The Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Dr Richard Clarke, said the events of Drumcree had severely damaged the church's standing in the South and provided an image across the world of Christianity as "more about hatred than about love", writes Richard Balls.
In his address to the Diocesan Synod at the weekend, he said that "our own obsessions with narrow community loyalty, our unwillingness to engage in real social issues, our concern that we survive as a club, and our refusal to be identified with anything new or prophetic or just downright dangerous, act as a barrier to those who would wish to believe in Christ, but who cannot, because of us".
Dr Clarke also said that that recent worldwide gathering of Anglican prelates treated the issue of homosexuality with "closed minds and hard hearts" and that the debate was "a profoundly unpleasant experience".