A prophet in his own time

Church of Ireland Archdeacon of Dublin Gordon Linney, who retires this month, will continue to denounce injustice, he tells Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent

Archdeacon Gordon Linney is that rare creature - a prophet respected in his own land. Not all would agree, of course. During the local elections campaign last June a canvassing politician asked his daughter, of him: "Is he the fella that's giving out about us all the time?"

To be fair, he doesn't just give out about politicians all the time, only about some of their actions, or more likely, their inaction. His focus tends to be on wider society.

"I have huge respect for the political process and many politicians are first-rate people," he says. He adds later: "I'm quite a traditional person with great respect for the institutions of the State and my country."

Due to retire as Church of Ireland Archdeacon of Dublin at the end of this month, he has no intention of going gentle, or otherwise, into some somnolent silent night. He will continue to speak out on issues of national importance, particularly on those which irritate his conscience, he says.

However, in what is probably his last interview as archdeacon, it is what was the probably last act of former finance minister Charlie McCreevy which exercises him most.

He cannot understand how McCreevy could have approved a further €40 million for the GAA "against a background of saying we could not afford, say, breast screening, necessary to save lives, and other such measures. It is a huge moral issue".

He is not directing his criticisms at the GAA, or any sporting organisation for that matter. "I am a keen sportsman myself," he says. But he knows women, for instance, whose cancer diagnoses were delayed because of current inadequacies in the health services.

There are also thousands of children in the primary school system who require assistance, he points out, whether because of disability or otherwise, and who suffer through lack of teachers and facilities and so on. Such children have one chance of getting an education and then it is gone forever.

In purely economic terms, he comments, a proper education can help to ensure that youngsters become useful citizens and avoid a drift to crime, helping to save costs for the State.

More generally he remains upset at the passing of the citizenship referendum last June. He hopes that parents of illegal Irish immigrants in the US did not vote for it. For them to do so would have been "utter hypocrisy", he says.

The referendum result was "devastatingly hurtful to people who always saw Ireland as a place of welcome and understanding, considering its own history of emigration". He says he recently attended a meeting of naturalised Irish people, among them "several very eminent people in Irish public life who were deeply hurt" by the result. One sallow-skinned young woman had said Ireland was no longer a place where she saw a future. She was going to London.

Archdeacon Linney's propensity for afflicting the comfortable, and comforting the afflicted, is something he attributes to his admiration for the prophet Amos. He speaks enthusiastically about the Book of Amos, the oldest of the prophetic books of the Bible.

Amos, who lived around 750BC, was a shepherd who, writing at a time of prosperity and sharp contrast between the luxurious life of leaders and the oppression of the poor, preached the urgency of social justice and a threat of divine judgment. Archdeacon Linney leaves judgment to the divine, but the rest is straight Amos.

Many, however, would be inclined to attribute his keen sense of social justice to his working-class Dublin background - not very common among senior Church of Ireland figures.

Born 65 years ago in Inchicore, his father, William, was chief clerk with CIÉ there. His mother, Hazel, was a housewife. There were four in the family, three boys and one girl. Over a nine-month period in 1987/88, one brother died from an aneurism, his mother died "of a broken heart", and his sister died of cancer. His surviving brother, Ken, is a retired police chief superintendent in England.

Archdeacon Linney began his adult life as a bank clerk and became family breadwinner at 23 when his father died. In 1962 he got TB and spent a year recovering. Both experiences left him with a lasting respect for the importance of education and a good health service.

He was 27 when he began a third-level education, "so I have always recognised the importance of learning and scholarship", he says. His experience of TB taught him "the loneliness of illness" and what long-term care means.

Education and health have been two great themes of his ministry. He is on the board of the Adelaide & Meath Hospital, Incorporating the National Children's Hospital, in Tallaght, and is an ex-officio member of the board at the Rotunda Hospital. He is also on the boards of a number of nursing homes.

He has played a major role in defending the Church of Ireland's education interests at a national level, and is a governor of Rathdown school in Glenageary, Co Dublin. He intends to continue with many of these roles in his retirement.

In 1965 he married Helen, and from October 1966 he attended the Church of Ireland Theological College at Rathmines, Dublin. He was ordained in 1969 and served first at Portstewart, Co Derry, for three years. While there he considered quitting the ministry. He was angered at the reaction of parishioners to a holiday scheme for children from Derry, whereby it was proposed Catholic children would stay in Protestant homes and vice-versa.

He delivered a sermon "which upset the locals". It was "a very raw" experience. He remembers saying to the rector then "that it wouldn't take much to persuade me to give up". He stayed on but believes the churches in the North have been complicit in institutionalising bigotry. In fact he believes there is "still latent bigotry in all our churches" in Ireland.

The way forward is for each "to appreciate, respect, and have the courage to say what is good about each other", he says.

"Pope John XXIII was probably the most influential Christian leader of my ministry," he says, and quotes Hans Kung's definition of being a Christian as "one for whom Christ is ultimately decisive". The Archdeacon continues that "in the person of Jesus we see the potential of our humanity and I don't think Jesus came into the world to give everyone's behind the shape of a pew".

Where influential figures in his own Church are concerned he singles out the former archbishop of Dublin, Dr Donald Caird, as "probably the outstanding figure in terms of his enormous breadth of vision and philosophy as a Church leader. He had a shrewd awareness of the Church of Ireland's place in Irish history and life which, with his interest in the Irish language, meant he had a pedigree few others shared."

That is not to take away from other former Dublin archbishops, whether Simms, McAdoo, Buchanan, Empey, or Neill. The quality of such leadership is "quite amazing in such a small Church", he comments

Another man he admires very much is Dean Victor Griffin, former dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, with whom he worked in Dublin's inner city for five and a half years from 1975.

The archdeacon believes the future of the Church of Ireland is as "a confident minority". He agrees with commentators such as Eoghan Harris, who criticised the "heads down" demeanour of so many Church of Ireland members in the past.

"Those who had nothing to stay for left, while those who had a stake didn't want to put it at risk," he says, by way of explanation. "It was a Catholic- controlled State and don't pretend otherwise. Its greatest victim has been the Catholic Church itself. It was a very difficult time to be an outspoken Protestant."

He and Helen will continue to live in Glenageary, Co Dublin, where he has been rector since 1980. He will preside at his last service in St Paul's this Sunday.