The peace process in Northern Ireland is "unravelling", said the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Rev John Neill.
Giving a sermon in St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, yesterday, he said: "The failure of the middle ground to grasp what really mattered to people - in other words to be discerning and to face what was seriously wrong - has set the \ process dangerously off course for the peoples of this whole island."
In the North "where the killing has almost stopped, there was a prevailing optimism that seemed to believe that though there were many obstacles, on the whole the movement was forwards and positive. We may ask whether there was sufficient sense of judgment for this optimism to be termed as a genuine hope.
"The lack of real engagement with some crucial issues on both sides of the political divide has led to the total polarisation of people that was revealed in the recent elections."
He reflected on the intensity of feelings in the Middle East, which underlined everything there. "Any process that does not go very deep indeed cannot bring any hope to that troubled region. Hope cannot be found until realistic judgments are made."
There were, of course, "those who live by judgment, who always have the high moral ground in their own eyes. Hasty judgment without hope is perhaps the most futile of all attitudes. Such is beloved of the extremist, be that extremist political or religious," he said.
"On the other hand the middle ground fails when it neglects to realise that hard choices often have to be made. We are warned against judging others without facing judgment upon ourselves, but we are never told that hard decisions are to be avoided. Choices have to be made and very critical decisions have to be faced," he said.
Jesus refused "to be sucked into harsh condemnations in, for example, the incident of the woman taken in adultery being stoned by her accusers". Likewise, in Jesus we saw a "determination to lead people to make hard choices when the rich young ruler was called upon to give away all that he possessed".
There was "no absolute in this life other than the way of the Almighty - the way that speaks of judgment and of compassion, the way that alone gives hope and meaning."
