30.09.2024
A Mission of Mercy – Archbishop Addresses Mater Hospital Mission Week
Archbishop Michael Jackson was one of the speakers at the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital’s Mission Week on Wednesday last (September 25). The ‘Living Our Values Every Day… Mission Impossible’ symposium was organised by the hospital’s Office of Mission Effectiveness.
The Archbishop’s address was entitled ‘A Mission Of Mercy: The Mater Misericordiae Principle’. He spoke on inclusion, specifically of people of faith, the hospital’s work in embedding an interfaith ethic into the built fabric, and the work of Dublin City Interfaith Forum, of which he is chairperson.
Archbishop Jackson concluded with a number of suggestions regarding the interfaith inclusion in the hospital. These include being positive and hopeful about new initiatives, affirm each other’s cultural and religious sharing, celebrate new expressions, connect the present and the past, introduce a suggestion box for interfaith inclusion, and show how the practice of interfaith is part of the interdisciplinary life in the hospital.
You can read the Archbishop’s address in full below.
A MISSION OF MERCY: THE MATER MISERICORDIAE PRINCIPLE
The Most Reverend Dr Michael Jackson, Church of Ireland archbishop
September 2024
CARITATIVE ALTRUISM IN A SECULAR WORLD
We have reached the point in our day of exploration and celebration of the work of mercy that is the work of this hospital when we must draw together and draw forward good practice and tough questions around the theme: Are we inclusive? This is not a matter where we need to be defensive. It is quite the opposite. It is a question designed to facilitate flourishing in the delivery of a public service established and nurtured within a particular human and spiritual ethic. It is asking a question for today and for tomorrow. Contributing to the health of members of a secular state is an holistic activity. This is a particularly pertinent question when the ready availability and accessibility of public health at the highest level of quality for all eludes most if not all nation states today despite the fact that they, that is we, have more disposable income than ever before.
This does not mean that people are not trying. This does not mean that people are not giving unstintingly of themselves in their public service at every point in the spectrum of delivery. In fact, were people not doing this, things would be more uneven and more inequitable. It means, however, that the principle of inclusion can and should be tested generously and repeatedly as circumstances change under the feet of us all, however sparse or scattered our resources may be at any given time. It is more about attitude than it is about expenditure. It is more about success than it is about defeat.
No secular state in a democratic world, nonetheless, should be let off the hook of pluralism, of not facilitating those who are religiously and spiritually motivated in caring for all as part of who we are and what we do, if we are people of faith in the secular workplace. Such a debate brings us to the fraught area of motivation. It is not that I am trading one motivation off against another. It is simply that I am stating publicly the validity and the fruitfulness of motivation that is religiously and spiritually derived. Certainly it is a partnership and a collaboration with others but faith remains a significant part of the kaleidoscope of belonging or, if you want a simpler phrase, a good part of the reason why thousands of people in Ireland get up in the morning to go to work. What I myself call caritative altruism – thinking of the other person ahead of thinking of yourself first in offering care – is at the heart of medicine and nursing. It also is at the heart of research and innovation. But every member of the hospital staff: 24/7/365 is of the same mind and the same ethic. This is not a workplace. This is a vocationplace.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Let me offer you the illustration of a roundabout. Unless you want to sit right in the middle of it, you have to do two things. Those are: to get on it and to get off it. A roundabout is designed for movement and for motion, for arrival and for departure. It has no purpose in being static. In fact, it was designed to free up traffic, to facilitate a flow. You approach the roundabout which is your workplace through a faith road, if faith gives you your virtues. The workplace sets values and as a virtuous person you engage with them and work by them with everyone else there. You may wonder why I use the word: virtues and not the word: values here. The distinction that I make between virtues and values is this: virtues are the public expression of principled positions about yourself and others based in the intrinsic integrity that binds them both; they come from within you. Without the virtues associated with public and personal life, the values are more open to manipulation, distortion and external programming and alteration at any given moment. To my mind, it is virtues that hold the tension between external power and individual authority. They enable the lone person to stand against the institutional juggernaut if needs be and to know conceptually that this is the right place to stand. Virtues and values are, of course, not incompatible. It is simply that, in my opinion, they are not automatically the same.
I want to add another illustration. It is that of the camino. The Camino has become a handy coat hanger for a positive experience of developmental journeying with others. It has religious derivations. It can be understood as a physical and spiritual pilgrimage, perhaps even as an Inter Faith Haj, so long as we do not cause scandal and insult by the appropriation of sacred terms, in everyday life. I recently had the chance to use the idea of camino in the context of structuring a response to racial hatred. And right across the country we have had sustained manifestations of anti–racial hatred, violence and sacrilege during the month of August this year. As I myself predicted almost twenty years ago, Racism is the child of Sectarianism in our tangled religiosity, sub–religiosity and post–religiosity in Christian Ireland. I came up with a camino in three parts leading to a fourth camino: a camino of countering – countering the entitlement to hate and the entitlement to diminish, replacing it with engagement, hospitality and understanding; a camino of collaboration – rebuilding again and again the capacity to work together, establishing pro–active relationships; a camino of comprehension – ignorance has a darker underbelly than the absence of knowledge because it provides a justification and a rationale for exclusion and rejection; discernment must triumph over infotainment if this triple camino is to lead to a camino of community. I suggest that it is possible to turn any journeying with other people into a camino. I further suggest that this description adds the ideas of collaboration and companionship to what you might be doing in any case as part of a regular day’s work. It is a way of honouring your day, your everyday, and those with whom you go about it.
WHAT ARE THE PARAMETERS OF THE INTERDISCIPLINARY?
If there were to be one word that we can use for mission in this hospital, surely it is: mercy. The limitations of my own job are that it is effectively monodisciplinary and an intensely an alone experience or series of events. The richness of the job of each of you is that it is dynamically multidisciplinary. In my final few remarks, I want to make the case and point the way from within your heritage to the inclusion of interfaith in interdisciplinary as you map out your mission of mercy for and in this historic hospital. The Cultural Masterclass Series which you held recently with Dublin City Inter Faith Forum attracted one hundred and fifty members of the hospital. Interestingly, the majority were from ICU. This is not surprizing as it is bound to be the case that in shifting situations of intense medical and surgical need cultural and faith considerations rise to the fore of patients and family members most acutely or, if you prefer, most intensely and especially at end of life moments. Food and dietary requirements also came to the fore as pressure points; to this I suggest adding an understanding of faith–derived fasting. From the Feedback it is clear to me that you sail with a fair wind in doing this because there was a widespread realization of the need for such upskilling in grasping different religious rituals in a multicultural Ireland. There was the suggestion of celebration as well as of information. The final comment that I read I found particularly illuminating and important: ‘Advertize and promote the aspect of caring to encourage more nurses’/HCA attendance, plus if classes were accredited – more staff would attend.’
Not only have you granted to us who are Members of the Dublin City Inter Faith Forum the opportunity to hold some of our meetings in the outstanding Pillar Room. You have made significant strides and advances in embedding an interfaith ethic in your built fabric and in your living heritage. There are four courageous decisions and outcomes that show this already in action. One is the sequence of seminars arranged with DCIF for staff members to which I have alluded above. Through this we have sought to offer some pointers in everyday life where there can be tension when people bring their Faith and Cultural scruples and principles to bear on their being in hospital, most specifically as patients. Never forget that for us lay people being in hospital is a terrifying experience! Those who are recipients of hospital care are specifically vulnerable in a number of ways. In a situation of dependency there is always a power inversion. The key is that it be handled carefully, professionally, mercifully and discursively where possible. The second, third and fourth have to do with three spaces, the opening of three rooms: The Islamic Prayer Room; The Multi Faith Room; The John Sullivan Ward in the Respiratory Section within the Hospital.
Everybody knows that there never is sufficient space in a hospital. All the more remarkable has been the opening of: The Islamic Prayer Room to enable Muslim staff to fulfil their obligations of prayer five times daily, considering the complexities of a computerized roster of work for all; The Multi Faith Room which sets no limitations on the belief of those who use it for reflection, prayer, silence, comfort. The John Sullivan Ward is in many ways the most interesting. Often we forget that Christianity is also part of the Inter Faith honeycomb. We see it as part of our cultural brown furniture. Father John Sullivan SJ visited patients in The Mater Hospital (in fact he grew up roughly across the road in Eccles Street) throughout his life as parish priest of the parish church in Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare. The ward dedicated in memory of his tireless service and sacrifice for this hospital is in the designated Respiratory Section which is in effect a hospital within a hospital to enable the people who are admitted to the hospital in the event of another pandemic, such as Covid 19, to have the best chance of survival through a galaxy of medical supports and surgical interventions. This offers a wide, and I imagine, ever–widening range of responses to the recognition of faith and Faiths in The Mater Hospital of today. I predict that there will have to be and will be more as the years progress. As a cluster, they form a powerful witness of inclusion and integration of a wide range of belief–points. The Multi Faith Room is a gentle and unobtrusive room where you turn in left as you go along a corridor. You might simply be going into a small office. Inside it is furnished with a calming décor and comfortable seating. It can be used by anyone of individual faith or personal belief to reflect and recharge at any time.
None of this contradicts the Roman Catholic provision from the heart of the Foundation and the negotiable possibility of the use of a chapel for worship in prayer and sacrament by a range of Christian traditions in an ecumenically open contemporary world. Thinking these things through as we have been doing today extends this ethic into areas where the Christian tradition rightly cannot go. It also enhances the idea of mission if we define and understand mission as institutional purpose and invitation to receive the best a World Faith has to offer for the common good rather than exclusively as individual conversion. In fact many World Religions are not missional in the sense of being conversionist. It enables the hospital to be front and centre of its missional agenda in the world in which we live, a world of multiculturalism, a world where skills are not ethnically or religiously circumscribed, a world where equality of contribution meets equality of opportunity to make missional community without prejudice.
FOR WHAT DOES DCIF STAND?
Dublin City Inter Faith Forum was established by Dublin City Council a little over ten years ago. Dublin City Council funds one full–time officer, Dr Adrian Cristea. The Forum is a body of volunteers who meet every two months in a location of Inter Faith or civic significance, for example The Chester Beatty Library Seminar Room, Kevin Street Garda Station, The Mansion House and The Mater Hospital. At every meeting we share information on things that are important to our Faith Communities, things that have happened in the intervening period and we give invitations to events that are about to happen. We encourage participation in one another’s events; in marking International Days of specific causes; in the making of statements when appropriate; and in the preparing of resources. These have included material for secondary schools in relation to understanding World Faiths through the voices of young people; working with Gardai in relation to hate crime; working with The Mater Hospital in pioneer work for understanding a range of Faith perspectives in the hospital setting particularly when the recipients and the givers of hospital services meet in difficult or intimate situations. We have developed a network with similar Inter Faith bodies in a wide range of European cities, such as Helsinki, along with Birmingham and Edinburgh for example in The United Kingdom. We are part of an Europe–wide network called InterMu–Se concerned with citizenship, equality, rights and values including Greece, Cyprus, Italy, France, Portugal and Ireland. We have also strengthened links over the past number of years with The Northern Ireland Inter Faith Forum. I have the privilege of being the current chairperson of this Forum. It has greatly enhanced and expanded me as a person and the work that I do in my role as Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin. We continued our meetings on–line throughout Covid 19 including the organizing and running of international seminars.
In December 2019 we produced The Dublin City Interfaith Charter. All of the participating Faith Traditions signed it. I think it is useful for all of us hear what its clauses are as it gives a comprehensive sense not only of our aims and objectives but of our ethic and actions. The Charter, of course, is always in need of revision but I share it with you as it stands five years on.
Its aims are as follow:
To commit to, and freely practise, our religious beliefs, customs and practices and accept the freedom of others to do likewise.
To dedicate ourselves to the values of peace, justice, solidarity and defence of the dignity of each human being as a valued member of our shared society.
To promote dialogue between the different communities of belief co–existing in our city; we believe this to be fundamental to guaranteeing the necessary conditions for living together in peace, justice and solidarity.
To share our experiences, and strengthen our collaboration and partnership, so we will jointly be able to build a better society, city and country.
To encourage dialogue between people of different beliefs and faiths in all spheres of life, to eradicate misunderstanding, intolerance and exclusion, and extend openness and understanding between our different faith communities.
To focus our efforts on encouraging the young towards real acceptance of religious diversity by developing programmes which reflect the joint fundamental values of our faiths while maintaining our own individual beliefs.
To develop our appreciation of religious differences and diversity to focus on our similarities, shared values and common respect for humanity and planet.
To create social conditions that will allow all to share peace, joy and hope.
The Charter has been taken up and used as a template by a number of cities across Europe. This happened in the first instance within days of its publication. It has helped us in Dublin to build partnerships with such cities. Perhaps The Mater Hospital might consider something similar, write its own Charter and build up a link with a network of hospitals and this would provide scope for an on–line learning community enabling development and enhancement of what you do in the interfaith part of the interdisciplinary definition of the hospital and sharing and celebrating it.
SOME SHORT SUGGESTIONS
I want to finish wish some examples of where we are living up to our values and where we can do more in this hospital setting simply, effectively and daily:
Closing the gap with hope: be positive about the new and wonderful things that you all do together in your team–work in the hospital day by day side by side with the inherited basics of care exercized from time immemorial. You are first and foremost a hospital centre of excellence.
Developmental affirmations: as new things happen in the life you live together, forming the hospital community of today and shaping the hospital community of tomorrow; affirm one another by human curiosity, cultural sharing, religious understanding and above all learning how to laugh at one another’s humour.
Celebrate new expressions: in this way, show that they enhance and do not diminish what is inherited; do not be afraid of the future in the way that long–established churches, for example, have become. You carry treasure in an earthen vessel (2 Corinthians 4.7). A mission of mercy is a labour of love.
Dig deep to connect what is now with what once was: corporate memory is so important and it needs constantly to be worked at; making these no–longer–visible connections known is important to ensure that corporate memory does not fade; do practical thinks such as interview and record (with all due permissions and safeguards) long–serving staff as they retire and create a living and an organic archive.
Introduce a physical and an on–line Suggestions Box of good practice in the area of Inter Faith inclusion: in this way make it part of what everyone to whom the hospital matters can contribute.
Develop a chart showing how this practice of Inter Faith is part of the inter disciplinary life in the hospital as a lived and a living norm of mercy in action in every part of hospital life.