Prayers at Council meetings

Posted By: Robin Parker
Date Posted: 18/11/2007

I’ve noted in the community columns that it has been mentioned that Alan Taylor and Irene Davidson, Leader and Deputy, have not attended civic prayers before Council Meetings. Until this year, when I sit in the Deputy Mayor’s chair and therefore am obliged to attend, the same comments could have been made of me.

I have not asked Alan and Irene why they do not attend, that is their business, but I will happily speak for myself. First, though, some personal background.

In 1970 I attended the Queen’s College at Birmingham, an ecumenical theological college, to train for the Methodist Ministry. This was in conjunction with a degree in theology at Birmingham University. Having completed my training in 1974 I decided not to proceed with ordination but instead to go into social work. Since then I have become a confirmed Anglican and attend mass weekly at All Saints and Martyrs Church, Langley. This afternoon I attended the annual Bereavement Service. It was an opportunity where friends and relatives of anyone on the estate who had had a funeral in the last twelve months or so could come and join with others in remembering their loved ones, light a candle and receive a remembrance flower and card. It is one of the most meaningful and helpful services we hold during the year.

In total contrast to that service, it is hard to think of a more secular event than a Council meeting. Political groups will have met beforehand and determined their positions. Points will be scored in an atmosphere that can sometimes become vitriolic and occasionally an opposition point will cause the ruling group to think again, though only occasionally. (That’s not a swipe at the Lib Dems; it was exactly the same when we had control). In my view it is totally out of order to ask the blessing of a deity on something which has been so predetermined. And that is why, purely for theological reasons, I do not attend prayers at Council meetings. We also had a situation where, not many meetings ago, a chaplain invited members to join in the Lord’s Prayer, thereby excluding five Muslim councillors.

Those who go back to the beginning of Rochdale Metropolitan Borough will know that prayers before Council meetings were not the norm. It was in either 1976 or 1977 when the Tories took control that the practice began and nobody has felt the need to change that until now. So I am giving notice that when I become Mayor I shall not be having prayers before Council meetings. I shall also not just be having a chaplain, I shall be having a chaplaincy, consisting of four representatives of the main faiths in the Borough, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Free Church and Muslim. In addition to the annual civic service, which will be in my own church, I hope to be able to share in faith events around the Borough through the offices of the other chaplains. Thereby the Mayorality will be continuing to recognise the main faiths of the Borough and, in addition, I shall be pleased to attend events organised by minority faiths where possible.