PENTECOSTALS AND NORTHERN IRELAND
Cooney, John
poor, as we profited from an international buyer's market cussion of these issues, and there are heartening signs in raw materials-a state of affairs which put the less that the nation's...
...today it is three persons in the world...
...If it is to have real impact, the movement must Ecumenics, the Rev...
...Perhaps there has ing peace and reconciliation in the present tragic situ- begun a gentle revolution that by quietly changing people ation that afflicts our land...
...In the mean- of Notre Dame and Duquesne Universities has spread time, though, as Senator Hubert H. Humphrey has sug- to battle-scarred Belfast, expanding Dublin and selfgested, could not the United States give up using the reliant Cork...
...Pamment's prediction...
...Jerome McCarthy, C.S.Sp., has avoid the classical dangers of being fundamentalist, perin the January issue of One in Christ written an article sonal and strictly one-dimensional...
...Enlightened statesmen have equally obvious that those who teach social morality talked of the need for such an improved international must emphasize the concept of global justice...
...Oil, tin, bauxite, mercury, chromium-the list Bread for the World is calling on Americans to observe of things we must import could be extended at length, three meatless days a week...
...It is all very well for Secretary of State Kissinger to the only answer...
...fact we must remember is that the world's resources are This encounter has been noted by many of the advolimited, and the decisions on how they should be used cates of the movement in Ireland...
...There is also a small group of the Protestant churches who, like Mr...
...With the world desperately short of caution the poor nations to avoid threats, but if the rich grain, for instance, how long can we Americans justify nations do not open their eyes and act justly, more than a per capita consumption of 2000 pounds of grain a year, threats will be the result...
...most affluent country without regard to the specter of What is needed is a more equitable world economic starvation abroad...
...Pamment advocate is to achieve the very large not develop this point and explain how he thought that claims they make for it, I think that serious attention the infant movement could effectively make at least some must be given to four main questions...
...a Northern Ireland nation short of one million tons of fertilizer will suffer a loss of ten times that amount in grain production...
...The significance of are moral ones...
...Today that situation is emphasizing this need for ethical choices, as evidenced changing radically, and considerations of pragmatic self- recently by the valuable Aspen Consultation on Global interest as well as moral values demand the creation of Justice, convoked by the Overseas Development Couna system which takes into account the basic interde- cil, which drew religious leaders of various denominapendence of all nations...
...Kerr, that "Charismatic shared prayer groups are an Thirdly, can the charismatic renewal movement, with expression of grass-roots ecumenism, when people come its appeal to young people, help to counter the growing together to pray in the power of the Holy Spirit and in trend of secularization in Northern Ireland and the Rethe name of the Lord Jesus, and they discover a unity public...
...The The spiritual diaspora of the neo-pentecostal moveglobe's basic ability to produce the critically short chem- ment has now made itself manifest in Ireland...
...As both contributors to this most of it inefficiently used to fatten meat-producing issue emphasize, we must labor not only to feed the animals, when one-fifth of that amount would constitute hungry right now but also to achieve global justice and an adequate diet in most parts of the world...
...Dr...
...to be answered if the "gentle revolution" is to be effecHowever, a post-graduate student of the Irish School of tive...
...Pamment then quoted the view of the Church of Can the movement assist in the creation of the needed Ireland Chaplain at Queen's University, the Rev...
...It must be a "bapspecifically on the theme of "The Charismatic Renewal tism in the Spirit" but it must not be "so heavenly and Reconciliation in Ireland," which is complementary minded that it is no earthly use...
...Individuals cannot in good but the point is clear: the notion of a completely self- conscience consume, consume, consume in the world's sufficient America is illusory...
...This scarcity currently constitutes the greatest single obstacle to increased food production...
...The central Northern Ireland...
...Can a of the movement in the North on which he was basing movement that emphasizes the heart as the central mode his hope...
...It is obviously a work of the Irish Churches to engage in a radical social critique God's Holy Spirit...
...poor, as we profited from an international buyer's market cussion of these issues, and there are heartening signs in raw materials-a state of affairs which put the less that the nation's churches and synagogues will join in developed countries at our mercy...
...tieth century, is now coming face to face with what may People do not need to starve...
...He then gave a birds-eye view of the move- Secondly, how will the movement relate to tensions ment there: "There are three main groups in Belfast...
...Pamment was raising have a visible effect in the overall society of Ulster...
...ing men, women and children in countless sordid situaPamment said that "the most interesting and significant tions...
...Can the movement communicate with the "men effects of Irish charismatic renewal are to be seen in the of violence...
...Could not an international charismatic ism seem irrelevant in the face of such existentially conference in Dublin or Belfast work out the strategy...
...Tyrone...
...But he did the charismatic renewal movement help eradicate secraise the question and he did outline the present position tarianism and "tribal religion" in the North...
...they also cannot ignore what their system, one that takes into account the harsh global facts elected representatives do to make the problem worse, as of expanding population, poverty, food shortages and when the House of Representatives recently denied the the scarcity of natural resources...
...The spirit ical fertilizer must therefore be expanded...
...Cecil ecumenical structures...
...Given this situa- loans for poor countries, a potentially disastrous move tion, intensified class warfare between nations is inevita- lamented elsewhere in these pages by both Arthur Simon ble unless justice is achieved for the developing countries, and Martin M. McLaughlin...
...Firstly, how can contribution towards bringing about peace...
...North...
...Can it touch the hearts of deeply resentful Catholics...
...The world is critically 000009*000000* short of chemical fertilizers, and poorer countries have had to cut back on their imports because of scarcity and Pentecostals and quadrupled prices...
...together that no church leaders, councils, committees Fourthly, can the charismatic movement encourage could ever bring or impose...
...World food stocks are World Bank additional funds to provide development now at their lowest level in 20 years...
...At one of the most crucial challenges that the worldwide least this is the conviction of the growing number of charismatic movement has had to face: in Ireland, can neo-pentecostals, not only in Northern Ireland but also the movement possibly spread and do what the estab- in the South...
...justify its huge purchase of is simply another name...
...the Presbyterian Church and more recently in several He predicted, hopefully, "From what it is already achiev- others, including the Catholic Church, is bringing a deep ing in the North, there is no doubt that the charismatic sense of hope to those involved in it and to many others movement could make a significant contribution to bring- who see its visible effects on people...
...For the first time working for justice for the developing nations, in interthere is a growing awareness that the earth's riches are national bodies like the United Nations but very parnot infinite, that progress and increasing abundance are ticularly in matters like our own trade and tariff policies not inevitable, that a fair sharing of what is available is too...
...Indeed, the appearance of neo-pente- (John Cooney is Commonweal's regular corresponcostalism in Northern Ireland about three years ago in dent in Ireland...
...Fortunately, there are signs of an in- the confrontation was stressed recently at an ecumenical creasing national awareness of our need for moral dis- meeting in Drogheda by an Anglican rector, the Rev12 July 1974: 372 erend Gordon Pamment of Rathcorrmac, County Cork...
...Can the movement help remove the deep Catholics and Protestants, and each has an average at- divisions and suspicions within some of the members tendance of around 50...
...In the same true peace tomorrow-a work for which development way, how can the U.S.S.R...
...It has long been clear that countries which include something like two out of every an individualistic morality is too narrow...
...lished churches have so far failed to do and help bring If the "gentle revolution" that Father McCarthy and about peace to Northern Ireland...
...weekly in Lurgan and another in Benburb, Co...
...What is needed is a shortage forced us to recognize that we are not omni- change in personal and national life-styles, which is why potent...
...Paisley, wish that meets in Anderstown...
...urgent situations as are to be found, for example, in the JOHN COONEY North of Ireland...
...irrespective of denominational loyalties, will eventually In making this prediction Dr...
...It is a development of some significance three millions tons of chemical fertilizer now spread in an assessment of the neo-pentecostal movement...
...American grain when most of it was also to be used in the wasteful production of meat...
...All three groups include Roman tional rivalry...
...Although he noted that the movement was nu- of expression of religion appeal to killers whose hearts merically stronger in Dublin and that it had also taken are so hardened that they feel no compunction in killroot in other places including Cork and Limerick, Dr...
...No doubt many more questions could be asked, but That basically is the evidence presented at Drogheda, I think these are the fundamental questions that need which may strike many as more wishful than substantial...
...there are steps we can be contemporary Christianity's greatest sectarian scar: take, other courses of action we can follow...
...It must evolve an to Dr...
...America is rich, but the oil tions from all over the country...
...within the established churches as they painfully atone in the New Lodge area, one on the Falls Road, one tempt to overcome the habit of 400 years of denominain Queen's University...
...of themselves as institutions and can it help to prompt Irish churchmen and members to a greater social awareAnother Voice ness and involvement...
...Unfortunately, he did Dr...
...Father McCarthy writes overall strategy...
...Another group of 100 meets to have nothing to do with "the Church of Rome...
...that neo-pentecostalism "has a power and a force in it The Drogheda ecumenical meeting has clearly spelled that makes much doctrinaire and bureaucratic ecumen- out the issue...
...Commonweal: 373...
...On the order for many years, but today the discussion takes national level, the United States must take the lead in place in a radically changed climate...
...For annually on lawns and golf courses-fertilizer that could the movement, which is considered by its followers to be spell the difference between life and death elsewhere the main spiritual regeneration movement of the twenin the world...
Vol. 100 • July 1974 • No. 16
