Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Primate-elect pays tribute to theologian's courage

Archbishop Richard Clarke to retire as Church of Ireland's most senior  cleric - BBC News

The Church of Ireland Primate-elect has paid tribute to one of Ireland’s leading theologians describing him as, “a man of courage,” and praising his role in furthering the study of Patristics.

Speaking in Maynooth as he launched a new book, The Mystery of Christ in the Fathers of the Church, a festschrift to honour Fr Vincent Twomey’s role as co-founder of the Patristics symposium 25 years ago, Bishop Richard Clarke, who will be elevated as Primate of All Ireland in December, told the assembled guests, “We are here in honour of a friend for all of us who know him.”

The Archbishop of Armagh designate described the former doctoral student of Pope Benedict as, “a scholar of great magnitude,” and, “a man of supreme courage,” who had spoken out, “very bravely,” and at times, “to the distaste of other people,” for, “justice for children and for their rights.” 

In his launch address, the Anglican prelate described the retired professor of moral theology at Maynooth as “a man of graciousness and a man of friendship.”

Speaking afterwards to ciNews, the Archbishop designate paid tribute to Pope John XXIII and Vatican II for putting inter-faith dialogue and a return to the Scriptures on the agenda of all Christians not just Catholics.  

He said his memory of the Second Vatican Council as a teenager was, “the smile and the face of John XXIII,” and, “the love for the world he showed,” which Bishop Clarke said, “made one realise that the world isn’t something to be feared.”

He described the Second Vatican Council’s impact as, “awesome,” and commented that, but for the Council, he would never have been able to launch a book that honours a Catholic theologian.

On the return to Scriptures which followed the Council he said, “I think it made members of the reformed tradition suddenly realise they were perhaps taking it for granted, while their Roman Catholic neighbours were now suddenly finding the beauty and the value of it.”

Rejecting the claim that Vatican II has now been superseded, Dr Clarke, who is currently the Bishop of Meath & Kildare, paid tribute to Lumen Gentium’s emphasis on the common baptism of Christians and their relationship with God, which, “is in some sense something deeper than the divisions between the different Churches,” he said.

Paying tribute to St Patrick’s College Maynooth, where the launch of The Mystery of Christ in the Fathers of the Church took place, Bishop Clarke, who has been the local bishop for Meath & Kildare for the last sixteen years said, “It is a delight to be here and I hope I will be invited on future occasions back to Maynooth College.”  

He added, "I have huge gratitude to Maynooth for the friendship they have shown me, the hospitality and above all the sense that I am, in a way, one of them when I have been here.”

He said that he would, “miss that aspect very much of being Bishop of Meath & Kildare.”

Of the book of essays he launched, which is edited by Dr Janet Rutherford and Dr David Woods, Bishop Clarke described it as a very fine festschrift and a, “constant reminder that the Fathers represent a continuum of which we are very much part today.”  

Noting that there is, “much beauty and wonderful scholarship within its pages,” he referred to one essay’s use of the picture of Christ the Gardener, while elsewhere there is a discussion of the poetry of the Armenian tradition and 10th Irish art.

“Right through this book we are being drawn to an understanding of the Fathers; not that we ‘jump’ back but that we are part of a continuum,” he reiterated.

The Mystery of Christ in the Fathers of the Church is published by Four Courts Press.