The Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr Patrick Walsh, has expressed concern on behalf of the Hierarchy about the situation in the North. He said yesterday that the immediate concerns related to ongoing sectarian attacks on Catholic homes and property, the possibility of violence during the marching season, and the anguish of the families of those whose bodies remain undiscovered in the search for the "disappeared".
At a press conference in Maynooth, at the end of the Hierarchy's three-day summer meeting, he said the concern was felt by all the bishops. "The fact that I am based in Belfast has given me a special insight into some of these problems."
He said sectarian attacks had been multiplying in recent weeks. "We have seen the murder of Mrs Elizabeth O'Neill in Portadown and the frightening discovery of pipe bombs in Lurgan. Despite what some people are saying, these are not mindless attacks, they are deliberate, bigoted and sectarian."
Dr Walsh called on public representatives to speak with one voice in denouncing the attacks as "a cancer and an evil which must be stopped". Appealing for talks to avert trouble during the "marching season", Dr Walsh said that June, July and August were "frightening" months in the North. "It is incumbent on everybody to fully respect any decision made by the Parades Commission." Dr Walsh said that when he visited some of the families of the "disappeared", they had spoken of the support they were receiving from their fellow parishioners, including priests. "The bishops have asked that there should be special prayers in every parish in Ireland this weekend for the families and that the bodies will be found."
At the same press conference, the Irish Catholic Bishops' spokesman, Father Martin Clarke, announced that the Ad Limina visit to Rome, whereby the bishops confer with the Pope, would be from June 17th until June 26th.
