21.09.2017
DCU Church of Ireland Chaplain to Appear in New RTE Series
Dublin City University’s Church of Ireland Chaplain, Philip McKinley, is to feature in a new television series starting on RTE One on Thursday September 28 at 10.15 pm.
Ministry of Hope is an uplifting and compelling series, sharing moments of joy, exhilaration and crisis with the men and women whose job it is to bring faith, hope and love to strangers in three very different Irish institutions.
This powerful and inspiring observational series follows three Irish chaplains over a whole year, as they reach out to people at their moments of greatest vulnerability, to counsel, inspire and care for them.
Margaret Sleator was the first ever lay chaplain in Dublin’s Mater Misericordiae Hospital when she started 13 years ago. Catherine Black is the new chaplain in Shelton Abbey Open Prison in Arklow, Co Wicklow. And Philip McKinley is the Church of Ireland member of a new multi–denominational chaplaincy team serving 17,000 students from all over the world at Dublin City University.
Their jobs are to give guidance, support and inspiration: to patients facing illness and death; to prisoners seeking redemption; and to students struggling with campus life. Their vocations are all steeped in deep faith. But, in an increasingly secular Ireland, the programme asks why we still rely on religious chaplains to shepherd us through life’s challenges?
In the first episode of Ministry of Hope, Margaret Sleator supports Sean O’Keeffe whose wife, Margaret, is critically ill in the Mater hospital. With their son, Jack, Sean is praying for a miracle, but the chaplain must also prepare them for the worst. In DCU, Philip McKinley helps first year students like 19 year old Aisha Siwar settle into university life at the start of term. Meanwhile, in Shelton Abbey Open Prison, Catherine Black counsels 33 year old David whose release date is approaching fast, knowing that the outside world can be just as challenging as prison itself.
Philip McKinley was appointed in 2015 as part of a brand new multi–denominational chaplaincy team to serve DCU’s hugely diverse population of students. He’s a layman with a passion for music, which has become a useful focus for activities in the Interfaith Centre at the heart of the Glasnevin Campus.
Some students seek out the chaplains for counselling in moments of crisis, while others simply come to the Interfaith Centre for the friendly welcome and the free student lunch. For Philip, “Hospitality is a huge part of chaplaincy. You can never under–estimate the value of welcome and warmth and a place where you are not judged; where somebody just smiles and says Hi”.
For many young people, the transition from school to university can be a daunting experience, especially if they are living away from their homes and families for the first time. In DCU, the chaplains are particularly mindful of 1st year students like 19 year old Aisha Siwar. “It’s really scary ‘cause you’re so used to being spoon–fed,” she says. “You’re literally going from asking the teacher to go to the toilet to making every decision yourself. It feels like you can get lost in the crowd, ‘cause everybody else is coping.” Philip adds, “That transition of going from family environment to independent living is one of the biggest changes. If you can get over the first five weeks, then you’re normally able to make it through the rest.”
Philip grew up in a Dublin rectory, the son of Canon Horace McKinley, and went to St Columba’s College, in Rathfarnham. Even so, it was never Philip’s intention to follow in his father’s footsteps. “I was rough around the edges,” he says. “I was not a model student at all. So, there is a wonderful sense of justice that somehow I have now become a chaplain.”