DR Robin Eames has dissociated himself from criticisms of the RUC made by the Rev Bill Hoey at a recent Orange Order protest.
"When Mr Hoey spoke, he didn't speak for me", the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh said in Dublin yesterday at a press conference to preview next week's General Synod.
Mr Hoey, a Church of Ireland minister in south Belfast, accused the RUC of siding with the law breakers against the law keepers by rerouting an Orange parade away from the nationalist lower Ormeau.
He warned the RUC that it could cause the Protestant community to rise up, and then the force would have "nowhere to run and nowhere to hide."
Noting that the Bishop of Down and Dromore, Dr Gordon McMullan, had already criticised Mr Hoey for the remarks, Dr Eames said that this was a time when "everything said in public ought to be measured very carefully".
One would be "ill advised to put extra pressure on the RUC when it was in a no win situation as far as parades were concerned", Dr Eames added. He said he would be addressing this whole issue at the synod opening next Tuesday.
Mr Hoey's remarks had to be read in context, Dr Eames added. It was very difficult to describe the levels of feeling at the moment in Northern Ireland. There was frustration and the comments were a "reflection of the uncertainty and doubts felt currently by certain sections of the Northern community."
Political development is one of the themes of next week's synod, which will hear the report of the church committee working group on the issue.
The group reports that it has met senior delegations from the political parties, including many party leaders, north and south.
The key issue in the post ceasefire period was all party talks, the report says. Other matters seen as having a bearing on these talks include disarmament, prisoners, policing and parades.
