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Editorial:
Faith in the Future? From
the director: Finding ourselves in the City Traveller,
the road is made by walking it The
Word made Flesh: A Sign and Foretaste in Limerick Comment:
The Architecture of Faith The
Word made Flesh: Down and Out in Dublin The
Word made Flesh: Cork Methodist Church, Ardfallen The
Word made Flesh: Reflections from the Maiden City Cathedral
Quarters: Interviews with Rev Dr Houston McKelvey and Very Rev Hugh
Kennedy Review:
Journey Towards Holiness Economics
and the economy: what are they for? Bible
Study: Beyond Silver Coins Reflection:
The 'F' word Review:
Christianity, Climate Change and Sustainable Living Difficult
Conversations: Looking for God in the City... |
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AR: We are looking at the two cathedrals in Belfast, how important is the two cathedral partnership? HOUSTON MCKELVEY: I think it is important in a place like Belfast where there has been division that that partnership is maintained, that we are seen to be worshipping from time to time with each other in public and also that the clergy are seen in less formal roles around the city together. It is a symbol. There is a joint witness to Christianity and it also sends a strong signal to visitors from elsewhere saying, “everything here is not divided”. Hugh Kennedy and I are the administrators of the two iconic buildings of two traditions. We are very good friends. For me one of the top moments in my ministry was when St Peter’s was being re-hallowed and I was invited along to the service and together Monsignor Toner and I poured the first water into the new font. There are very few cities where the relationship between Anglican and Catholic is so strong that that can happen without any diminution of difference but a great deal of shared expression in the commonality of our baptism. It has been a joyful bit of the pilgrimage. AR: What is your vision for St Anne’s? HMcK: It is not solely my vision. Deans by their very nature come and go but cathedrals go on and I have inherited a very fine tradition. So I am not a pioneer. I may be a developer, but there were a lot of excellent components in place. First of all, we seek to be an open Eucharistic community. Our principal act of worship on a Sunday is our 10.00am said and our 11.00am sung Eucharist. We’re a place where people gather around the Word of God and express that relationship with the risen Christ in communion. We maintain the Anglican choral tradition and put a lot of financial resources and effort into that with our director of music, assistant organist and programme for choristers. We have established choral scholarships and choral exhibitions and have had a rich vein of people passing through. This cathedral has a tradition of producing professional singers from time to time. And that type of outreach through music, to parents and their children, is vital to the lifeblood here. We have no real parish boundaries. If you look at the worshipping community on a Sunday we have only one person resident in the old St Anne’s Parish. People come from Whitehead to Portadown to Donaghadee, because of the type of worship here. We have a very musically educated congregation. So there is that tremendous resource to build on. We have one of the biggest music libraries in Ireland and we have the largest pipe organ in Northern Ireland. But this is an expensive operation. And from the point of the stewardship of a Christian resource in the city, what do you do? I think we have long since been accepted as Anglican and neutral, which is almost a contradiction in terms. We have a welcoming environment and we see our welcoming happening on a variety of levels. We have an increasing number of visitors and a great team of volunteer cathedral stewards, and we need more, simply to keep the door open from 10.00am to 4.00pm, Monday to Saturday. What we have here is sacred space. That is why I am anxious about the development of Writers’ Square and places round about because the number of places people can go to spiritually “chill out” in a quiet space are getting fewer. We would like to do a lot more to interpret the cathedral for the visitor. We have developed a prayer walk of the cathedral and stewards who are very gifted at conducting people around this building. It is a very rich resource. It saddens me that, while tens of thousands of visitors pass through here in a year, so many people from Belfast and Northern Ireland have never come to see what there is here – wonderful stained glass, wonderful mosaics. It is a great place to come and take time to ponder about life. On Sunday afternoons we exercise the gift of Christian hospitality in worship. A number of groups come on the same Sunday each year. The Royal Irish Regiment has a remembrance service every November, the prison officers and several schools have carol services here. But we are here also for groups from the community wishing to celebrate a centenary or an important occasion and to help them express that in worship. And I will talk about “clients” and I will talk about our ministry in enabling them to put their aspirations into prayer and how they can put their mark on a service. I like to listen to what the client is saying to us, read their history and enable them in their reading of Scripture and, particularly in the intercessions, help them tell their story, thank God, and pray for vision. For example, in October we had the centenary of the Belfast Institute of Insurance and the following week Fleming Fulton’s 50th anniversary service. This is a particular form of Cathedral ministry – we’ve got the space and the worship resources. A cathedral provides that sense of the numinous, the presence of God. We are not bringing people in to “belt them with the Bible” but we are invitational and we don’t compromise in what we are doing. I think that we are evangelical in the richest sense of that word – we are saying, “Come and share our riches”. At a time when in some places attendance at morning service is dwindling, the use of cathedrals in this way is increasing. For example, when tragic events happen, where do you find space in modern society that enables you to maybe express your support in prayer or your horror at what has happened? In 2001, following 9/11, we brought the diocesan choirboys from St Peter’s and our own choristers together and the kids wrote prayers. And those prayers, together with the books of condolence, were taken from both cathedrals here to both cathedrals in New York. At times like 9/11 and at other sad occasions like the sinking of the Titanic, it was to this cathedral that the people of the city came. I may have my personal cynicism about some of our politicians, but we wouldn’t be where we are without the prayers that have been offered for peace, particularly in a place like this. Brother David Jardine organised prayer days through most of the Troubles here. And, please God, hopefully we are coming out of our terror and our darkness, and a Spire of Hope is being raised in the city. This spire can simply remind people that the job isn’t over. Peacemaking is an ongoing process, it is going to go on till judgement day – and may the spire remind people of that. It also reminds all people of all faiths that we believe in a God of hope through the Saviour of hope. Cathedrals are long-term projects, they are not built in a day, or even in a century, but they do reflect the attempt of people to recognise God throughout history. AR: What is the vision of the city that you preach, teach and celebrate? HMcK: Prayer for the city is the first call. The walls of the cathedral, with the help of a voluntary team of lay people, are washed daily with prayer for the people who keep the fabric of our society together. We can also be prophetic about the city. On occasion we have used the pulpit to highlight social concerns and political concerns because we are ordained as messengers and watchmen and there must be that balance in one’s personal ministry and, by extension, in the ministry of our laity towards the community. We have a very active website and keep about 4,000 people informed through our online magazine. We have developed an area on the site on spirituality so that busy people can receive pointers for prayer. As a worshipping community we are dispersed but we can unite in prayer. We are also involved in ACE Ventures which is an employment enabling agency located in East Belfast. In the same way we have leased part of the cathedral centre to Transition Training. We try to let the cathedral be used as a place of culture. We have a couple of concerts coming up and the cathedral choir does two concerts a year. We have tried a number of exhibitions and host material which we believe to be legitimate and consonant with our mission. AR: What are your hopes for the development of the city? HMcK: I think space is important. The planning authorities in Northern Ireland have no concept of skyline. The wonderful skyline of the hills surrounding the city have been obliterated by high-rise buildings. I like to see buildings that are compatible with the local landscape. One of the reasons we have put up the spire is that we know we will be surrounded by seven-storey-high buildings. One of the good things coming with some of the development is that people are going to be living here. We don’t want to see the local people move out of the Cathedral Quarter. Some people of tremendous courage came into the cathedral quarter and breathed life into it in very tough times. I don’t want to see us lose our way. There is a sense of vibrancy around the city. But it mustn’t just be commerce-driven and we need to be very careful that in creating open spaces we build in adequate management of them. While I love to see young people on their skateboards out there in Writers’ Square, some day some elderly person is going to be crashed into and injured. Sadly it also provides a place where young people overindulge in alcohol. There has been an immense improvement in this area and we have had a constructive dialogue with developers, and the other local people involved. It is part of the role of Dean to know who is doing what. I think that one has to recognise that economically, developers will do what developers will do, but if you can dialogue and come up with reasonable suggestions you stand a fairly good chance of getting a hearing. At times one has to be a bit fussy or even aggressive in putting forward one’s views. The celtic cross on the north side of the cathedral is the largest celtic cross in Ireland and is at an iconic gateway into the city. If an unsightly building was put up between that cross and the crossroads you would lose something. I want to see the greening of the city. I would love to see the Buoys Park being recreated as the Park of Peace, which would go with the Spire of Hope. The Park of Peace could serve as the north anchor for a green avenue of trees linking the green spaces of the centre of the city from here to the City Hall to the Botanic Gardens. AR: What has the response been to the spire? HMcK: Some people think it is tremendous, others think “Oh dear!”. It is not being ignored! Physically it couldn’t be much different to what it is. With the nature of the subsoil here we couldn’t put up a stone spire. This design was chosen because it is of our day and generation. It is quite a feat of engineering to put up a spire that height which is not in contact with the ground. There have been innumerable attempts to do something. Laganside gave us the funding for the competition and we felt it was right to borrow from our small resources. Timing is everything, and we sold our shares at the time when the market was good and managed even to outdistance the rising price of stainless steel. I like to think that it was quite literally a God-given opportunity and if we didn’t take this opportunity it would never be done. AR: What is the spire an expression of? HMcK: It is an expression of hope in God; it is also an expression of faithfulness. It is also a public statement that we are here, we have our values, we have our beliefs and we want to share them. The skyline of Belfast, thank God, is dominated by cranes, which is all about finance and making money - and there is not a lot wrong with that. But I feel that many people think the church is on the back foot. People much wider than the Church of Ireland have been affected positively by a group of Christian people who said, “Let’s go for it and let’s contribute something to the skyline of the new city and to a cathedral which everybody can identify with.” I would like to think that this feature will become as accepted as the Albert Clock or Samson and Goliath or the dome of the City Hall and people will say, “I come from Belfast, we have a Spire of Hope.” When the spire is being dedicated, Fr Kennedy from St Peter’s, the Rev Ken Newell, former Presbyterian Moderator and Rev Donald Ker, the Secretary of the Methodist church will be joining us because we genuinely want an ecumenical group standing below the Spire of Hope. And Bishop Patrick Walsh will be there and friends from other churches. I hope it will be a good night for the Christian community and a good night for the city. The VERY REV DR HOUSTON MCKELVEY was interviewed by Anna Rankin on 6th September 2007. INTERVIEW WITH VERY REV HUGH KENNEDY, Administrator of St Peter’s Cathedral, Belfast. AR: What is your vision for St Peter’s? HUGH KENNEDY: In many ways we’re coming afresh to the notion of what a cathedral should be. Most cathedrals within the Catholic tradition in Ireland were primarily the largest church in the central town or city of a diocese, which had the secondary role of being a cathedral. In the church’s understanding, the cathedral is the mother church of the diocese, and it is where the bishop’s chair is, the cathedra. It is the focus of diocesan unity and it is the place where the liturgy or the way we worship should be exemplary for the rest of the whole diocese. When I was moved here, the emphasis was to look at this role as a cathedral so I want to get across this vision of a cathedral and of what it is meant to be. Increasingly, we are getting a lot of visitors here in St Peter’s and we have an increasingly international role. We now have copies of the readings in five or six languages, so that if someone comes in they can at least follow the Scripture readings of the Mass in French, Italian, Polish, Czech, Croatian, German or whatever. If people are going to visit a city and they want to worship they will naturally gravitate towards the cathedral. So we now have a greater sense of outreach to international people. In November we are going to have a Mass in Polish for all the people living in the diocese to make them feel that this is the church that they can come to – even if they are living in small isolated groups in some cases. Also we are celebrating 800 years at the end of the month of the founding of the Dominican Order. People are coming from all over the diocese here to the cathedral to celebrate because it is the natural place for such occasions. When I came here I looked at the liturgy and realised the importance of music. So I sent out little feelers to different musicians and asked how they would feel if there was a welcome sent out to different choirs to come and sing at some of our Masses. I have been very touched and moved because we have literally been inundated. Once a month we have a full sung Mass. This isn’t a concert – this is the solemn liturgy that people would expect to have in a cathedral. Most of the choirs coming in fact aren’t Catholic choirs but they have sung this music in recitals and now they want to have the opportunity of singing the Mass in the context for which it was written. It is not just a secular piece of music; it is an unbroken tradition. We get two or three times the congregation at those Masses and a fair amount are people who aren’t Catholics. So to that extent there is a liturgical outreach as well. We have done some concerts, but when sacred music is sung in the context of the praise of God it takes on a completely different level to a performance from a concert platform and that is one of the things I want to do here. This year for the first time we had what is known as the RCIA, the Rite of the Christian Initiation of Adults, which is the rite for those who are adults, who were baptised or were received into the church in different places in the diocese. We had a special Mass for them with the Bishop on Pentecost Sunday with the usual “bun worry” afterwards. The idea was that this was a diocesan celebration for anyone who had been received or baptised as an adult. We still have a parish of about 4,000-5,000 people around us. It is an inner city parish that has come through three major population changes in the last 30-40 years. First of all, from being a small close-knit community, the small houses were removed and the population was dispersed. Some never came back, others did, but those who did came back to the Divis Flats. In the 1960s and 70s that kind of development was thought to be the way of the future, but we realise now that it wasn’t – putting people in that kind of housing caused all sorts of other social problems. In the midst of the Troubles this was one of the most difficult areas. Then that population was shifted out and houses were built. Over the past 30 years people have moved in here who have had no long-term connection with the area and that has caused problems too. Each of these changes caused damage and fractures in the community. The parish community has come through a lot of troubles and problems – both social and political. And we still have people who are carrying a lot of wounds from the civil unrest of the last 30-40 years. There is a lot of secularisation and a lot of social problems, particularly with the young people. There have been tremendous efforts to overcome car crime, and thankfully that seems to have improved. Like any inner city parish there are problems of underage drinking and drugs and all of that. However, there are a lot of good things happening too. We still have a youth club here, we still have a lot of other organisations and the schools in the area are doing a lot to reach out – so yes, challenging times, difficult times, but you have to have hope in the future. There are parts of Belfast that people from outside are still genuinely nervous about going into. Divis, the Lower Falls would still present those problems for some people. We need to show that the centre of Belfast is expanding. Things need to be done; these areas must be seen to be welcoming. Murals of masked faces and guns are now very successfully being replaced by less threatening images. I think that is desperately important, not only for the impression it gives visitors, who find it very intimidating, but also for the children growing up. The notion that these men with masks and guns, from whatever paramilitary organisation, are people to look up to or admire – that is the past. In the grounds of the cathedral we have something like 22 lights and have floodlighting in the winter but the street lighting is incredibly poor. So anybody leaving the Westlink gets the impression that they are going into this place of darkness where there is an almost sinister atmosphere. So we need to work with people dealing with the environment. The image of Belfast we want to portray is of a place of welcome, a place of security, where people feel free and are at ease. Not the image of a city where people still feel there are no-go areas because there is danger, either day or night – and the church has to be there at the forefront of that. AR: What is the vision of the city that you preach, teach, and celebrate? HK: Belfast is a rapidly changing city, more so than any other part of Northern Ireland in the last four or five years. The building that is going on around us, the visitors that are coming in, the cruise ships that are coming to Belfast – that in itself is an amazing thing – the different ethnic groups that are coming to live here and to work here, and above anything else, the growing rapport between people who would not normally have met from across the political divide – hands of friendship are now going out. I think it is very important that we recognise that Belfast is rapidly changing and that is one of the reasons why the twin cathedral partnership is so important. It is a sign that we are complimentary to each other and our roles are complimentary. We are to build up that sense of the spiritual presence in the city of Belfast. Even with the new spire that has gone up on St Anne’s and with our own twin spires people will see the two cathedrals on the skyline. We share the common mission of making the presence of God present in the world of everyday things. The idea of a spire was, even in the middle ages, a way of prompting people to look up, to point them to the things of heaven, to raise them from the ordinary common level. If we are not there, then all this resurgence, renaissance, what ever you want to call it, of the city of Belfast will be purely on secular lines. The spiritual dimension has to be there, or else we are losing part of our true identity. I really believe that. I have a very strong personal relationship and friendship with Dean Houston McKelvey. The cathedral partnership is very important and thanks be to God for it. The St Anne’s Cathedral Choir has been here and our Cathedral Boys Choir has sung over there. Even for the dedication of the new spire last week, I did one of the readings and stood under the spire and I was very touched by that. When we reopened the cathedral my predecessor here Monsignor Toner and Dean Houston McKelvey brought in the water for the new baptismal font together and prayed for the union of all Christians. People said they found that the most moving part of the ceremony. As we share the one baptism therefore we share the proclamation of the gospel of Christ. AR: The cathedral recently underwent a complete restoration; can you tell us a little about that? HK: Like so many buildings in Belfast, it is built of Scrabo Sandstone, which is a soft stone, and that had to be restored. The interior had gone through several renovations, including those due to the liturgical changes after the Second Vatican Council, but it was decided to go back to the original sense of the Victorian Gothic Revival. It is a full Victorian church and the idea was to bring back the original Victorian colours and restore it to its original beauty because bit by bit over the years it had darkened. The idea was to go back to the original vision the original architect, a young priest called Fr Jeremiah McCauley, had for the city. The land was given by Bernard Hughes at a very difficult time – they had a sense that it needed a substantial church in this part of Belfast for the Catholic community, most of whom would have worked in the local mills. So our idea was to restore it, to give some of this original vision back, and to make it a worthy place for the celebration of the liturgy and a cathedral liturgy at that. I know it is a parish church, but now its first call is as the place where the diocese will meet on major occasions. St Peter’s has one of the most remarkable Victorian interiors in Belfast. When it was built in 1866 it was completely surrounded by what would have been called ‘kitchen houses’ and all the mills and the smoke and the dirt. When the local people walked in they would have been struck by the vibrant colours and the height and would have had a sense of “this is ours”. We need to bring that sense of a true pride back to a people who, for the last 30 or 40 years, have had the heart knocked out of them. People need that sense of beauty – Hans Urs von Balthasar has an incredible theology of beauty, he says that if you take beauty from the world then you are taking something of the hope out of people’s lives and the sense of God. So the church has to be there, I believe, giving that sense of beauty back to people, a sense of something greater. I fear that because we are suddenly finding wealth in Belfast it is almost as if anything will do. Many of the buildings going up now are making the same mistake that people made in the 1960s – we are building buildings that are just uninspired. It is almost as if the taller and bigger the building, the better. What that says to people is “You don’t matter – anything that looks big and successful is sufficient” and I think that is awful. Some of the most recently built buildings are appallingly mediocre architecturally. But if you look at buildings from the Victorian era when Belfast was emerging with a sense of its confidence some of the most beautiful buildings: the Customs House, Queen’s University – even the City Hall with all its exuberance – they were making a statement, saying, “We believe in the future of this city so that we want to build buildings that are things of beauty and of lasting quality.” Whereas the impression that you are getting at the moment is, “Anything will do, stick it up” and I think we are losing a valuable opportunity. Pope John Paul II spoke of artistic expression as co-creation with God. When artists give of their art they have that power to give a glimpse of the beauty of God. Go and see what was built in Eastern Europe in the 50s, 60s and 70s and you get a sense of what happens when people lose that sense of the beauty of God. I really believe that – the buildings there are monumental, they are cold, they dominate, there is a functionalism about them, there is a lack of grace and a lack of beauty. And that equally reflects the attitude towards the individual within a totalitarian communist state. The regeneration of a city has to take account of the human dimension. One reason why it was so important that we restored St. Peter’s Cathedral was to give back a sense that this is open for anyone to walk into. It was an incredible statement of belief in the future of this city and the diocese by Bishop Walsh. The VERY REV HUGH KENNEDY was interviewed by Anna Rankin on 18th September 2007. |
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