'Churches should feel emboldened to counteract racism' - minister

A Church of Ireland minister has said she hopes churches "feel emboldened to counteract racism whenever they see it".

Describing her experience ministering as a person of colour, Rev Eileen Cremin said it was "overall positive".

She said she encountered "very small amounts" of direct racism - due largely to "prejudice borne out of ignorance and misunderstanding".

Rev Cremin spoke to BBC News NI before giving a sermon during a service marking Racial Justice Sunday at St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast.

She said she hoped the service would help raise awareness of racial justice and encourage both people and churches to be more welcoming to those from different backgrounds.

"I hope that churches will feel emboldened now to counteract racism whenever they see it," she said.

"That churches will give a welcome to people who look different to them and to help spread the love really."

She said the theme of the service was "Love Your Neighbour" - which meant "a love that helps people to feel at ease, to feel welcome, to feel at home, and a recognition of the fact that we may look different but we're basically human beings like everyone else".

Rev Cremin added that if churches were to reach out into the community to help show what racial justice could look like, that could trickle out to wider society and help combat much of the "negative rhetoric" experienced here in recent years.

The service was overseen by the Archbishop of Armagh, the Most Rev John McDowell.

He told BBC News NI that newcomers to Northern Ireland, particularly those from African countries that were "deeply Christian", sometimes found it difficult to find a home to worship.

"Many of them come from Anglican backgrounds but we don't see so many of them in our churches," he said.

"This is a way of saying, 'you are welcome - not only to come and worship, but to join in, to be integrated with these communities and to be included in these communities and to bring your gifts to them. And I know there are people who probably don't make you feel welcome elsewhere, but you are always welcome in your Father's House'."

He said achieving that would be a "very big challenge".

"Migration and people who come from outside tend to be invisible to other people," he added.

"In one sense very conspicuous and in another sense invisible, so we need to get over that step so that people feel just as much part of our community as we ourselves feel."

That was a step, he said, that churches need to overcome.