C of I tolerance has room for Orangeism

The Church of Ireland infuriates me sometimes but I love it dearly. I belong to the wing of Anglicanism that is referred to as "high church". The scriptures are as vital to me as to my evangelical brothers and sisters but I believe that as well as listening, we can feel the message through sacrament and ceremony.

Henry Magee (The Irish Times, May 16th) describes himself as a "Catholic Anglican" and says he has left the Church of Ireland because of Drumcree. He goes on to say that "Drumcree effectively renders the Church of Ireland unworthy of inclusion in the Anglican family". To which I must respond with a robust "tosh".

Anglicanism is a communion of churches which promotes tolerance and diversity and there is room in it for a Church of Ireland that has Orangeism in its ranks.

Orangeism is repugnant to me. At its best it is silly. Workingclass heroes taking over the streets for the day and trying to make themselves look respectable by adopting the bowler hat and umbrella dress code of the city gent of yesteryear. Drunken men stumbling home after a day spent in "the field", thinking more of further merrymaking at home than of "the Protestant faith".

At worst it is threatening and obscene: bands playing sectarian tunes loudly as they pass Roman Catholic homes and churches; taunts thrown, and sometimes missiles too. Neighbourhoods are sealed off and people made prisoners in their own homes so that Orangemen can have their "civil and religious liberty".

The Church of Ireland has no official link with Orangeism. For historical reasons, however, it does allow Orangemen the use of its churches for special services. A new approach is called for, perhaps. There should be no special or exclusive Orange services. Every service should be open to all and should contain nothing that would be politically offensive to anyone. No one should feel excluded. All should feel welcome.

As it is, the morning service at Drumcree is a normal Sunday service to which the Orangemen parade. The Rev John Pickering is quite right to have the doors open and to admit all who want to enter. He has nothing to do with how people get there. Nor does the Church of Ireland. It is up to the forces of law and order, and the state, to determine what happens on the public highway.

Where I take issue with the worship at Drumcree is over the use of flags and emblems. Respectfully, I suggest that the Orangemen be asked to remove their sashes on entry. I would also ask the select vestry to remove the Union flag from the building and appeal to the rector to do away with the custom of singing the British national anthem. Sadly, the Church of Ireland in Northern Ireland has not moved on fully from the mentality of the established church days of the Protestant ascendancy, when it had a duty to promote state loyalty.

The British queen is still prayed for and the Union flag stands in sanctuaries where standard Christian symbols are glaringly absent.

THE connection between Protestantism and Britishness is glaringly made and nothing is said or done to make it clear the link is not organic or absolute. Henry Magee is correct in drawing attention to this Northern phenomenon.

For a Protestant who is a republican, like me, worship can sometimes be a traumatic experience.

Someone might say to me: "Why stay in a church that tolerates Orangeism? Why be part of a church that expresses a political philosophy in its liturgy that is contrary to your own?"

In answer I come back to the point that sometimes the Church of Ireland infuriates me but that I love it still, in its imperfection. It is still evolving, moreover, and the day may yet come when the last vestiges of the state connection will be finally overthrown in Northern Ireland.

By staying I can help effect change. By leaving I would forgo any influence and cut myself away from a church that has more good points than bad. I live in the real world and accept the imperfect along with the perfect.

While I deplore the clinging to political symbols in the North I can worship freely in the Republic without those intrusions.

There are even churches in Northern Ireland where symbols of the unionism of the people in the pew are not too distracting, and a few where they are absent completely.

It's important also to remember that in Northern Ireland, as elsewhere on the island, the Church of Ireland promotes a strong sense of Irishness among its people.

The church teaches its people to be proud of their Celtic roots, reminding them that we are lineal inheritors of the faith of the early Irish church. The Church of Ireland was reformed at the time of the Reformation but was not founded as a new denomination. It was a partial continuation of what was there already.

Like all Ireland's denominations, the Church of Ireland has emerged from a complicated and sometimes contradictory historical process. It was the church of ascendancy in an official sense from 1534 to 1869. Thereafter it went through a period of dispossession, disinheritance and decline.

During the years through the 20th century when the Roman Catholic Church had a non-organic but perhaps more potent ascendancy the Church of Ireland was assaulted by the Ne Temere decree and the cruelty of the Penal laws was paid for. The Church of Ireland lost a lot of its nerve in the troubled times when Southern Protestants were suspect for their political loyalties and had to keep their heads down.

In more recent times it has found a new lease of life. In the Republic it has shed many of those things that hindered its mission in the past and has discovered a new prophetic voice. It has shown itself to be a church that has its finger on the pulse of modern life. In the Republic it is unmistakably and unashamedly Irish. More and more people are drawn to it and they find themselves made very welcome.

Rev David Frazer is rector of Clane parish in Co Kildare.