THE general secretary of the Irish Council of Churches, Dr David Stevens, has said the crisis over parades in the North "has put religion back on the agenda as one of the dynamics of the conflict".
In his report to the council's annual general meeting at Swords, Co Dublin, at the weekend, Dr Stevens said: "The limitations of some of our talk of reconciliation and our pretensions as peacemakers have been cruelly revealed. We stand chastened and convicted. We cannot afford another Drumcree with its likely consequences, and more Harryvilles and Pomeroys." What existed now was "a situation that desperately needs to be diffused".
The outcome of the struggle within the Orange Order would help determine whether a positive way forward was found "or whether we will succumb to a sickness unto death". He said "for many loyalists the right to march is the right to be", while for many nationalists "the need to resist is the need to be". Marching and its resistance symbolised the rivalry between both communities.
Drumcree had also revealed a significant North South divide within the churches, Dr Stevens continued. Many in the North did not see the great changes in the South over the last 20 years, while many in the Republic were horrified by many aspects of Protestantism in the North.
In his presidential address to the council the Rev David Nesbitt spoke of the "deepening sectarian feelings" on the broad political scene. He called for more repentance on the part of the churches. It would involve humbling themselves, he said, "not an easy thing for us to do as individuals and even more difficult to do collectively as churches".
During discussion on the churches peace education programme, it emerged that primary schools within a mile of each other on the Border had never had any contact. The programme involves four schools on either side of the Fermanagh/Donegal Border, a Catholic and a Protestant on each side. It also emerged that the Catholic and Protestant school in Donegal had never had any contact with each other.
