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Editorial
THE FOUR CHURCH LEADERS’ MEETING
The fact that the Four Church Leaders’ Meeting obviously has considerable business to conduct, being jointly serviced by the Clerk of the Presbyterian General Assembly and the Secretary of the Methodist Conference, and the fact that it clearly is engaging with political issues surely make it reasonable for the Churches to expect that information about the Meeting should be freely available. But that is simply not the case, and the problem is a continuing one.
We already have historic, inclusive and open national ecumenical instruments in the Irish Council of Churches and the Irish Inter-Church Meeting (ICC/IICM). While this structure has its own shortcomings, it is ecumenically counter-productive for the Four Church Leaders’ Meeting to assume a role, because by doing so it detracts from the work of the properly constituted and accountable organisations. Those who are trying to remedy shortcomings in the ICC/ IICM are not helped by the fact that the Church leaders are concentrating their ecumenical work in their own group. It may be that the Four Church Leaders do not want to become caught up in the more complex ICC/IICM structures, but that would simply not be a good enough reason for them to ‘go it alone’. Last year, the ICC invited the Four Church Leaders to attend the Council’s annual general meeting. That move was intended to bridge the gap between the Four Church Leaders’ Meeting and the Council. However, the news that the ICC General Secretary, Michael Earle, is still not being told anything about the Four Church Leaders’ Meeting places him in an intolerable situation and indeed compromises the ICC and the IICM in their work.
Then again, the fact that the Four Church Leaders’ Meeting is exclusive to the four largest Churches active in the Irish ecumenical scene at national level automatically means that other Churches, also active in this way, are just not given their proper place.
The Churches do not need a clericalized, exclusive, elusive and secretive grouping of leaders to engage unaccountably in discussions with whomsoever they wish, and about whatsoever they wish. As things stand, it would be best for the Four Church Leaders’ Meeting to be wound up and for the Church leaders concerned to channel their mutual efforts through the ICC/IICM.