WE WILL not be “a people paralysed by the past” Church of Ireland primate Archbishop Alan Harper has said in his Easter message. “On the day before Mothering Sunday, a young officer of the PSNI was killed by an explosive device. The sorrow and condemnation of that event was registered in every corner of this island and much further afield.
“The pictures beamed out across the media of the honour guard for Constable Ronan Kerr drawn up outside the church in Beragh, Co Tyrone, where his funeral took place, were of a community united and galvanised by the atrocity,” he said. People “were there to witness and to demonstrate that things have changed irrevocably and that we will not be a people paralysed by the past”.
He continued: “I cannot but reflect that this same murdered policeman, in his commitment and eagerness to serve the whole community, would have responded to anyone who might call upon him for help and that such help would have been offered as readily to those who murdered him as to any other member of society.”
Archbishop Harper recalled that “the first words of the risen Lord, repeated over and over, were ‘Peace be with you.’ Let that word of peace bless the lips of everyone in Ireland this Easter: the peace of the Lord be always with you!”
In a strongly worded joint Easter statement, church leaders in “Derry/Londonderry” expressed dismay that: “Incredibly there are those who wish to extinguish hope for this community – the hope of peace. In its place, the only offer they have for their neighbour is destructive acts that are rooted in bitterness.”
Catholic bishop Séamus Hegarty, Church of Ireland bishop Ken Good, Derry and Donegal Presbyterian Moderator Rev Robert Buick, First Derry Presbyterian minister Rev David Latimer and Carlisle Road Methodist minister Rev Peter Murray said that “as church leaders from the ancient city of Derry/Londonderry we join our voices with the settled will of the people”. They said: “We refuse to have our hope for this community extinguished.”
The power of the Christian message at Easter “is that death does not have the last word. Its power is finally broken by the death and resurrection of Christ. As Christian leaders we declare that something else has been broken. It is the historic cycle whereby political difference on this island has been addressed by violence. We are in a process of building peace with our neighbour and are in no doubt that a historic cycle is broken. Death will not have the last word.”
They represented “different religious traditions that agree on many matters and occasionally not on others. Our ability and commitment to speak as one about our strong and confident hope for the future is symbolic of the new future for our community.”
They said: “For those diminishing few whose contribution to our humanity is violence, we remind them of its utter futility in the face of the settled will of the community.”
