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Ireland: Church to mark centenary of 1916 Easter Rising


Glasnevin Cemetery - Wiki image

Glasnevin Cemetery - Wiki image

A number of commemorative events, prayer services and Masses will take place in Ireland next weekend to mark the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising.

On Sunday, 3 April at 11am Archbishop Diarmuid Martin will participate in an inter-faith prayer service in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, commemorating all those who died in the events of Easter week 1916. This service will focus on the Easter Rising (24 to 29 April 1916), and the executions that followed in May and August of that year. The prayer service will take place alongside marble plinths bearing the names of those who died, including children, rebels, civilians, soldiers and policemen. An Taoiseach will attend and leaders of several Christian Churches and the Jewish and Muslim faiths from all parts of the island, will participate. There will be particular inputs from young people from each faith tradition. Music from the ceremony will be from the Army Band and the event will be broadcast live on RTÉ One television.

Archbishop Eamon Martin will be principal celebrant and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin will preside and preach the homily at the Annual 1916 Mass of Remembrance in the Church of the Sacred Heart, the church of the Defence Forces, in Arbour Hill, Dublin on Sunday 24 April, exactly 100 years since the day of the Rising in 1916. President Michael D Higgins will attend the Mass with members of the government and the judiciary as well as relatives of those executed following the Rising. The Mass will be broadcast live by RTÉ from 10am. Afterwards an inter-faith prayer service will take place in Glasnevin Cemetery. The adjacent military cemetery is the resting place of 14 of the executed leaders of the Rising including Pádraig Pearse, James Connolly and Major John McBride.

A special Mass for Peace and Reconciliation will also be celebrated by Bishop John Buckley, Bishop of Cork & Ross, in Holy Trinity Church, Father Mathew Street, Cork, at 12.30pm on Sunday 3 April.

Making the announcement Bishop Buckley said: "Holy Trinity Church has been selected because of the important pastoral role exercised by members of the
religious orders, especially the Capuchin Community, some of whose members wrote very informative, personal narratives on the Rising. Our Mass will be a time for reflection not celebration. We visit our history, not to find what divides but what unites us. We will pray for the 485 men, women and children who died violently in 1916, on whatever side or none."

Bishop Buckley continued: "We, as people of faith, pray also for the British soldiers and the RIC members who died on the streets of Dublin, many of whom were Irish. We will also remember the five hundred and eighty Irish soldiers who died on the Western Front in the First World War during that week. Indeed, some of those who survived received a very cold reception when they returned home. We will pray also for those who died during the violence in Northern Ireland including the many people who are still suffering from its effects to this day.

"We must commemorate 1916 in a way that respects all past differences and does not glorify violence retrospectively. This Remembrance will be a sign that the conflict is over. Sadly, the threat of violence has not completely disappeared. There is no moral legitimacy whatsoever for violence today. There is always a danger than anniversaries have the potential to influence people negatively. There is a thin line between celebration and commemoration. If we only remember one side, we are telling ourselves that the conflict is not truly over. The Good Friday Agreement democratically and peacefully removed any remaining cause of conflict.

"We welcome the fact that a Commemorative Wall is to be erected in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin which will bear the names of all who died in 1916 regardless of which side they were on - or if they were on no side - and whether they were bearing arms or not. We should be extremely careful in case the celebrations would, in any way, contribute to an increased tension in Northern Ireland. It has been said that aspects of the 1966 commemoration were subsequently used to justify violence. Our aim should be to promote friendship and harmony.

"Even though the official Catholic Church and the newspapers at the time did not approve of the Rising, nevertheless they maintained that the volunteers were men of high idealism and self-sacrifice who really believed that they were pursuing a noble cause, while reminding us, at the same time, that great progress had been made towards the goal of an independent Ireland.

"We should not forget the religious spirit that animated the Rising. The leaders were people of profound faith and received the sacraments before their executions. The poetry of Padraig Pearse and Joseph Mary Plunkett is deeply religious. We recall Plunkett's 'I see his blood upon the rose' and Pearse's 'Iosagáin'. As Pearse himself said in 1915 at the grave O'Donovan Rossa, 'Splendid and holy causes are best served by splendid and holy people'. Indeed, the religious and cultural legacy of the 1916 leaders, which reflected the Church's social teaching at the time, may be as significant as their political legacy."

Source: Irish Catholic Media Office

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