Northern Catholics of my parents’ generation had an image of Belfast City Hall as a citadel of hardline unionism. It was an imposing presence at the centre of the city and seemed to symbolise the dominance of a culture with which they felt little in common. They would hardly have envisaged that, within most of their lifetimes, unionism would lose control of that City Hall, and their fellow (Catholic) nationalists would get a meaningful role in the administration there. That day did come, however, and the changed dynamics of recent decades left Catholics increasingly more able to identify with Belfast’s civic life and its institutions.
In the eyes of many such Catholics, however, any growing affinity they might have had with City Hall will have been a dealt a severe blow by developments there in recent weeks. The background to this sad and sordid episode was outlined by Martina Purdy in this paper a fortnight ago – under the headline ‘Belfast City Hall shouldn’t be a billboard for abortion’. I will recall, here, the basics of that story.
Notorious
Belfast City Council had been approached, from south of the border, by the somewhat notorious National Women’s Council of Ireland. This group made a request to the council to illuminate the exterior of its City Hall on September 28, to celebrate ‘International Safe Abortion Day’. The Women’s Council explained: “NWC has reached out to a number of institutions across the island of Ireland to request they participate in the visual campaign and show support for safe and more accessible abortion in Ireland and abroad.” In asking this of Belfast, the National Women’s Council were pushing an initiative which has been promoted, internationally, by the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights. According to this body, it lobbies governments to fund “grassroots and feminist organisations, especially those led by women, youth, LGBTI+ and key populations” in the pursuit of what it terms “a world where all people can fulfil their sexual and reproductive rights”. Its principal work, in practice, is advocating for wider access to abortion and the removal of any remaining restrictions surrounding it.
Cllr Sarah Bunting expressed concern that ‘councillors were not given the opportunity to debate the merits of this particular illumination’”
The illumination request was passed to Belfast Council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee, meeting on August 21. A proposal to accede to the request, without debate, was backed by that meeting on a vote of 11 to 3. DUP members of the committee were the only dissenters – with Sinn Féin, SDLP, Alliance and Green Party representatives all endorsing this approach. Following the meeting, a DUP member of the committee spoke out publicly. Cllr Sarah Bunting expressed concern that “councillors were not given the opportunity to debate the merits of this particular illumination”. To her mind, “International Safe Abortion Day is a contradiction” and she was adamant that the City Hall “should not be used as a billboard to promote one side of such a campaign.”
Sarah Bunting’s words created a slogan and effectively initiated a campaign to persuade the wider Belfast Council to overrule what the sub-committee had decided. As the full council were scheduled to meet on September 1, this campaign had only ten days to work within. A significant range of voices, nonetheless, managed to make themselves heard. Martina Purdy detailed some of these in her recent article.
Valuable
A valuable aspect of pro-life advocacy in the north is its capacity to attract quite a degree of cross-community support. Organisations such as Both Lives Matter – largely affiliated with evangelical Protestantism – can network with groups with more links to the Catholic community, such as Precious Life, led by Mrs Bernadette Smyth. Despite this cross-community openness, official Inter-Church bodies, civic inter-church forums and more established ecumenical entities are viewed as keeping their distance from causes of this kind. In consequence, it is largely left to the abovementioned campaign groups – and others like them – to do the heavy lifting and take the flak which often comes with it.
Their efforts in this case deserve great credit. By the time the full Council gathered on September 1, the City Solicitor was on hand to advise that over 750 individual complaints about the illumination had been received, while an on-line petition had received more than 18,000 signatures. (Signatures have since exceeded 20,000).
We are not here to celebrate the ending of unborn life for innocent children”
Meanwhile, the unionist daily newspaper in the north, the News Letter, reported that the initiative “fails criteria for lighting up City Hall”. “Medical and similar support groups are specifically ruled out”, the paper explained “and even official campaign days recognised by the United Nations won’t see illuminations, unless there is a direct Belfast connection”.
The DUP had tabled a proposal for the September 1 meeting, aimed at overturning the now controversial decision. South Belfast councillor, Tracy Kelly, brought forward the proposal. In a very mild – yet powerful – contribution, Kelly suggested that, whatever Belfast’s councillors may personally believe about the issue of abortion, “we are not here to celebrate the ending of unborn life for innocent children.” Illuminating City Hall for “a particular campaign” she argued “sends a message of endorsement on an issue that remains deeply contested.” The Ulster Unionist Party’s East Belfast councillor, Sarah Copeland, agreed that the proposal was “divisive”. Matters surrounding abortion, she added, were “matters which do not deserve celebration”. Similar sentiments were expressed by other unionists who spoke. Nevertheless, the proposal to rescind the earlier decision – when eventually put to a vote – was defeated by a margin of 36 to 18.
Voted
Every unionist in attendance voted against the ‘lighting up’, plus one independent councillor who had previously resigned from the SDLP. The illumination was supported – on the other hand – by the combined votes of every Sinn Féin, SDLP, Alliance, Green Party and People Before Profit member present. The National Women’s Council warmly welcomed the decision, later that evening, expressing “our thanks to those who supported the proposal on Belfast City Council.”
It is not too late to stop and reflect here”
Serious concern, nevertheless, has continued to be voiced by both pro-life advocacy groups and pro-life political figures. The UK’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has issued a strongly worded statement: “The slaughter of children is not an issue that unites Belfast. It is a disgrace that public money is being used to pretend it does.”
Meanwhile, speaking for the DUP within the Northern Ireland Assembly last week, South Down MLA, Diane Forsythe, pointed to the numbers the online petition had now attracted. “Feelings are incredibly strong” she said. Forsythe indicated that her party was forcing a “call-in” of the Belfast decision – a mechanism which allows an initiative at council level, in the north, to be subjected to further review in certain circumstances.
“It is not too late to stop and reflect here” she added. In a searing critique of all that had unfolded, Forsythe pointed to the irony of certain parties at Stormont promoting “Baby Loss Certificates”, earlier this year – to acknowledge the pain of mothers whose children “had died in the womb” – while their councillors were proposing, elsewhere, to “celebrate” abortion and back a campaign aimed at furthering it. It was all “so distasteful”, she concluded.
Unreasonable
‘Distasteful’ seems a very unreasonable word to describe the recent behaviour of a cohort of Belfast councillors. As critics of their behaviour have pointed out, the issue at stake was neither the provision of abortion, nor access to it, within their city. Councillors who passionately favour abortion provision know, very well, that it is already amply available in Belfast. What’s more, they also know that responsibility for such provision (and for issues of access concerning it) lies well beyond their remit. Indeed, the abortion regime prevailing within Northern Ireland was not even authorised at Stormont level – but was effectively imposed from Westminster, in an indirect manner.
It is hard to identify a responsible reason for the decision to illuminate Belfast City Hall later this month, and it has merely resulted in division and controversy. And while the proposal may have initially passed committee level without much thought, councillors knew by September 1 the extent of opposition it faced and the offence it was causing. That a majority of their number decided to proceed – regardless – seems a poor reflection on the city’s current leadership.
Apart from a small number of the Alliance Party councillors who were involved, all other Belfast Council members who backed the City Hall illumination are Catholic”
One significant aspect of this sorry episode surely merits further attention: And that is the awareness that the outcome reached – and the hurt and distress caused – largely arise from the stance adopted by councillors from a Catholic background. Some of them may well repudiate being identified as such, and it is not possible to assess the relationship any of them may have with the Church today. The reality is, nonetheless, that apart from a small number of the Alliance Party councillors who were involved, all other Belfast Council members who backed the City Hall illumination are Catholic, in some fashion, by background. And most were probably educated at Catholic schools within the city.
Something similar can be said, of course, of party leadership and the wider political class in the Republic of Ireland – as has usually been remarked when contested social issues arise in the public domain. Somehow, though, the often-contrasting approach of unionist politicians in the north, around such contested issues, points up the behaviour of their nationalist counterparts more starkly.
Pattern
Moreover, it is a pattern of behaviour not limited to politics, but evident in other forums of public discourse – not least the media. As has typically been the case within the north for some years now, it was the unionist News Letter which gave most coverage to the City Hall ‘illumination’, over recent weeks, and afforded most space to opponents’ concerns. While the Irish News – traditionally associated with the Catholic community – has been careful to maintain a neutral position on abortion editorially, several of its columnists have been strident in support of ‘reproductive rights’. Pro-life voices and pro-life concerns, in contrast, are rarely enabled to come through strongly in its pages.
When campaigns for liberalising abortion, or campaigns around ‘marriage equality’, entered the political arena, it was left to unionist leadership to bring some balance to the debate”
A senior Protestant churchman raised this broad issue with me, some years ago, over a cup of tea at a Christian Unity gathering. He had in mind not just the abortion issue, but advocacy for “same-sex marriage” – which had not been legalised in the north at that point – and similar, liberal causes. He explained how he had expected that, over time, sections of nationalist opinion within the north would inevitably distance themselves from traditional values and from Church perspectives on family life and social issues.
He could not understand, however, the extent of that distancing and its almost “wholesale” nature within what seemed less than a couple of decades. One result of this – he pointed out – was that when campaigns for liberalising abortion, or campaigns around “marriage equality”, entered the public arena, it was left to unionist voices to bring some balance to the debate and provide the push-back required. And yet – he pointedly added – “it was your church which insisted, all along, on maintaining its own schools and protecting your Catholic ethos!”
Settings
I have often shared this story in Catholic settings – but rarely have the questions it raises been engaged with in any kind of sustained way. And yet those questions surely remain pressing and demand some serious unpacking – not just within the north of Ireland, but as part of any serious reflection upon the condition of the Faith and the mission of the Church across this island. It was noted by many – and was no small source of disquiet – that when the National Synthesis document was sent to Rome on behalf of Ireland’s Catholics, earlier in our Synodal Pathway, it nowhere acknowledged pro-life concerns within the country – but made multiple references to ‘LGBTQI+’ sentiment. The extent of so-called ideological capture could well be much greater than most of us have realised.
Given the issues at stake in this particular case, there is something truly tragic about it all and about the implications of what is being now proposed in the name of the north’s main city”
This recent Belfast City Hall saga is a troubling reminder of how successful that capture has become, at least within much of our civic and public life. And given the issues at stake in this particular case, there is something truly tragic about it all and about the implications of what is being now proposed at the heart of the north’s main city. My parents’ generation, for much of their lives, saw Belfast City Hall as a cold house for Catholics. Could they ever have imagined that – barely a generation later – causes they considered sacred would be thrashed by the children and grandchildren of their co-religionists, in the name of that same city? And that it would be its representatives of unionism – alone – who would be prepared to take a stand for the concerns that they, themselves, had always held dear.
‘We are not here to celebrate the ending of unborn life for innocent children’
Northern Catholics of my parents’ generation had an image of Belfast City Hall as a citadel of hardline unionism. It was an imposing presence at the centre of the city and seemed to symbolise the dominance of a culture with which they felt little in common. They would hardly have envisaged that, within most of their lifetimes, unionism would lose control of that City Hall, and their fellow (Catholic) nationalists would get a meaningful role in the administration there. That day did come, however, and the changed dynamics of recent decades left Catholics increasingly more able to identify with Belfast’s civic life and its institutions.
In the eyes of many such Catholics, however, any growing affinity they might have had with City Hall will have been a dealt a severe blow by developments there in recent weeks. The background to this sad and sordid episode was outlined by Martina Purdy in this paper a fortnight ago – under the headline ‘Belfast City Hall shouldn’t be a billboard for abortion’. I will recall, here, the basics of that story.
Notorious
Belfast City Council had been approached, from south of the border, by the somewhat notorious National Women’s Council of Ireland. This group made a request to the council to illuminate the exterior of its City Hall on September 28, to celebrate ‘International Safe Abortion Day’. The Women’s Council explained: “NWC has reached out to a number of institutions across the island of Ireland to request they participate in the visual campaign and show support for safe and more accessible abortion in Ireland and abroad.” In asking this of Belfast, the National Women’s Council were pushing an initiative which has been promoted, internationally, by the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights. According to this body, it lobbies governments to fund “grassroots and feminist organisations, especially those led by women, youth, LGBTI+ and key populations” in the pursuit of what it terms “a world where all people can fulfil their sexual and reproductive rights”. Its principal work, in practice, is advocating for wider access to abortion and the removal of any remaining restrictions surrounding it.
The illumination request was passed to Belfast Council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee, meeting on August 21. A proposal to accede to the request, without debate, was backed by that meeting on a vote of 11 to 3. DUP members of the committee were the only dissenters – with Sinn Féin, SDLP, Alliance and Green Party representatives all endorsing this approach. Following the meeting, a DUP member of the committee spoke out publicly. Cllr Sarah Bunting expressed concern that “councillors were not given the opportunity to debate the merits of this particular illumination”. To her mind, “International Safe Abortion Day is a contradiction” and she was adamant that the City Hall “should not be used as a billboard to promote one side of such a campaign.”
Sarah Bunting’s words created a slogan and effectively initiated a campaign to persuade the wider Belfast Council to overrule what the sub-committee had decided. As the full council were scheduled to meet on September 1, this campaign had only ten days to work within. A significant range of voices, nonetheless, managed to make themselves heard. Martina Purdy detailed some of these in her recent article.
Valuable
A valuable aspect of pro-life advocacy in the north is its capacity to attract quite a degree of cross-community support. Organisations such as Both Lives Matter – largely affiliated with evangelical Protestantism – can network with groups with more links to the Catholic community, such as Precious Life, led by Mrs Bernadette Smyth. Despite this cross-community openness, official Inter-Church bodies, civic inter-church forums and more established ecumenical entities are viewed as keeping their distance from causes of this kind. In consequence, it is largely left to the abovementioned campaign groups – and others like them – to do the heavy lifting and take the flak which often comes with it.
Their efforts in this case deserve great credit. By the time the full Council gathered on September 1, the City Solicitor was on hand to advise that over 750 individual complaints about the illumination had been received, while an on-line petition had received more than 18,000 signatures. (Signatures have since exceeded 20,000).
Meanwhile, the unionist daily newspaper in the north, the News Letter, reported that the initiative “fails criteria for lighting up City Hall”. “Medical and similar support groups are specifically ruled out”, the paper explained “and even official campaign days recognised by the United Nations won’t see illuminations, unless there is a direct Belfast connection”.
The DUP had tabled a proposal for the September 1 meeting, aimed at overturning the now controversial decision. South Belfast councillor, Tracy Kelly, brought forward the proposal. In a very mild – yet powerful – contribution, Kelly suggested that, whatever Belfast’s councillors may personally believe about the issue of abortion, “we are not here to celebrate the ending of unborn life for innocent children.” Illuminating City Hall for “a particular campaign” she argued “sends a message of endorsement on an issue that remains deeply contested.” The Ulster Unionist Party’s East Belfast councillor, Sarah Copeland, agreed that the proposal was “divisive”. Matters surrounding abortion, she added, were “matters which do not deserve celebration”. Similar sentiments were expressed by other unionists who spoke. Nevertheless, the proposal to rescind the earlier decision – when eventually put to a vote – was defeated by a margin of 36 to 18.
Voted
Every unionist in attendance voted against the ‘lighting up’, plus one independent councillor who had previously resigned from the SDLP. The illumination was supported – on the other hand – by the combined votes of every Sinn Féin, SDLP, Alliance, Green Party and People Before Profit member present. The National Women’s Council warmly welcomed the decision, later that evening, expressing “our thanks to those who supported the proposal on Belfast City Council.”
Serious concern, nevertheless, has continued to be voiced by both pro-life advocacy groups and pro-life political figures. The UK’s Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has issued a strongly worded statement: “The slaughter of children is not an issue that unites Belfast. It is a disgrace that public money is being used to pretend it does.”
Meanwhile, speaking for the DUP within the Northern Ireland Assembly last week, South Down MLA, Diane Forsythe, pointed to the numbers the online petition had now attracted. “Feelings are incredibly strong” she said. Forsythe indicated that her party was forcing a “call-in” of the Belfast decision – a mechanism which allows an initiative at council level, in the north, to be subjected to further review in certain circumstances.
“It is not too late to stop and reflect here” she added. In a searing critique of all that had unfolded, Forsythe pointed to the irony of certain parties at Stormont promoting “Baby Loss Certificates”, earlier this year – to acknowledge the pain of mothers whose children “had died in the womb” – while their councillors were proposing, elsewhere, to “celebrate” abortion and back a campaign aimed at furthering it. It was all “so distasteful”, she concluded.
Unreasonable
‘Distasteful’ seems a very unreasonable word to describe the recent behaviour of a cohort of Belfast councillors. As critics of their behaviour have pointed out, the issue at stake was neither the provision of abortion, nor access to it, within their city. Councillors who passionately favour abortion provision know, very well, that it is already amply available in Belfast. What’s more, they also know that responsibility for such provision (and for issues of access concerning it) lies well beyond their remit. Indeed, the abortion regime prevailing within Northern Ireland was not even authorised at Stormont level – but was effectively imposed from Westminster, in an indirect manner.
It is hard to identify a responsible reason for the decision to illuminate Belfast City Hall later this month, and it has merely resulted in division and controversy. And while the proposal may have initially passed committee level without much thought, councillors knew by September 1 the extent of opposition it faced and the offence it was causing. That a majority of their number decided to proceed – regardless – seems a poor reflection on the city’s current leadership.
One significant aspect of this sorry episode surely merits further attention: And that is the awareness that the outcome reached – and the hurt and distress caused – largely arise from the stance adopted by councillors from a Catholic background. Some of them may well repudiate being identified as such, and it is not possible to assess the relationship any of them may have with the Church today. The reality is, nonetheless, that apart from a small number of the Alliance Party councillors who were involved, all other Belfast Council members who backed the City Hall illumination are Catholic, in some fashion, by background. And most were probably educated at Catholic schools within the city.
Something similar can be said, of course, of party leadership and the wider political class in the Republic of Ireland – as has usually been remarked when contested social issues arise in the public domain. Somehow, though, the often-contrasting approach of unionist politicians in the north, around such contested issues, points up the behaviour of their nationalist counterparts more starkly.
Pattern
Moreover, it is a pattern of behaviour not limited to politics, but evident in other forums of public discourse – not least the media. As has typically been the case within the north for some years now, it was the unionist News Letter which gave most coverage to the City Hall ‘illumination’, over recent weeks, and afforded most space to opponents’ concerns. While the Irish News – traditionally associated with the Catholic community – has been careful to maintain a neutral position on abortion editorially, several of its columnists have been strident in support of ‘reproductive rights’. Pro-life voices and pro-life concerns, in contrast, are rarely enabled to come through strongly in its pages.
A senior Protestant churchman raised this broad issue with me, some years ago, over a cup of tea at a Christian Unity gathering. He had in mind not just the abortion issue, but advocacy for “same-sex marriage” – which had not been legalised in the north at that point – and similar, liberal causes. He explained how he had expected that, over time, sections of nationalist opinion within the north would inevitably distance themselves from traditional values and from Church perspectives on family life and social issues.
He could not understand, however, the extent of that distancing and its almost “wholesale” nature within what seemed less than a couple of decades. One result of this – he pointed out – was that when campaigns for liberalising abortion, or campaigns around “marriage equality”, entered the public arena, it was left to unionist voices to bring some balance to the debate and provide the push-back required. And yet – he pointedly added – “it was your church which insisted, all along, on maintaining its own schools and protecting your Catholic ethos!”
Settings
I have often shared this story in Catholic settings – but rarely have the questions it raises been engaged with in any kind of sustained way. And yet those questions surely remain pressing and demand some serious unpacking – not just within the north of Ireland, but as part of any serious reflection upon the condition of the Faith and the mission of the Church across this island. It was noted by many – and was no small source of disquiet – that when the National Synthesis document was sent to Rome on behalf of Ireland’s Catholics, earlier in our Synodal Pathway, it nowhere acknowledged pro-life concerns within the country – but made multiple references to ‘LGBTQI+’ sentiment. The extent of so-called ideological capture could well be much greater than most of us have realised.
This recent Belfast City Hall saga is a troubling reminder of how successful that capture has become, at least within much of our civic and public life. And given the issues at stake in this particular case, there is something truly tragic about it all and about the implications of what is being now proposed at the heart of the north’s main city. My parents’ generation, for much of their lives, saw Belfast City Hall as a cold house for Catholics. Could they ever have imagined that – barely a generation later – causes they considered sacred would be thrashed by the children and grandchildren of their co-religionists, in the name of that same city? And that it would be its representatives of unionism – alone – who would be prepared to take a stand for the concerns that they, themselves, had always held dear.
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