Praying for Paisley – Fr Gerry Reynolds and the role of prayer in faith-based peacebuilding: a preliminary theoretical framework

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a preliminary theoretical framework for understanding the role of prayer in faith-based peacebuilding. The framework draws on research on the life of a Redemptorist priest, Fr Gerry Reynolds (1935–2015), who was based in Belfast’s Clonard Monastery (1983–2015) during the Troubles; and recent interdisciplinary scholarship on prayer, utilising Woodhead’s [(2015). Conclusion: Prayer as changing the subject. In G. Giordan, & L. Woodhead (Eds.), A sociology of prayer (pp. 213–230). Farnham: Ashgate] re-definition of prayer as ‘changing the subject’. The framework encompasses two individual effects of prayer: (1) prompting religious identity change, and (2) sustaining hope and activism during adversity; with one additional socio-political effect: (3) creating and sustaining real-world initiatives. It argues that scholars have not yet grasped how prayer functions as a resource for faith-based peacebuilders. It advocates including prayer as a variable in future research on faith-based peacebuilding, which may confirm, challenge or alter the preliminary framework.

KEYWORDS:

• Religion
• peacebuilding
• prayer
• Rev Ian Paisley
• Fr Gerry Reynolds
• Northern Ireland conflict
• identity

Introduction

Much scholarly literature on the Northern Ireland conflict ignores or underplays the role of religion in contributing to violence or to peace (McGarry & O’Leary, 1995; McGrattan, 2010; Mitchell & Wilford, 1999). There have been notable exceptions, including Ruane and Todd’s (1996) Dynamics of Conflict in Northern Ireland, which recognises religion as one of five crucial dimensions of difference that helped create and sustain patterns of division; Mitchell’s (2005) analysis of how religion continues to influence society and politics in subtle ways; Marianne Elliott’s (2010) exploration of the complex contemporary consequences of historical relationships between religion and identity; and Steve Bruce’s (2007) work, which analyses the importance of evangelicalism for wider Protestant-unionist-loyalist identity.

Northern Ireland also features prominently in international, multi-disciplinary studies of faith-based peacebuilding. It was one of the case studies in Appleby’s (1999) seminal The Ambivalence of the Sacred, and appears in other comparative studies in this growing field (Amstutz, 2005; Cejka & Bamat, 2003; Marsden, 2012; Omer, Appleby, & Little, 2015; Sandal, 2017; Silvestri & Mayall, 2015; Wilson, 2012). While much of this scholarship has been based on empirical case studies (Appleby, 1999; Brudhom & Cushman, 2009), other work has developed frameworks for understanding how religion functions in divided civil societies (Ganiel, 2008), the role of religion in promoting inclusive, peaceful identity change (Mitchell & Ganiel, 2011; Mitchell & Todd, 2007; Todd, 2018), how divisive theologies and cultural identification can challenge faith-based peacebuilders (Southern, 2009), the unique advantages of faith-based negotiators (Bercovitch & Kadayifci-Orellana, 2009), the advantages of inter-faith dialogue (Cornille, 2013), and how faith-based peacebuilders can maximise their effectiveness (Kmec & Ganiel, 2019). In what is perhaps the most comprehensive framework to-date, sociologists Brewer, Higgins, and Teeny (2011, 2010) situate faith-based peacebuilding within the ‘social peace process’ of civil society. They argue that religious actors are well-placed to create ‘spaces’ where new models of peace can be enacted, with ‘mavericks’ on the margins of mainstream religious institutions the most likely to be effective peacebuilders.

A key insight from this research is that faith-based peacebuilders must be able to draw on religious resources from their own traditions to make the case for peace. The most effective religious resources for peace are those that re-imagine the institutions, symbols, ideas, and discourses that have contributed to conflict. For example, in Northern Ireland, the special interest group Evangelical Contribution on Northern Ireland (ECONI) has been judged to have been especially effective because it drew on evangelicals’ high regard for the Bible by using Biblical texts to justify peace-making (Brewer et al., 2011; Ganiel, 2008; Mitchel, 2003; Power, 2011). Yet apart from Schwarz’s (2018a, 2018b) work, one religious resource that has been neglected in this field of scholarship is prayer, a practice that faith-based peacebuilders participate in frequently, often daily. Given that prayer matters so much to so many faith-based peacebuilders, it is surprising that previous research has not focused on this subject. Schwarz (2018a, p. 15) argues that this neglect is rooted in scholars’ ‘ontological assumptions’ about what constitute ‘religious’ practices. For her, dominant ‘secularist’ narratives influence scholars to relegate what they see as inherently ‘religious’ practices like prayer to an individualised, transcendental private realm, deeming it ‘largely inconsequential for ‘real’ peacebuilding work’ (Schwarz, 2018a, p. 15; Wilson, 2012). Conceptions of religion as irrational, violent, or prone to proselytise reinforce this neglect not only among scholars but also among funding bodies, most of which require organisations to separate ‘religious’ practices like prayer from their funded work. Such perspectives prevent scholars from interrogating how prayer matters, despite emerging evidence that praying prompts faith-based peacebuilders to think and act in certain ways, inspiring and sustaining their work for peace (see also Wilson, 2014). Indeed, prayer may be one of the most significant faith-based resources for peace and is worthy of further and deeper analysis across contexts.

This article proposes a preliminary theoretical framework for understanding the role of prayer in faith-based peacebuilding. The framework draws on research for a biography of a Redemptorist priest, Fr Gerry Reynolds (1935–2015), who was based in Belfast’s Clonard Monastery (1983–2015) during the Troubles (Ganiel, 2019). Reynolds was a confidant of fellow Redemptorist Fr Alec Reid, the key mediator in secret peace talks between the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Sinn Féin, the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), and the British and Irish Governments. Reynolds assisted Reid in his preparations for talks and accompanied him on some occasions. Along with Reid, he organised another set of secret talks between Sinn Féin and Protestant clergy, which have been credited with helping Sinn Féin better understand unionist positions. Reynolds also was a pioneer of ecumenical peacebuilding initiatives in Belfast, including the Cornerstone Community, the Clonard-Fitzroy Fellowship, and the Unity Pilgrims. Reynolds saw his practice of prayer and his peacebuilding work as interdependent, a perspective that is shared by faith-based peacebuilders in other contexts (Schwarz, 2018a).

The framework also utilises Woodhead’s (2015) re-definition of prayer as ‘changing the subject’. The subtle play on words involved in ‘changing the subject’ conveys both prayer’s individual effects (changing the perspective of the subject(s) or person(s) doing the praying); and its potential socio-political effects (changing the subjects or topics of prayer as people become concerned with new problems – and then motivated to do something about them in the real world). Using examples from Reynolds’ life, the framework for understanding the role of prayer in faith-based peacebuilding encompasses two individual effects of prayer: (1) prompting religious identity change; and (2) sustaining hope and activism during adversity; and one socio-political effect: (3) creating and sustaining real-world initiatives.

One of the most striking aspects of Reynolds’ prayer life was his petitions for the Rev. Ian Paisley. During the Troubles, Paisley’s hard-line blend of evangelical Protestantism and politics contributed to communal division (Bruce, 2007) and, some have argued, inspired or justified violence (Ganiel, 2008; Ganiel & Yohanis, 2019; Maloney, 2008; Mitchel, 2003). Paisley converted to more moderate political positions in later life. But for decades he was vehemently opposed to ecumenism, arguing that it was a threat to the political position and religious identity of Ulster Protestants. In contrast, Reynolds was an enthusiastic ecumenist, seeing it as integral to peacebuilding in Northern Ireland and as the future of worldwide Christianity. During Reynolds’ early years in Clonard, Paisley and his followers staged major protests against two ecumenical events which Reynolds helped organise: a 1986 discussion between Catholic Bishop Cahal Daly and Rev. Robert Dickinson, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church, in Fitzroy Presbyterian in Belfast; and a 1987 Catholic-Methodist Conference in Belfast celebrating the lives of Redemptorist founder Alphonsus de Ligouri and Methodist founder John Wesley.¹ Both events attracted large crowds of protestors and required policing to maintain public order. Reynolds’ prayers about these events, which continued for decades after they occurred, serve as some of the examples in support of the framework developed in this article.

The article proceeds with a brief discussion of methods. It then reviews scholarly studies of prayer, which have enjoyed something of a revival in the last decade, culminating by noting the usefulness of Woodhead’s conceptualisation of prayer. Next, it uses examples from Reynolds’ life to illustrate the framework. It concludes by arguing that Reynolds’ example hints that scholars have not yet come to grips with how prayer functions as a resource for faith-based peacebuilders. Future research focusing on or including prayer as a key component of faith-based peacebuilding may confirm, challenge or alter my preliminary framework.

Methods

In July 2015, I was approached by Rev. Ken Newell, a former minister at Fitzroy Presbyterian Church. Newell appreciated Reynolds’ contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process and suggested that I write a biography of his friend that would appeal to a popular audience. I agreed, and interviewed Reynolds seven times before he died in November 2015. Reynolds also gave me boxes of his journals and personal papers, which were supplemented by more such materials that the Redemptorists found in his room after his death.² I approached these materials like a popular biographer, using them to piece together the events of Reynolds’ life, and his insights and personal beliefs about a variety of topics. I did not set out to write a scholarly article about prayer. Yet as I read his journals, in which he often composed prayers, I realised that he believed his prayers generated personal, social, and political effects in the real world. Reynolds’ journals helped me see that prayer was something I had been neglecting in my scholarly work on faith-based peacebuilding.

Reynolds and I did not talk extensively about prayer in our interviews, although he was eager to give me prayer cards with the texts of two of his favourite prayers printed on them: Fr Paul Couturier’s prayer for Christian unity, which Reynolds translated himself from French; and Blessed Charles de Foucauld’s ‘prayer of abandonment’.³ It was not until after Reynolds died, and I read further in his journals, that I slowly began to realise how important prayer was for him. So I returned to the text of Reynolds’ journals, using narrative analysis to identify three main ways prayer shaped his peace ministry. These are the three elements that form the provisional framework for understanding the role of prayer in faith-based peacebuilding: (1) prompting religious identity change; (2) sustaining hope and activism during adversity; and (3) creating and sustaining real-world initiatives.

I also was aware that the study of prayer had enjoyed a renaissance in the sociology of religion in the last decade. In the United States, the Social Science Research Council commissioned a major project on prayer (2011–2015), with outputs including a special issue of the Journal of Religious and Political Practice (2016) and a special subsection in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion (2013). In Europe, Giordan and Woodhead (2015; Woodhead & Giordan, 2013) produced a two-volume edited collection on prayer. With its observations about both the personal and social/political effects of prayer, this wider body of research triangulated with the insights I had gleaned from Reynolds’ diaries and provided a foundation for the framework.

There are limitations to my methods, not least of which is developing a framework based largely on the journals of a single priest. But the framework resonates with the burgeoning body of research in the sociology of religion, providing confidence that my dual focus on the individual and social/political effects of prayer is valid. It also resonates with scattered examples in the peacebuilding literature of the importance people of faith place on prayer in times of conflict, both in Northern Ireland (Ganiel & Yohanis, 2019; Robinson, 2015; Wells, 2005) and further afield (Dubois, 2008; Katongole, 2017; Schwarz, 2018a). As far as I am aware, no other studies apply the insights from the sociological literature on prayer to faith-based peacebuilding. In that light, my framework should be considered a starting point for arguing for the inclusion of prayer in future studies of faith-based peacebuilding, not only in sociology but also in politics and international relations.

Prayer

Contemporary scholarship on prayer traces its origins to the founders of sociology like Durkheim and Weber, albeit acknowledging that their work on prayer was just a small aspect of their studies of religion (Woodhead & Giordian, 2013). They conceived of prayer as an attempt to influence the divine, with the aim of securing material benefits for oneself or others. In his 1909 manuscript On Prayer, Mauss (2003), another early sociologist, conceived of prayer as a social practice and an instrument of action. Despite these antecedents, research on prayer is relatively new; in a pioneering study Poloma and Gallup (1991, p. xiii) noted that between 1872 and 1985, only 16 sociologists had tried to analyse prayer. Some research was conducted in psychology and focused on the individual effects of prayer, including its role in improving health outcomes and as a coping mechanism to help people deal with anxiety or cultivate an optimistic attitude towards life, especially in the face of suffering (Ladd & Spilka, 2006, 2002; Poloma, 1991). Other studies classified types of prayer, including Ladd and Spilka’s conceptualisation of prayer as having ‘cognitive connections’ containing inward (self-examination), outward (strengthening human-human connections), and upward (strengthening the human-divine relationship) dimensions (Ladd & Spilka, 2006, p. 233). Breslin, Lewis, and Shevlin (2010) contested Ladd and Spilka’s claim that prayer could be neatly divided into these three dimensions, with most prayers containing aspects of all dimensions. Nevertheless, they concluded that Ladd and Spilka’s most valuable contribution was the insight that prayer included ‘both pleasant and uncomfortable aspects’. For Breslin et al. (2010, p. 720), this explained how prayer can both provide comfort and serve as a mechanism for people to make anguished requests. Further studies from a variety of disciplines demonstrated that the frequency of individuals’ prayer correlated with higher levels of civic engagement (Loveland, Sikkink, Myers, & Radclif, 2005; Mason, 2015) and better life satisfaction and health outcomes (Baker, 2008; Meisenhelder & Chandler, 2001; Poloma & Pendleton, 1991); that people who were disadvantaged or minorities were more likely to pray for supernatural favours (Baker, 2008); that prayer played a major role in ‘the constitution of selfhood and moral subjectivity’ among Muslims in Indonesia (Simon, 2009, p. 258); and that prayer functioned as a ‘technology of self-cultivation’ among Muslim women in Turkey (Topal, 2017). Others, like Mason (2013), explored how contemporary Western prayer practices are orientated towards cultivating a relationship with the divine rather than securing material benefits.

While these studies emphasised the varied individual effects of prayer, others emphasised prayer’s social and political effects. Poloma and Gallup (1991) demonstrated that those who prayed were more supportive of faith-based political action, Genova (2015) drew on Mauss to define prayer as a performative action in which individuals and groups derive meaning not just, or even primarily, from the words spoken in prayer, but also in the embodied action itself, regardless of worldly outcomes; Fuist (2015) argued that collective prayer ‘dramatised’ religious groups’ socio-political beliefs, thereby communicating values and asserting a shared identity; and Butt (2016) described how public prayer meetings were used as platforms for Islamist political mobilisation in Pakistan. In other examples, scholars explored prayer’s relation to explicitly political concerns by using people’s own characterisation of prayer as ‘spiritual warfare’ to explain how it functioned to promote everyday militarisation in the United States (McAlister, 2016); and as a ‘problematic’ form of ‘political praxis’ among Pentecostals in Nigeria and the United States (Marshall, 2016, p. 92).

The revival of the study of prayer in the sociology of religion has emphasised both the individual and social/political effects of prayer. This integration of both aspects of prayer has been usefully expressed in Woodhead’s re-definition of prayer as ‘changing the subject’, or ‘switching the conversation in one’s head, taking a new subject-position or viewpoint (including God’s), moving to a new emotional register, altering focus, or dissociating from one state and entering another ‘higher’ one … ’ (Woodhead, 2015, p. 213). Woodhead’s phrase ‘changing the subject’ conveys both prayer’s individual effects (changing the perspective of the ‘subject(s)’ or person(s) doing the praying); and its potential socio-political effects (changing the ‘subjects’ or topics of prayer as people become concerned with new problems – and then motivated to do something about them in the real world). Giordan (2015, p. 2) concurred:

The growing number of studies carried out in the last decades tell us that prayer is indeed capable of changing reality, but this often happens as a consequence of the change in the ‘inner’ world of the person who prays: a change that challenges the rules of logic, and that is capable of working even if ‘seemingly’ the requested results do not take place.

Or as Woodhead put it (2015, p. 221):

[Of those who] pray for real-world effects … the person who prays treats prayer as a tool in a wider process of world-transformation … This goes beyond the view of prayer as merely a way of communicating or coping with circumstances, and elevates prayer to the status of change agent.

Insights from this renewed scholarship have not been fully grasped in the study of politics or international relations. Schwarz’s investigation (2018a) of three transnational faith-based organisations (FBOs) is an exception.⁴ She spends considerable time articulating the FBOs’ diverse understandings of the meanings and functions of prayer, arguing that prayer has political consequences and should be taken seriously. Schwarz advocates a bottom-up ‘reflexive approach’ for understanding how practitioners and researchers co-construct meanings of prayer but stops short of outlining a framework for understanding the role of prayer in faith-based peacebuilding. Nevertheless, she demonstrates that practitioners’ belief in the potential of prayer to ‘change reality’ (as with Giordian, above) is relevant to the theoretical and empirical concerns of politics and international relations. This is crucial in the study of faith-based peacebuilding, where people living with conflict and trauma could capitalise on the potential benefits of prayer at both individual and social/political levels.

A framework for understanding the role of prayer in faith-based peacebuilding

Because this article is developing a framework for understanding the role of prayer in faith-based peacebuilding, it adopts a rather benign view of prayer, assuming that peacebuilding is a benign pursuit. But before proceeding to that framework, it is necessary to acknowledge that prayer may not always be used for peaceful or benign ends – a point made in several of the studies mentioned above (Butt, 2016; Marshall, 2016; McAlister, 2016). Indeed, one of the most famous examples of public prayer from the Troubles is Paisley’s prayer against Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher from the pulpit of his Martyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian Church. Paisley was upset with Thatcher for her role in negotiating the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, which he perceived as giving the Irish Government an undue influence on Northern Ireland’s affairs. Paisley prayed (quoted in Smyth, 1987, p. 192):

We remember that the Apostle Paul handed over the enemies of truth to the Devil that they might learn not to blaspheme. … we hand this woman, Margaret Thatcher, to the Devil, that she might learn not to blaspheme. We pray that thouds’t make her a monument of Thy divine vengeance … O God, in wrath take vengeance upon this wicked, treacherous lying woman.

With that caveat in mind, I provide examples from Reynolds’ life to illustrate the three aspects of the framework for understanding the role of prayer in faith-based peacebuilding: (1) prompting religious identity change; (2) sustaining hope and activism during adversity; and (3) creating and sustaining real-world initiatives.

Prompting religious identity change

While previously religious identities were considered stable or fixed, a significant body of research on religion during the post-Good Friday Agreement period has emphasised that religious identities are more malleable than has been supposed, even in a violent and divided society like Northern Ireland (Mitchell & Ganiel, 2011; Mitchell & Todd, 2007; Todd, 2018). This work has not overly concerned itself with change from one religious identification to another, i.e. from Catholic to Protestant or vice versa. Rather, it has analysed how people retain their religious identification but some of the content of that identity changes, moving in more conservative or moderate/liberal directions, religiously and/or politically. In Reynolds’ diaries and papers, I found examples of how prayer had prompted identity change in him.

The first example is shared prayer during an ecumenical Bible study in 1985. It is a story Reynolds told publicly on numerous occasions about how the experience of prayer with people from the ‘other’ side helped him realise his own prejudices. While one might assume that by already participating in an ecumenical Bible study Reynolds had overcome his prejudices, this was not the case for the way he thought about Paisley, others he considered extreme evangelicals, and the British Army. In an account of the event from a homily he gave at a memorial mass for the victims of Bloody Sunday at a Redemptorist church in Brooklyn, in the United States, in 1996, Reynolds said the change in him brought about by ‘prayer and dialogue’ had been ‘political’:

Studying together the Word of God, seeking his project for us all, is a sure path to reconciliation both in the Church and in the whole society. It is a way of entering into God’s work in history. It is an experience of the political power of prayer and dialogue. … At a small Bible study group of Catholics and Protestants we were pondering together chapter five of St Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians: ‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not holding anyone’s faults against them, but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.’ The words ‘not holding anyone’s faults against them’ suddenly lit up with meaning for me. I realised how far I was from God’s unconditional compassion and mercy towards all. For every time I told the story of our Troubles I would hold the other side’s faults against them. That experience began a radical change of heart in me. It was a moment of conversion to God in Christ ‘reconciling the world to himself.’ I became aware of the conflict of faith and culture in me.⁵

Reynolds’ ‘conflict of faith and culture’ can be taken to express the extent of his prior identification of Catholicism with Irish national identity, which he now understood as an exclusive expression of identity. Reynolds’ journals also revealed just how far his religious identity had changed in the direction of an ecumenical Christian identity. Amidst the prayers to the saints of the Catholic Church, Gerry began to petition Protestant Reformer John Calvin, and John and Charles Wesley, founders of Methodism. I have not found evidence that he petitioned the Reformers publicly. But the fact that he prayed to them at all represents for me a profound re-imagining of Irish Catholic identity. Calvin is the Reformer associated with Presbyterianism and Catholics long regarded him as a heretic or enemy of the Catholic Church. But Reynolds re-imagined him as an ally in supernaturally facilitating the Church’s mission on earth, in all its Catholic, Protestant, and other expressions. So in October 2011 Reynolds prayed: ‘John Calvin, pray for us. We want to help our Irish Presbyterian brothers and sisters to complete your reform.’ On Easter Sunday 2012 he reflected that ‘the divine vocation of John Calvin’ was ‘to empower the laity of the Catholic Church.’ Here, Reynolds was praying that the example of lay empowerment he saw in the Irish and worldwide Presbyterian Church would be extended to lay Catholics, who have typically not taken on leading roles in the Irish Catholic Church. Even today, some Catholics would regard Reynolds’ petitions to Calvin as heretical or misguided. Others would accept some of the Reformers arguments about the need for change in the Catholic Church, but very few would actively recognise the Reformers as saints worthy of petition and veneration, as is clearly the case with Reynolds. His prayers demonstrate the extent that he had internalised a Christian identity that encompassed what he saw as the best of both the Protestant and Catholic traditions.

Finally, there is evidence that Reynolds’ prayers for Paisley helped change his perspective on him and on Paisley’s role in the Troubles. It could be said that Reynolds was observing the ancient Christian admonition to ‘love your enemies’, and ‘pray for those who speak evil about you’, and that his prayers helped to create a Christian identity for himself that was inclusive even of Paisley. While Reynolds prayed privately for Paisley even before Paisley disrupted his ecumenical events, it was not until 2001 that he prayed publicly for him at mass. He also began to think about going to Paisley’s congregation, Martyrs’ Memorial Free Presbyterian Church, and joining him in worship. In 2004 he wrote:

It is not appropriate for me at this time to seek to worship with Ian Paisley. If an opportunity unfolds I will take it and ask that he speak about God’s mercy (Luke 15 and Psalm 130). I will worship with him in a spirit of penitence, asking forgiveness of God and of the Free Presbyterians for the sins committed in the name of the Catholic Church – particularly the burning of Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley.⁶

In his diaries, Reynolds reflected on what attending Paisley’s church might mean, but he never joined Paisley for worship. It is striking that a man who developed the Unity Pilgrims – a group of Catholics who join different Protestant congregations for worship every Sunday – never worshipped with Paisley. When the Unity Pilgrims began in 1994, prior to the Good Friday Agreement, a visit to Paisley’s congregation could have been interpreted as provocative, even dangerous. Paisley’s reputation for fiery anti-Catholic rhetoric – he regularly referred to the Catholic Church and the Pope as anti-Christs – meant that, at the very least, it could have proved an upsetting experience for the Unity Pilgrims. In the latter years of Reynolds’ life, as Paisley’s religious and political pronouncements mellowed, a visit could have been feasible. But given that most Free Presbyterians do not consider Catholics true Christians, it is still likely the congregation would have viewed the Unity Pilgrims as candidates for conversion rather than sisters and brothers in Christ. Even so, Reynolds’ decision not to visit Paisley’s church tells us something about the limitations of his inclusive Christian identity. Or, as Reynolds’ Redemptorist colleague Fr Brendan McConvery pointed out when explaining his interpretation of why the Unity Pilgrims never visited Paisley’s church (personal communication, 20 September 2019):

I suspect Gerry realised that if Ian knew he was in the congregation, it would have given him an opportunity to ‘hand him over to Satan’, as it was not always easy to tell when Ian was proclaiming the Gospel and blasting off politically. … Life is complicated in Belfast and sometimes simple gestures are widely open to misunderstanding.

McConvery’s comments reflect concerns that the Unity Pilgrims might have been denounced from the pulpit or treated as objects for conversion. Yet in 2001, preaching a retreat for the Presentation Sisters, a Catholic Religious Congregation founded by Nano Nagle (1718–1784) of Cork,⁷ Reynolds said: ‘To me Ian Paisley is a fellow countryman; he is a fellow Christian.’ A few days after Paisley’s death in 2014, Reynolds wrote about his prayers for Paisley in his journal:

I often asked people, ‘Pray for the Big Man.’ Some replied, ‘Are you serious?’ … I could never worship with him in Martyrs Memorial. My unresolved question: ‘Was the God he believed in the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit of Love and Truth or a sectarian idol of his own making?’ … I choose now to remember Ian Paisley, no longer angry, arrogant and contentious, but as the truly born again man making his farewell speech to the Northern Ireland Assembly full of wisdom and warmth to all of us who live in Northern Ireland, lauding reverence, neighbourliness and kindness in our relations with one another, and telling us to ‘remember it’s the heart that should drive us on.’ A miraculous change in him – God’s grace at work.⁸

For Reynolds, Paisley was no longer simply a man who condemned Catholics and their church; rather, Paisley was a fellow Christian serving the people of Northern Ireland. It is possible that his encouragement to Belfast mass-goers to pray for the ‘Big Man’ may have prompted others to think about Paisley in the same way. It should be added that Paisley’s behaviour in his later years included a warm relationship with Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, a former member of the IRA. Indeed, when Paisley revealed that he and McGuinness prayed together, it demonstrated that the prayers of the ‘Big Man’ himself may have contributed to changing his religious identity to one that was more inclusive of difference.⁹

Sustaining hope and activism during adversity

Peacebuilding is by definition difficult, fraught with adversity, discouragements, and setbacks. Reynolds’ ministry in Clonard brought him into contact with many victims of violence, for whom he provided pastoral care. This was draining work which left him open to secondary trauma. He also was engaged in behind-the-scenes peace-making with his Redemptorist colleague Fr Alec Reid, which included the risky project of bringing the IRA into political negotiations (McKeever, 2017; Rafter, 2003). The stress of this work took its toll on their physical and mental health. Here, the research which analyses how prayer functions as a coping mechanism in times of stress or trauma is relevant for understanding its role in Reynolds’ and Reid’s lives (Ladd & Spilka, 2006, 2002; Poloma, 1991). Another recent study has described how prayer was used as a source of comfort or a coping mechanism among Presbyterians during the Troubles, especially victims/survivors, members of the security forces, and ministers providing pastoral support to those affected by violence (Ganiel & Yohanis, 2019). Katongole’s (2017) research on northern Uganda also has emphasised the importance of prayer as a coping strategy in the life of peace-building Archbishop John Baptist Odama.

Reynolds’ journals confirmed that prayer gave him hope during adversity, hope which sustained him during his activist ministry. Reynolds’ life was structured by the rhythms of thrice-daily communal prayer with his Redemptorist brothers in Clonard, and the Redemptorist practice of an hour of personal prayer each day. His prayer life was also nurtured through his involvement in the Jesus Caritas Fraternity of priests. This worldwide community established a chapter in Ireland in the late 1970s, and Reynolds was involved from the beginning. The Fraternity encouraged members to commit to a daily hour of Prayer of Adoration. Reynolds embraced this practice and used his journals to record his prayers and insights during his hours of Adoration. This prayer from April 1984, in the form of a conversation with Íosa Grá (an Irish rendition of Jesus Christ which emphasises Christ’s love), provides insight into the difficulty of his work with Reid, as well as the encouragement brought to them by Frances Hartley, a devout woman from a republican family that lived near Clonard:

I was very tired – weary – after almost eight months in Clonard coming more and more into the heart of the pain of your people. On Holy Saturday Al Reid suggested that he, Frances and I form a group to minister to all at the heart of the Troubles. Íosa Grá I’m grateful for the encouragement Frances has brought to Al: ‘You have warmed my heart,’ he told her, saying ‘isn’t it very lonely?’, meaning the kind of ministry which broke his health after the hunger strike.¹⁰

Reynolds’ prayers for those who opposed his efforts at peacebuilding and ecumenism – including Paisley and his followers – also helped him keep going during adversity. An example of this is his prayer during the 1987 Catholic-Methodist conference, in the form of a conversation with the Holy Spirit, where he prays for the Paisley-inspired protesters:

Yesterday I spoke to the protesters at the gate. They took me for a Methodist minister because I was dressed in grey but eventually I told them who I was. Holy Spirit, open their hearts to the love you have placed in my heart for them. Break down the barriers that fear and hatred have built. Put into their hearts your love for us.¹¹

In his prayers Reynolds also observed that it seemed that other Christians did not think peacebuilding and ecumenism were important, even if they did not oppose him. He realised that apathy, indifference and other priorities could be just as damaging as opposition. For example, in 1987 he lamented that Christian unity did not seem like a priority for the Redemptorist community in Clonard:

My mind has been reflecting on yesterday afternoon’s community meeting during which we discussed the ecumenical apostolate of Clonard. [Someone said]: ‘I’m all for what the two Gerrys¹² are doing but my priorities are the needs of our own people.’ Íosa Grá, that way of speaking shows me how deep is our need of conversion to your attitude and way. The Protestant people are your own people – open our eyes to see that they are your own people too.¹³

Prayers like this allowed Reynolds to vent his frustrations about what he perceived as a lack of support for peacebuilding and ecumenism. Such prayers nourished his hope and provided him with the inspiration to keep going in what he saw as his God-given ministries.

Creating and sustaining real-world initiatives

Reynolds was involved in some of Northern Ireland’s most significant faith-based peacebuilding initiatives, including the Unity Pilgrims; the Clonard-Fitzroy Fellowship, a partnership with a Presbyterian Church; and the Cornerstone Community, a semi-residential ecumenical community situated on the Falls-Shankill peace line in West Belfast. The achievements of these groups have been well-documented in previous studies (Power, 2007; Robinson, 2015; Wells, 2005, 2010). They mention the importance these groups placed on prayer. However, Wells and Power wrote as historians and did not theorise about the role of prayer in faith-based peacebuilding, while Robinson wrote as a theologian whose main concern was conceptualising reconciliation as ‘practical theology’.

Robinson, who profiled Cornerstone but not Clonard-Fitzroy, offered the most sustained analysis of the role of prayer in creating and sustaining real-world initiatives. She emphasised that Cornerstone was founded primarily as a praying community, which thought of prayer as a form of activism – whether their prayers translated into what outsiders might identify as real-world action, or not. Initially inspired by Sr Mary Grant, Sr Gladys Hayward, and Isabel Hunter, a Presbyterian laywoman, Cornerstone established a rhythm of communal life centred on prayer and opened its doors to people from both sides of the peace line (Ganiel, 2019, pp. 100–103). Eventually, Cornerstone’s prayers translated into a range of community-based initiatives, including the Forthspring Inter-Community Group. Robinson interviewed members of Cornerstone, including Reynolds, and used life story analysis to identify themes that were important to their ideas about reconciliation. For Cornerstone, themes included reconciliation as Christian duty, reconciliation as presence, reconciliation as mutual understanding, reconciliation as unity found in God alone, and reconciliation as the Kingdom of God on earth. These themes underline how individuals saw their presence on the peace line as a model of hope (albeit imperfect) for a divided community. As Reynolds told Robinson (2015, p. 235): ‘We must be together in a visible unity … and the central focus of that unity is being together before God in the praise of God, and in the humble service of God.’

Reynolds’ journals offered other examples of how prayer helped to create and sustain real world initiatives, including the Unity Pilgrims. Reynolds got the idea for the Unity Pilgrims through prayer. For decades, he had been praying about how he might grow closer to Protestants on the Shankill, on the other side of the peace line from Clonard (see also Ganiel, 2019, pp. 206–208). In January 1993, he wrote down his ideas about how he might advance on ‘my ecumenical journey’: ‘Make friends with the congregations of the Church among the Protestant people of West Belfast.’¹⁴ On Remembrance Sunday 1994, Reynolds felt prompted to join a Protestant congregation for worship:

I decided, on a sudden impulse, to go on my own from Clonard Monastery to worship with a congregation of the Church in the Shankill. I cannot remember now which one it was. It just seemed right to me that I should worship together with them on that special Sunday (quoted in Wells, 2010, pp. 135–136).

Over the next few weeks, ‘Some grace drew me back … to visit other Shankill congregations and share in their worship’ (quoted in Wells, 2010, p. 136). Reynolds eventually asked Catholic members of Cornerstone to accompany him. While Reynolds’ first visit was spontaneous, as the initiative developed the Unity Pilgrims arranged ahead of time the dates they would visit particular Protestant congregations. This helped build trust with the ministers and members of the host congregations. During the service, the Unity Pilgrims sat among the congregation. In many Protestant congregations, tea is shared after a service. In those cases, the Unity Pilgrims remained for further fellowship. In using words such as ‘sudden impulse’ and ‘some grace drew me back’, Reynolds was communicating that these actions had been inspired by God, and that these actions were answers to prayer.

The Unity Pilgrims were embraced by Cornerstone until its closure in 2012, and continue today through Clonard Monastery’s Peace and Reconciliation Mission. Both Power (2007, p. 151) and Robinson (2015, p. 181) reported that members of Cornerstone ‘overwhelmingly agreed’ that the Unity Pilgrims were ‘the most successful of Cornerstone’s projects’. Success was measured in the prayerful and respectful way the Pilgrims went about their visits. On Thursdays, they met in the Adoration Convent on the Falls Road for an hour of silent prayer for the unity of Christians. Before joining a Protestant congregation, they attended mass on Saturday evening or Sunday morning, then met in Clonard for 30 min of prayer. Reynolds wrote:

Before setting out we always take a while to focus ourselves in Jesus’ prayer: ‘Father, may they all be one.’ We see our visits as planting new seeds of friendship and prayer between the congregations of the Church in the Shankill and those in the Falls and as a communal response to Jesus’ command to ‘Love one another as I have loved you’. (Quoted in Wells, 2010, pp. 136–137).

In a pamphlet describing the Unity Pilgrims, Reynolds wrote (Catholic Unity Pilgrims, no date, p. 7):¹⁵

The initial Shankill response was a cautious welcome. But by being present several times over the years at their Sunday worship the Catholic unity pilgrims have built up a relationship of trust and acceptance with those congregations. The Shankill people have come to see that the pilgrims have no agenda other than responding to the prayer of Jesus ‘Father, may they all be one’.

Reynolds explicitly identified the Unity Pilgrims’ mission as ‘responding to the prayer of Jesus’ and described how the Unity Pilgrims pray that very prayer before joining Protestants for worship. Indeed, the entire Unity Pilgrims initiative could be conceived as an embodiment of Jesus’ prayer ‘may they all be one’. The Unity Pilgrims also can be understood as an example of prayer translated into a real-world initiative for peacebuilding and ecumenism.

Discussion

Schoalrship’s failure to take prayer seriously has impoverished our understanding of how people of faith engage in peacebuilding. I see my theoretical framework as a starting point, prompting scholars to address further questions. My focus on a single Catholic priest does not answer questions about how the role of prayer differs (or not) between ordained and lay members of a religious community. Schwarz’s preliminary work hints that prayer may provide an outlet for women’s leadership in faith-based peacebuilding. Given women’s underrepresentation in peacebuilding and religious leadership, this is a hypothesis that deserves further investigation. The ethics of prayer in multi-religious and secular contexts also needs more reflection. Finally, although Schwarz and I both observe that prayer gives people hope and helps them deal with the stresses of peacebuilding, we largely bracket the question of whether prayer makes those who practice it more effective in what they do. This question is nearly impossible to answer empirically, not least because many faith-based peacebuilders simply do not recognise a sacred/secular divide and have different criteria for judging ‘effectiveness’ than scholars. For example, further research is necessary, but it could be that faith-based peacebuilders place more value on individual-level identity change (and perhaps credit this to prayer) than other peacebuilders. Local faith-based peacebuilders’ long-term embeddedness in communities might also mean they envision positive changes unfolding over a longer timescale than others, particularly peacebuilding agencies from outside their context. As such, my framework can be understood as an invitation not only to better understand faith-based peacebuilders, but also to rethink how to evaluate what constitutes effective peacebuilding.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Brendan McConvery for commenting on a draft of this article. An earlier version was presented at the Centre for Religion, Conflict and Globalisation at the University of Groningen.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gladys Ganiel

Gladys Ganiel is Reader in Sociology at Queen's University Belfast, specialising on religion, conflict and reconciliation in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Zimbabwe; evangelicalism; the emerging church movement; and religion on the island of Ireland. She is author/co-author of six books and more than 40 scholarly articles and chapters, including Transforming Post-Catholic Ireland and The Deconstructed Church, co-authored with Gerardo Marti, which won the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion's 2015 Distinguished Book Award.

Notes

1 See Ganiel (2019) for full descriptions of these protests, which were remarkable for their passion (in Fitzroy, a man rushed to the front of the church shouting ‘Anti-Christ’ when Daly began to speak); and stamina (there was a 24/7 picket during the three-day Catholic-Methodist Conference).

2 Reynolds’ papers will be archived by the Redemptorists and available for future research, pending the appointment of a new archivist.

3 Couturier (1881–1953) was a French priest who helped establish the international Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. De Foucauld (1858–1916) was a French priest who ministered among Muslims in Algeria, founding the Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus as well as inspiring the Jesus Caritas Priests Fraternity, with which Reynolds was involved.

4 Schwarz’s case studies were International Justice Mission, the Taizé community, and Religions for Peace.

5 Gerry Reynolds (1996); citation from all sorted journals and personal papers, currently awaiting archiving (see footnote 2).

6 Gerry Reynolds (2004); citation from all sorted journals and personal papers, currently awaiting archiving (see footnote 2). Latimer and Ridley were.Protestants burned at the stake for heresy in Oxford, England, in 1555, under the reign of Catholic Queen Mary I.

7 As a Redemptorist, Reynolds regularly preached retreats for Catholic Religious Orders and Congregations in Ireland and the UK.

8 Gerry Reynolds (2014); citation from all sorted journals and personal papers, currently awaiting archiving (see footnote 2).

9 ‘Paisley: I prayed with McGuinness,’ Belfast Telegraph, 23 January 2010, http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/paisley-i-prayed-with-mcguinness-28513748.html, accessed 30 August 2019.

10 Gerry Reynolds (1984); citation from all sorted journals and personal papers, currently awaiting archiving (see footnote 2). Reid collapsed from stress and exhaustion and was hospitalised following his ministry to prisoners during the hunger strike. He was granted a leave of absence in Rome to recover.

11 Gerry Reynolds (1987); citation from all sorted journals and personal papers, currently awaiting archiving (see footnote 2).

12 Gerry Reynolds and Gerry Cassidy, who were at that time leading Clonard’s ecumenical activities.

13 Gerry Reynolds (1987); citation from all sorted journals and personal papers, currently awaiting archiving (see footnote 2).

14 Gerry Reynolds (1993); citation from all sorted journals and personal papers, currently awaiting archiving (see footnote 2).

15 No authors are provided for this booklet, but Reynolds contributed to it.