ONE of the congratulatory messages said: "poacher turned gamekeeper!", and there is no doubt that Dr Richard Clarke, Dean of Cork, regards his elevation to the bishopric of Meath and Kildare with something of the surprised air of an unruly but likeable schoolboy who has suddenly been elected prefect.
At 47, he will be the youngest member of the Church of Ireland's House of Bishops when he is consecrated on September 14th next.
Far from romantic about his calling - as a son of one clergyman and the brother of another he's always been able to take a clear headed view of the business end of the church - and not inclined to be metaphysical about vocations, he nonetheless relishes the language and life of religion.
Anxious of Role
Always dependable for anything but a glib answer, he confesses now to having some anxiety about the teaching role of a bishop in a world in which sound bites are taken as adequate samples of communication skills.
He already enjoys the pastoral role and hopes the new job will be an opportunity to extend that aspect of his ministry, to develop and deepen it while exploring its meaning in the modern world. But he believes a bishop should not just say the kind of things that well meaning politicians say. In fact Clarke as a bishop is going to put the politicians of both church and State through their paces, if his sermons and writing are anything to go by.
He understands the place of comfort - or consolation - in the exercise of faith, but he is not one to provide comforting solutions for the sake of it.
Cork is going to miss Richard Clarke and his wife Linda (herself a theology graduate of London University) for many reasons, but one of them must be the apparently effortless continuum of worship he has maintained at St Fin Barre's Cathedral. Style is going out of fashion in so many churches, yet organ, choir, the Book of Common Prayer as well as the Alternative Prayer Book, Compline as well as Choral Evensong, midweek services and prayers and ritual both simple and intricate are all provided here with a conviction which must often seem the greatest strength of the church.
After a childhood in North Strand and Drumcondra (his father was the late Dudley Clarke) Richard Clarke went to school at Wesley College and then studied histoiw and political science at Trinity College Dublin before taking his BD at King's College in London. He took his Doctorate in Philosophy at TCD's School of Biblical and Theological Studies in 1990.
Missionary Volunteer
Having taught for a year in Iran with the Church Missionary Society volunteer scheme he was ordained priest when serving as a curate at Hollywood in Co Down. Two years as curate of St Bartholomew's in Dublin followed before he became Dean of Residence at Trinity, and in 1984 he was appointed rector of the Bandon Union of Parishes in Co Cork.
The 10 years he spent there convinced him of many things, but of these perhaps the most important was the catholicity of the church itself. West Cork is no easy pasture for the conscientious, apart altogether from the difficulty of its geography.
The churchgoers are a strong minded community, not redolent of the simple faith of a simple people. And they are often beleaguered or believe themselves to be so. "Union" is all very well as an administrative structure, but as a fact of the faith experience it can have its distresses.
Clarke is a man of faith before he is a man of organisation; he has been described as a pastor with academic interests, and it cannot have been easy for him as a pastor to mediate the different claims and alleviate the different often justifiable - anxieties of a far flung but articulate flock.
This, of course, is the stuff of which a good bishop is made, and ensures a sympathetic appreciation of the human application of bureaucratic priorities. All churches are full of that kind of thing these days and indeed probably always were, and church history is something which Richard Clarke regards with an objectivity cheering to behold. There is no lack of reverence; but reverence is an inward grace indicated by outward dignity.
Dignity of office, of ritual, of behaviour. That's one reason why he dislikes and distrusts the easy slogans of modern communication. Rapid responses can be both dishonest and hurtful, especially when applied to modern interpretations of old ideas. Or when the church, after some cataclysmic event, is used by otherwise disrespectful media as the only source of an explanation in a hostile world.
Clarke has very little time for that. He believes that there are times at which God, or the Kingdom, have to be exposed to the closest of scrutiny; to what he calls a kind of "in your face theology". In a Good Friday sermon broadcast this year, he related his theme to the massacre of schoolchildren at Dunblane by quoting Karamazov's moral rejection of God. Like Karamazov, Jesus on the Cross rejects God who has forsaken him. It is possible, Clarke argues, to find God guilty. And to be consoled by this fact.
Muscular Christianity
This is muscular Christianity with a vengeance, yet Clarke's reasoning is careful and ultimately enlightening. He's not afraid of tackling the big issues and the big issues of faith, for him, are not so much women priests or definitions of hell or the re marriage of divorced persons (although these are important matters of critical debate). More important are issues of human suffering and bewilderment, the matters on which humanity, still, looks for answers.
He finds anger with God an acceptable part of the experience of faith. He enjoys the process of exploration even when he doesn't always like the conclusion arrived at. He believes, for example, that one of the most profound and most urgent debates facing his church is that of nationalism, the conflict between the colours of national sentiment and the values of the Kingdom. And now that he is moving into an area, or an arena, in which pronouncements on this very subject may be the matter of his professional life it worries him that the church no longer projects the spiritual optimism he believes is essential if the future is to be grabbed.
He is a realist, he says, not a minimalist theologian, but his life has been infused with a strong notion of grace. Even if people aren't listening as intently as used to be the case, the church, and the bishops as its teachers, have to speak more clearly and more reflectively than ever before. Conviction, not style, will secure the future.