Father, Forgive: Reflections on Peacemaking

For most of his ministry Canon Andrew White has been involved in reconciliation. In The Vicar of Baghdad he wrote, 'The kind of people I spend my time engaging with are not usually very nice. On the whole, nice people do not cause wars.' Until he left for Baghdad in 2005 Andrew was Director of the International Centre for Reconciliation in Coventry. The Icr is the centre of a network of over 250 'Cross of Nails' centres around the world, particularly in the Usa and Germany, which serve the cause of reconciliation. Andrew bases his chapters around the Coventry Litany of Reconciliation. Following the bombing of the medieval cathedral in 1940, the words 'Father Forgive' were inscribed behind the altar of the ruined building. The Litany concludes: 'Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ.'