For the fourth consecutive year, the Church of the Ascension in Drumcree has been at the centre of Northern Ireland's ugliest and most destructive confrontation. The wanton violence that has afflicted the North over the past week, culminating in the murder of three children, demonstrates the licence the Drumcree business gives to those who are ready to use violence.

At one point a leading Orangeman was threatening that Northern Ireland could be brought to a standstill if his organisation was not given satisfaction. The annual standoff, combining as it does a rare mixture of religiosity, appeals to principle and the most outrageous intransigence, now epitomises inter-community conflict in Northern Ireland.

And the Church of Ireland is implicated in this sorry business because the Divine Worship the Portadown Orangemen choose to parade to and from on the first Sunday in July is held in Drumcree parish church.

Of course, it is not the service that provokes the mayhem. Like almost every other group implicated in the debacle, the Church of Ireland has carefully distanced itself from the consequence of the church parade.

Church spokespersons point out that the Orangemen choose to attend an ordinary service that is held on every Sunday of the year. Would it be right to close the doors of the church to those who wish to praise God according to the rites of the Church of Ireland?

Moreover, as it is the normal Sunday worship of the church and not a special service, the bishop has no power to intervene.

Yet we bewildered onlookers may well ask just how normal the service is, legal niceties aside. How normal is it when some 2,000 uniformed males accompanied by bands descend on a small country parish church once a year? Was there any room in the church for the non-aligned worshippers? Would people like me have felt as comfortable and welcome as we are made to feel when we attend services in Church of Ireland parishes up and down the island during our holidays?

How normal is it to make a point of singing God Save the Queen at the close of the service? How frequently is it used as a hymn in Church of Ireland services? Many readers will be surprised to learn that God Save the Queen appears in hymn books used by the Church of Ireland.

Technically, the annual morning service attended by the Orangemen is part of the common worship of the Church of Ireland. In the eyes of the world, and in the words of a number of those Orangemen who took part, it is an Orange and loyalist service. Equally, we know that the parish hall and other property surrounding Drumcree parish church are outside the legal control of the Representative Church Body because they are administered by a private trust.

So the archbishop cannot prevent the parish hall from housing "Radio Orange 1690" and from entertaining political firebrands, whose presence at Drumcree is malignant and ruthlessly opportunistic. What the world sees is Church of Ireland property and facilities placed at the disposal of the supporters of a partisan political organisation, which consorts with well-known extremists and appears prepared to close down Northern Ireland to get its way.

The chasm between the legal reality and the public perception is, I believe, deepened by the reluctance of the Church of Ireland to tackle headon the question of effective leadership involved in the Drumcree issue.

Certainly the Primate is to be commended for his appeal to the Orangemen of Portadown to consider prayerfully the consequences of their intention to parade. But it seems that the appeal was lost on people who, although they profess Christian principles, are politically motivated. So something more than sincere and pious exhortation is required.

Should the church accommodate or give comfort to any group or organisation that pursues a divisive political or sectarian agenda? If the answer is no, as I believe it should be in accordance with the Gospel and with concern for the greater good, means must be found to overcome obstacles deriving from the legalities of ownership, stewardship and jurisdiction. One would be to increase the powers of the bishop in affairs that are likely to bring the witness, integrity and standing of the church into disrepute.

No matter who "owns" the church and its lands, if the venue claims to be Church of Ireland, it should be subject to episcopal authority and to the ethos of the Church of Ireland.

All organisations have difficulty in reforming themselves. The Church of Ireland is no exception. In part its difficulty derives from the way in which authority is exercised in the church. The supreme temporal governing body is the General Synod. It meets once a year and, like any annual meeting, has a vast amount of business to get through. Business is dealt with slowly at best. Bishops, the chief pastors, may not exceed their present powers without the authority of the General Synod.

The Drumcree affair is a grave pastoral problem which should not be deferred from year to year, perhaps in the hope that it might go away. We are all besmirched and diminished by the identification of one of our parishes with ritual violence. It is simply inadequate for the church to throw up its hands and ask "What more can we do?"

This is Drumcree Four. To borrow from Oscar Wilde, "to lose one . . . may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both . . . looks like carelessness". What does it look like to lose four? The church, if it is to pursue its mission as a witness to Christ's teaching, must find the means to regulate effectively contentious affairs like the Drumcree church parade. It is unfair to leave the burden on the shoulders of rectors, and the current bleating of church spokespersons is no substitute for prophetic leadership and decisive action.

The Drumcree affair is not just a peculiar local problem. It is a challenge to the Church of Ireland's claim to exercise moral authority. It is a matter for the whole church, and one that the whole church should find the means of addressing without delay and evasion.

Brian Fitzpatrick is a member of the Church of Ireland in the Diocese of Connor