COI general synod: The counselling agency Pact (formerly the Protestant Adoption Society) was praised highly at the Church of Ireland general synod yesterday for taking cognisance "of society's changing attitude to abortion" when helping women with crisis pregnancies.
"If a woman opts for abortion, do you turn your back on her, when she really needs support?" asked Canon Desmond Sinnamon, rector of Taney in Dublin.
"It is also well established that most women who come to an agency for help, when they are given all their possible options, as well as the time and face-to-face assistance to work through them, do not finally choose abortion."
Chairman of the Church of Ireland's board of responsibility in the Republic, Canon Sinnamon said: "This board affirms Pact in its sensitive, caring, open and realistic approach to women faced, often without support, in making what is a traumatic decision."
Pact offers a free confidential, non-directive, non-denominational counselling and support service for those facing unexpected pregnancy.
Earlier yesterday Bishop of Cork Right Rev Paul Colton warned delegates that volunteers in the education sector were in danger of being scared away. Such were the legal complexities surrounding education now that Ireland ran the risk of "terrifying volunteers into inertia", he said.
Layer upon layer of legal and administrative matters were "putting too many demands on boards of management", he said. "Similarly, it is too burdensome on teaching principals in small schools," he said.
He warned people would stop volunteering "for this core activity in our society".
Without voluntary work the educational system would collapse, he said. The law needed to be simplified and clarified if it was to be implemented by volunteers, he said.
Rev Patrick Comerford told delegates that, where people used refer to the four main churches in the Republic, "Orthodoxy now has at least as strong a presence in the Republic as Methodism and Presbyterianism".
He said that "there are at least 20,000 Russian speakers in the Republic and perhaps 20,000 Romanians in Ireland", and asked: "who has any way of even beginning to know the number of Christians among the 40,000 or more Chinese now living on this island?"
Meanwhile, the Islamic community was growing rapidly in Ireland with between 20,000 and 30,000 in the Republic. These new churches and new faiths in Ireland offered many opportunities and gifts, he said.
Despite the gloom that appeared to dominate media coverage of Muslim-Christian relations, dialogue had become manifestly more positive in recent years, he added.
