`Large vision' of President's book praised

A collection of talks given by the then Prof Mary McAleese to a recent seminar was published yesterday. In it the President applies the lessons of the Gospels to her background in Belfast and her experience of sectarian violence.

Reconciled Being: Love in Chaos, is a collection of talks given by Mrs McAleese to the John Main Seminar at All Hallows College in Dublin last August. It was described as "a small book with a great, large vision" yesterday by Father Laurence Freeman of the International Centre of the World Community for Christian Meditation.

He described it as "unsentimental, unpious", and of "deep feeling" and "true spirituality" as he introduced the former Beirut hostage, Mr Brian Keenan, to launch the book.

Mr Keenan said reconciliation for Mrs McAleese was "a personal reformation" before it is either a political or religious matter, and her book was "a homily about being human above all other things".

He referred to the "fearful gospel of exclusion" which is repeatedly illustrated throughout the book and how it is roundly condemned by Mrs McAleese as "the contemptuous rhetoric of mutual incompatibility".

He spoke of change and the "very needful notion of unlearning" which meant asking questions that probe less what we understand but whether our understanding enlarges us emotionally, emotion being the first principle of our being. It meant telling our own truth, and also hearing the other truth.

Quoting Mrs McAleese, he said reconciliation meant we must experience "the emotional freefall of self-doubt and depression or whatever form our personal Gethsemane may assume."

The President thanked all associated with the publication and Mr Keenan. She said that during his captivity she and her children prayed for him every night.