One party more than others in the North seemed to attract the young and women, the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe said yesterday. In an implicit reference to Sinn Fein, Dr Mehaffey said: "We may not like its political beliefs, but it will be interesting to see how that party evolves in coming years."
Speaking in a debate on the youth council report, he said: "[The church] doesn't really make room for them [the young]. We don't really take them seriously, and I am part of the problem." The church had to make space for young people - with their enthusiasm and energy "we will all be enriched".
Introducing the report, honorary secretary Mr Sam Harper spoke of youth's tendency "to go all the way . . . to extremes" and it was no different where the spiritual was concerned. He referred to the contradictory findings of surveys which indicated that 75 per cent of teenagers were prepared to go all the way sexually, while they wanted the company of their parents most.
The Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Walton Empey, recalled how, on a recent visit to his son in the US, they had visited a bookshop "as big as a hangar". It had about seven or eight shelves of Christian/Jewish books, and up to 14 shelves of "new age" material. The new age section was crowded; the orthodox section was empty.
In an earlier discussion on church unity, which dealt mainly with moves to closer communion with the Methodist church in particular, Bishop Harold Miller, of Down and Dromore, told the Synod how he had tossed a coin before joining the Church of Ireland. Speaking about the closeness of both churches theologically and traditionally, he recalled that his father was a Methodist, as was the father of the Primate, Dr Eames, and relatives of the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Empey. As a young man Bishop Miller was torn between the two churches, he said. He prayed and decided to toss a coin. "Lord, if it is heads I'll join the Methodists, if it's tails I'll join the Church of Ireland," he said. He tossed the coin and it was heads. He turned to God again and said: "How about the best of three?
"That is how I am an Anglican at the moment and it's probably for a better reason than most of the people in this hall," he said.