The Church of Ireland's pensions board has more than £500,000 invested in a company which supplied military equipment to Indonesia, the Synod heard yesterday.
A motion calling on the church to look carefully at its investments in arms-exporting companies was narrowly defeated.
"We are raising a serious matter that is concerning more and more people and on which the Church of Ireland must have and must be seen to have a stated policy," said the motion proposer, Mr Geoffrey McMaster of Glendalough.
"We cannot continue to tolerate a situation where we obey the laws of man and forsake the law of God," he said.
The motion's seconder, the Rev Andrew Orr, from the Ossory diocese, drew attention to the GKN company, which last year sold 293 military personnel carriers to the Indonesian government. The church's pensions board had over £500,000 invested in the company, he said.
He also spoke of church investments in GEC, which has exported arms to Indonesia, as well as to Nigeria and Middle East dictatorships. There were also investments in Vickers, which exported arms to the same countries as GEC. "Some will argue that the whole area of investments is so complex that disinvestment is not possible," he said. But the Church in England and in Wales had done so in relation to armaments firms.
"Some will argue that arms are necessary for the defence of our countries. But this is just a smoke-screen. The real money is being made by these companies by sales to the developing world, which can ill-afford the vast expenditure," he said.
Mr Godfrey Birthistle, of Ferns diocese, opposed the motion. He drew attention to the necessary and lawful use of arms, such as on UN peacekeeping missions, and asked whether because a concrete block was used to kill a Catholic bishop in Central America last week there should be a ban on investments in Roadstone, for instance. Or whether because knives had been used during the massacres in Rwanda there should be a ban on investments in the steel industry. When he asked whether there should be a ban on investments in tobacco companies because of the effects of smoking, there was a loud "Yes, yes," response.
Prof David Spearman, of the church's representative body, said the church did not knowingly invest in any companies which manufactured arms, but there was such a degree of diversification by companies such as GEC that it was difficult to avoid being in some way caught into such companies. He pointed to the great amount of software and electronic components used in modern weaponry and wondered whether they should be precluded from investing in such companies.
The motion was supported by 151 people, with 161 against.
