MODELLING the "courtesy
of God" as co-workers, to improve the lot of all, should be the
goal of all Christians, the new Primate of All Ireland, Dr Richard
Clarke, said at his enthronement in St Patrick's Cathedral, Armagh,
on Saturday. Leaders of all the main Churches in Ireland attended
the service.
Against a backdrop of
renewed rioting in parts of Northern Ireland over the use of the
Union flag at Belfast City Hall, Dr Clarke said that anger rather
than courtesy was the prevalent behavioural pattern.
"Indeed, many seem to
find their only focus and meaning in life through constant rage.
Salman Rushdie has coined a useful phrase, 'outrage identity', for
those who can find any meaning for themselves only in their anger
at others. True courtesy is the converse of spiteful anger. And
courtesy is not simply good manners - desirable as they most
certainly are - but goes a great deal further."
He said that the essence
of courtesy was that it treated "the other" - whoever or whatever
that "other" may be - as an individual who is always worthy of
respect, whose individuality is to be allowed an integrity of its
own.
"This is how God treats
us, accepting us as worthy of love, treating us as individuals
deserving of respect, never intimidating or bullying us into abject
submission, but listening with love and discernment to what we are
saying.
"But courtesy - the word
being used with care - goes further even than this. Courtesy goes
beyond the strictly necessary or contractual, in giving to another.
We can use the word quite casually in this sense - doing something
'as a courtesy', having the use of a 'courtesy car' - and, in fact,
the meaning is not very different.
"It means generously
going further than we actually have to go, in our service of
another individual. It is the very reverse of manipulation,
mean-mindedness, and calculated malice, which, sadly, can so easily
be cloaked as moral high-mindedness. . .
"And if you and I cannot,
and will not, model the courtesy of God in our dealings - one with
another within the Church, and in our relationships with those
outside the walls of the Church who are also made in the image and
likeness of God - we have indeed fallen at the first fence in
Christian faithfulness."