A church of Ireland bishop has said the church cannot wash its hands of the Orange Order because it had nurtured the Order in the past.
The Bishop of Meath and Kildare, Dr Richard Clarke, said in an RTE interview that the church would have to look at its relationship with the Order.
"It would be dishonourable to say the Orange Order is not in some sense our responsibility, because if we didn't create it, we certainly nurtured it. And we were very happy to have it, because our mistake was to encourage loyalty to a community rather than loyalty only to Christ."
He said the church today would have to come to terms with the fact that in previous generations the Order had been nurtured in order to create a loyalty to a particular Protestant sect.
Dr Clarke said that during the Drumcree stand-off last summer, the Church of Ireland bishops, other than Archbishop Eames, had felt they should not speak out "lest we make matters worse".
This had been done not out of fear, but in good faith, in the same way the Republic's politicians had felt they should not say anything. With hindsight, he wondered if the bishops had done the right thing.
Asked about practical steps to prevent a recurrence of Drumcree, Dr Clarke said greater authority could be given, not to the local bishop, but to "a group outside the immediate parish over what happens in a church".
The standing committee of the Church of Ireland is to meet in special session tomorrow in Dublin to discuss Drumcree and the issues that have arisen from it.