Rev John Armstrong, the Moderator of the Free Presbyterian Church, is on record saying on behalf of the Church officers:
“That, as a denomination, the Free Presbyterian Church is grieved that the Centenary Service scheduled to be held in St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, Armagh, on 21st October 2021, was deliberately planned to promote the unbiblical ethos of religious ecumenism.
The event was jointly arranged by the leaders of the four main churches – the Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Presbyterian and Methodist churches. Such ecumenical union does not represent the views of thousands of Ulster Protestants who do not accept the Roman Catholic Church as a Christian Church.
Our opposition to fellowship with Roman Catholicism is theological. Its dogmas concerning, among other things, the Mass and Mariolatry, are unscriptural and therefore heretical.
Participation in this ecumenical service by the leaders of Episcopalianism, Presbyterianism, and Methodism is a betrayal of the Protestant and Reformed Creeds and Confessions that these church leaders subscribe to and claim to believe.
These Creeds and Confessions we hold dear, for they are the basis of true liberty of conscience and are the foundation of the religious freedom with which Northern Ireland has been blessed over this past century.
We would call on members of these churches to repudiate and withstand the efforts of their ecumenical leaders, in their continued betrayal of true Biblical Protestantism.
The utter hypocrisy underlying this service may be seen in the words of Eamon Martin, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, who was a central participant in the service.
“All three of my predecessors, with their brother bishops in Ireland, opposed partition, stating that it ‘could never be anything but a perennial source of discord and fraternal strife’. Standing by their graves a century later, I couldn’t agree more.” (Irish Times, 19.10.21). Then, today he added further insult by stating that he looks back on what happened in 1921 with a deep sense of loss and also sadness, “Because for the past 100 years partition has polarized people on this island. It has institutionalized difference and it remains a symbol of cultural, political, and religious division between our communities”.
While Carryduff FPC welcomes the Moderator’s statement it also re-echoes the call to all Ulster Protestants to ‘turn their backs on the ecumenicial puppets who provided the supporting acts for this studied insult’.
Rev. McLaughlin firmly maintains that no true protestant could have participated in such a wicked betrayal of Jesus Christ, or been present to witness such utter apostasy at this or any other ecumenicial service. He also believes that the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster should have gone further and had a centennial open air service in the grounds of Armagh Free Presbyterian Church. He is also of the opinion the denomination could still organise our own Centennial service using the Martyrs Memorial in Belfast or another suitable venue before the end of the year.
D G McLaughlin
