An editorial in the Church of Ire land Gazette has said members must accept that solicitor Rosemary Nelson "might still be alive today but for the events connected with our church at Drumcree".
It also described the deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Mr John Taylor, as "disingenuous if not perverse" in blaming her murder on misguided loyalists who found justification for their action in the fact that IRA guns remain. "At this point we do not need another politician embracing the extremists and the die-hards within fringe loyalism," the editorial said.
Ms Nelson offered the prospect of bringing many on the margins of society into the mainstream of politics in Northern Ireland, it said, and her murder made it more difficult for Sinn Fein and the IRA to make concessions.
Allegations by Ms Nelson against members of the RUC had angered many but, in that context, the Chief Constable had taken a sensible and brave step in calling in outside experts to take charge of the murder investigation.
"How many more mothers, how many more fathers, how many more solicitors and constables are going to be murdered before the pleas of Archbishop Eames and the voice of the silent majority of the Church of Ireland stop falling on the deaf ears of all those involved in Drumcree?" it asked.
If the Church of Ireland was prepared to accept some responsibility for events over which it had little control, "then surely the Orange Order and the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition must also accept some of the responsibility for the ongoing impasse at Drumcree".
