‘Find a way forward’ – Bishop Harold’s appeal to party leaders
Bishop Harold has made an appeal to the main political parties to find a way forward for the Province.
He was speaking on BBC Radio Ulster’s Sunday Sequence during a short discussion with 2 other church leaders – former Presbyterian Moderator, Revd Frank Sellers and Fr Michael Canny from Derry Diocese.
Speaking about the current political impasse Bishop Harold said: “I want to say to those party leaders that they are actually entrusted with this, not just by the people, but by God. They’re there not just because of the people, but God has put them there and I want to plead with them to really take seriously the possibility of the two parties at the end of the spectrum actually finding a way forward for this Province. Whether that’s possible or not remains to be seen.”
In a short segment, the church leaders also touched on the importance of family, the quality of our online public discourse, the challenges posed by social media, particularly for the young, and our difficulties interacting with each other here in Northern Ireland.
Bishop Harold commented that, despite being a very generous, hospitable people good at interacting with other countries, “we desperately need to learn how to interact with each other across the divisions in our society.”
When asked what he was looking forward to in 2018, the bishop said: “One of the things I’m most excited by is the possibility of planting new churches into the most needy of areas. We’ve been doing this over the past 3 or 4 years and we’ve discovered that it can be extremely positive, very well received and actually quite quickly, really engage with people who thought the church was nothing to do with them.”
He also highlighted that 2018 was the 50th anniversary year for Tearfund UK on whose board he serves.
Listen again to Sunday Sequence 7 January. (Begin 15 mins into the programme).