SOCIAL media was the phenomenon that should have democratised the world, but instead had concentrated power in the hands of “a few grotesquely rich men”, the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Revd John McDowell, has said.
In his presidential address to the Church of Ireland’s General Synod on Friday, he also rebuked the country’s attitudes to migration.
The “often sinister ambitions and networks” of social media were infinitely more powerful than any Celtic chieftain, medieval magnate, or elected chief minister, he said. “Their centralising tendences and amorality are a much more effective means of dividing and conquering than any Roman emperor had at his disposal.
“Currently, their great emphasis is on the development of AI, which is being heralded as another great leap forward in the liberation of humankind. The truth is, of course, that such ‘liberation’ only binds us further: we are increasingly dependent on technology, especially digital technology, and thus on the electricity necessary to keep it going, and on the global corporations extending its reach into every aspect of human life.”
Neither “truth” nor “fact” could be artificially generated, he argued. “The process of AI-integration is all the more dangerous not because it is manipulated by the powerful, but because it is increasingly accepted by us as a logical choice.”
The vocation of the Church of Ireland was “to witness to an alternative truth, and to march to a different drum-beat in a world which has a very wayward set of priorities”, he said. The parishes were the places that could “change the landscape and the horizon”, he said.
“Although parishes cannot be little earthly paradises, they can be the tiny leaven in the rude lump of a subtly manipulated world. The parish can be where true wisdom and truth may still be found and true friendship flourish.”
The Archbishop spoke frankly of attitudes to equality and migration in Ireland, “one of the great touchstones and tests of our Christian authenticity”, he said. It was time, he went on, to address a few myths. “Migration is not some form of organised conspiracy aimed at the colonial dispossession of the Irish people, as has been claimed by the extreme Right in Ireland.
“Nor is it an attempt at creating a Muslim majority or a Muslim state, as has been called by many on the British extreme Right. Migrants to this island are motivated by exactly the same desires which motivated the Irish immigrants to the USA in the 18th century: a desire for civic and religious freedom; or which motivated many Irish people to emigrate to the USA and Britain in the 19th century: hunger and destitution.
“Migrants to this island want what we all want: to bring up children in security and decency; to provide them with a good education and the chance of a stable future. And to contribute to the communities in which they live. They bring with them enormous energy and fortitude; and very often scarce skills. For these and other reasons there is every rational reason to welcome them.
“Instead what we find as recorded in PSNI statistics in Northern Ireland is, in 2024-25, the worst recorded levels of racist violence since monitoring began in 2004; and in an increase of almost 50 per cent on the year before. And, in the Republic of Ireland, Garda hate-crime data show a sustained multi-year increase in racially motivated incidents.
“But you and I are called to a much more demanding way of life. To care for the stranger within our midst, regardless of ethnic differences, is the principal lesson of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and defines for us what we mean by the word ‘neighbour’.”
He went on to ask, “Exactly which aspect of discipleship in Jesus Christ is being exercised by baying outside a hostel while terrified children are inside? How is parading around the streets draped in a national flag representing the mind of the God of all the nations?”
These matters, he concluded, would be the test of the Church’s discipleship and faithfulness in the days and years to come.