The election of Bishop Walton Empey as the new Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin should be warmly welcomed. He is an open minded, straight talking, much liked churchman of wide pastoral experience. He will need all his experience of largely rural dioceses to take on the heavy job of administering the huge Dublin archdiocese. But he has already shown, as Bishop of Meath, that he can take tough decisions in sensitive areas like the closing down of redundant churches. And he has shown a refreshing ability to change his mind: he was believed to have been against the ordination of women, but accepted his church's decision and went on to ordain women himself.
In his previous diocese of Limerick he also showed that he was not afraid to face up to the late Bishop Newman when he made extreme statements about Catholic majoritarianism and Irish Protestantism. For like his predecessor, Dr Donald Caird - although in a much more down to earth way Archbishop Empey is a Protestant who is deeply attached to his Irishness. He likes to point out that he is the only Church of Ireland bishop who has served in the FCA. He is a regular visitor to the Curragh and has been four times to see the troops in Lebanon.
His call for more Protestants to involve themselves in public and political service in the Republic is particularly welcome. In recent years there is a new confidence about the Church of Ireland community in the South, as the long decline in its numbers flattens out and the new liberalism of many Catholics leads to a greater sharing of values. The prominence of young politicians like Ivan Yates and Trevor Sargent is part of this trend.
The peace process makes this development all the more crucial. The Republic is trying to persuade Northern Protestants that it wishes to relate to them on a basis of friendship and co operation and to banish fears of an all Ireland Catholic takeover. In this, the role of the Church of Ireland as the only Protestant church with a large membership on both sides of the border, is not an insignificant one.
Southern Protestants, by becoming more centrally involved in public life and politics, can help to reassure their co religionists north of the border that the Republic is not the Catholic theocracy they often appear to fear, but a modern, pluralist, liberal society in which the values of Protestantism can thrive. The new Archbishop of Dublin, a man who is not afraid to speak his mind, will surely set a lead in this.
Similarly within the Republic itself, there is a need for the Church of Ireland to speak out on important issues of public interest. Even with their new confidence, it is a rare Church of Ireland bishop Bishop John Neill of Tuam is one - who will engage in public debate on important moral political issues ranging from poverty to divorce. As the unquestioned moral authority of the Catholic Church begins to weaken, the voices of the other great Christian traditions on this island will need to be heard more clearly.