C of I bishop calls for Christian conference

The Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath and Kildare, the Most Rev Richard Clarke, has called for a conference of all Irish Christian denominations. As a model, he suggests the Lambeth Conference, which takes place every 10 years, and which gives guidance to the worldwide Anglican Communion.

"Would the Irish public not listen to the different Irish Christian traditions, representing the whole of those traditions, speaking in concert?" he asks in an article in the current issue of Doctrine & Life.

It is based on a talk he gave to the National Conference of [Roman Catholic] Priests for Ireland in Dublin last September. "The novelty value alone might ensure a hearing," he writes.

"We do not need yet another coy little get-together with only professional conference fodder present," he comments.

When, as Christians together in this country, "we turn to think of a `Synod for the Irish Church', it must surely be of something which `has teeth' ", he says.

But he feels it is "almost inconceivable" that many of the separate Christian traditions in Ireland would be prepared to hand real, legislative, binding authority to any synod outside its own control.

Hence his suggestion of a nonbinding conference, modelled on that held at Lambeth.