The leader of the Irish Church has said that the Irish people have been “disenfranchised” from the Brexit debate, which he said felt like “something that goes on in the boardrooms of Brussels or Strasbourg or London”.
The Primate of All Ireland, Eamon Martin, told The Tablet that he was concerned about the consequences of a hard Brexit for Ireland.
“Some of my fears are that this whole debate has compounded difference, it has helped to polarise people again into camps, which is something that, particularly in Northern Ireland, we have to be aware of. The increase in ‘them’ and ‘us’ talk, the increase in sectarianism, the polarisation of communities and talk about borders and barriers rather than about bridges and what we have in common,” he said.
The Derry-born prelate appealed to people to consider the best of what has been achieved on the island of Ireland over the last twenty years, namely the Good Friday Agreement, but added: “What we have achieved is fragile; we should have a big sign up on all that we have achieved saying ‘fragile, handle with care’.”
“There is uncertainty and fear out there – people don’t want to be dragged backwards,” Archbishop Martin stressed and warned that communities along the border will strongly resist becoming “frontier people again” in the event of a no deal Brexit.
Dr Martin highlighted how two decades after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, people had grown up in these border areas “moving quite seamlessly from north to south” for business and personal reasons. But it was now “sad to hear some people almost talking up the differences".
On a practical note, the Archbishop of Armagh emphasised: “It is only wise that everyone starts to prepare economically for a range of possibilities that might happen.”
He was also critical of the Brexit debate’s exclusion of the very people who will be most affected by it.
“Brexit on the ground impacts on businesses, it impacts on agriculture, on fisheries and people whose livelihoods are in tourism, commerce and in transport. There are so many ways in which this can impact on ordinary people. We have all had to keep quiet and entrust it to the high-level board room discussions – there is a frustration at that.”
In a wide-ranging interview which covered his recent visit to persecuted Christians in Iraq, the stalemate in Stormont and Ireland’s new abortion regime, the Archbishop played down expectations for February’s Vatican summit on child protection saying he does “not expect the convention to make a huge difference”.
Archbishop Martin will attend the safeguarding summit in Rome from 21-24 February along with all of the presidents of the world’s various conferences of Catholic bishops.
“I do hope that if the convention achieves anything it will encourage those countries that have been slow to introduce effective guidelines and processes and procedures to come out of denial,” he said.
He added that one of the features of abuse is denial. “It is a feature in the family, it is a feature in any institution where it [abuse] happens, and it has sadly been a feature in the Churches. Therefore, we have to be aware of denial.”
He said he did not want to get his hopes up too much because the meeting would be short, lasting two to three days, and bringing together people from every corner of the world.
“Everyone is coming from a different context and environment. If we achieve anything, hopefully it will be a strong statement that the Catholic Church takes this issue extremely seriously and therefore ought to be a model of best practice which other institutions and organisations might follow.”
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