22.11.2018
Brexit: Church Leaders’ Joint Statement
The leaders of the main churches in Ireland have issued the following joint statement in relation to Brexit.
As
the final stages of the initial part of the negotiations for the United
Kingdom to leave the European Union draw to a close, we as Church
Leaders here on the island of Ireland are inspired by the challenge of
Jesus to love our neighbour.
Relationships between the people of
this island, both North and South, and between the Republic of Ireland
and the United Kingdom, have improved and deepened immeasurably over the
past 30 or so years. This atmosphere of mutual respect, understanding
and growing friendship has been the positive background against which
many significant developments have taken place – ceasefires, political
accommodation, increased connectedness and rising prosperity for many.
It
is important that we acknowledge the legitimate aspirations of those
who voted to leave the European Union and those who voted to remain. We
also pray at this time that the inevitable tensions, which the Brexit
negotiations and their outworking will entail, will not be allowed to
undermine the quality of relationships and mutual understanding which
are both so important in enabling all of us to work together for the
common good.
In this context, we particularly want to encourage
public representatives, and all others who give leadership in our
society, to weigh their words carefully, to respect the integrity of
those who conscientiously differ from them and to speak with grace.
Regardless
of the outcome of this process, as peoples and communities who share
this island, we will remain closely related and will have to both get
along together and work together in this changing and somewhat uncertain
world that lies ahead. This calling will be helped immensely as
we all strive to listen and relate to one another in the context of
mutual respect and even growing trust, rather in a divisive and
unhealthy atmosphere of needlessly destructive debate and broken and
fractured relationships.
The Most Rev Dr Richard Clarke,
Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland; the
Rev William Davison, President of the Methodist Church in Ireland; the
Most Rev Eamon Martin, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All
Ireland; the Right Rev Dr Charles McMullen, Moderator of the
Presbyterian Church in Ireland; the Rev Brian Anderson, President of the
Irish Council of Churches.
Issued by the Irish Council of Churches and the Irish Inter–Church Committee