Dr. Nicola Brady: Peace, Healing, and Hope for the Church

Nicola Brady, Ph.D., is the General Secretary for Churches Together in Britain and Ireland. She previously served as the General Secretary of the Irish Council of Churches and Joint Secretary of the Irish Inter-Church Meeting where she facilitated relationship-building between Christian churches in Ireland and collaborative action on issues of shared concern to member churches.

Brady has particular experience in the area of faith-based peace-building in Ireland and internationally, including human rights advocacy, support to victims/survivors, facilitation of civic dialogue, community engagement with policing, and research across a broad range of issues relevant to reconciliation. She is vice chair of the Board of the Christian Aid Ireland and a board member of the Maximilian Kolbe Foundation, which works to extend the lessons of German-Polish reconciliation post-World War II to other conflict areas.

In 2017, Brady took part in an international workshop organized by the Catholic Bishops of Germany and Colombia to support the peace process in Colombia, engaging with victims and survivors, armed actors, NGOs and faith communities. In 2019, she became an Eisenhower Fellow and undertook a professional development program in the US with a focus on developing the capacity of the faith sector to promote social cohesion in communities divided by race, violence, political polarization and socio-economic inequality. She is currently chairing the Steering Committee for the Synodal Pathway of the Catholic Church in Ireland. She has a BA in European Studies from Trinity College Dublin. Her Ph.D., also from Trinity College Dublin, examined the response of the Catholic hierarchy to political violence in Northern Ireland (1921-1973) and the Basque Country (1936-1975).

Brady’s recent publications include The Churches, Reconciliation and Addressing the Legacy of Intercommunal Violence in Northern Ireland, Glencree Journal (2021), 92-102 — co-authored with Dr Gladys Ganiel, Queen’s University Belfast and Pulling Together or Pulling Apart: Perspectives on Nationhood, Identity and Belonging in Europe (Peter Lang, 2019) — co-edited with Dr. Susana Bayó Belenguer, Trinity College Dublin.

You can learn more about Churches Together in Britain and Ireland on their website, https://ctbi.org.uk/, or on social media:
Facebook: @CTBIshare
Instagram: @CTBImedia
Twitter: @CTBI

You can learn more about The Synodal Pathway of the Catholic Church in Ireland on their website, https://synod.ie/, or on social media:
Facebook: @synodalpathway
Twitter: @synodalpathway

In this episode, we touch on:

• The efforts for peace, accountability, and synodality in Ireland and worldwide
• Uniting Christians worldwide
• Catholic young adult perspective