Your voice counts!
On Saturday 7th July
Armagh Justice and Peace Commission
will be hosting a conversation about your thoughts on the recent Referendum
and how you feel about the upcoming World Meeting of Families.
This gathering takes place in
The Carrickdale Hotel outside Dundalk from 10 am – 1pm.
It is a free event and we look forward to meeting you and giving you a unique opportunity to express your views and to listen to other voices.
Tea and coffee will be served and everyone is most welcome.
The Carrickdale Hotel, Dundalk (Click image for directions.)
Thank you to the ACI for posting this notice for us. I applaud your initiative in organising that Future Family conference in April and the report makes for very interesting reading. It is obvious that everyone likes to have an opportunity to share their views in a safe space. We have found doing our surveys that people appreciate being consulted. I feel it helps to create a greater sense of belonging.
There is such polarisation in the Church at present and a danger of labelling those whose opinions, genuinely held, are different from our own. That is why it is vital to keep talking and listening to each other. Armagh Archdiocese straddles the border of course so we are a mixture of those who had a vote in the Referendum and those who didn’t, many of whom were and still are conflicted. We need time to listen, to reflect and to share with one another. Small gatherings are a start before we can move on to bigger national gatherings.
Thanks, Mary, for this comment and that on the ACP site. That APJC meeting at the Carrickdale should be very useful in itself and as a model for larger synodic gatherings later. I must add that I was impressed on meeting Ab Eamon Martin and a few of the other bishops at Maynooth on Tuesday last. More openness required all round. I get the feeling over the past day or two that certain women-led political parties may turn out to be less democratic and less tolerant of members’ consciences than the old church they like to kick!