The McAreavey trial: Bishop Harold appeals for our prayers and support
The horrific murder of Michaela McAreavey impacted the people of Northern Ireland very powerfully indeed. I had the great and awful privilege of being present at Michaela’s funeral, just days after her wedding, and of seeing the dignified way in which the McAreavey and Harte families expressed their grief and their deep faith in Christ. It was also an occasion when people from right across the community came together in support, sadness and prayer.
All of us watching the events of the last few months in Mauritius have been appalled by the way in which John McAreavey and others have been treated in and around the trial. We cannot imagine how any human being could go through so much pain. It is devastating enough to lose your wife just days after the marriage, but to lose her through murder, then to be a suspect, and then to go through a trial in which your integrity is questioned and you have no result and closure must be extraordinarily difficult to bear.
Particularly because of my own personal friendship with Bishop John McAreavey, my counterpart in Dromore, who conducted both the marriage of Michaela and John and Michaela’s funeral, I want to ask that we all hold the families in deep prayer and support every effort to bring this situation to a proper closure. May they trust in the God who enters into our suffering and who, in the end, rights all injustices.
+HaroldDown & Dromore