take Communion with David Trimble, a Presbyterian,
in an Anglican church? Sadly, the Catholic Hierarchy in a seemingly deliberate
effort not to be popular has called into question the value of pursuing
ecumenical dialogue any further. All churches claim to have a better understanding
of Christian truth than others, but even Ian Paisley's Free Presbyterians
do not claim the route map to salvation is in their exclusive possession.
Thankfully, many individual Catholics are prepared to be guided by the Holy
Spirit on this question as on contraception and Ne Temere rather than a
reactionary church leadership. The winds of change blow but faintly through
the GAA also. The GAA board's decision to refuse permission for the pitch
in Omagh to be used for a cross-community football match to raise funds
for the Omagh Appeal Fund and to make an exception from its rules banning
"foreign games" has flabbergasted many within and without the GAA fraternity.
It reinforces the view of the most obscurantist and unreconstructed republicans
that unionists constitute foreigners. |
