Sir, - The allegation by John Taylor MP that Archbishop Empey instigated a campaign to ban the Orange Order from Drumcree parish church (The Irish Times, October 10th) is just the most recent example of Mr Taylor ranting before thinking and should be dismissed as such.
As the honorary secretary of the group of Northern Church of Ireland members called Catalyst, I can assure your readers - as Canon Charles Kenny did on Friday's Talkback programme on Radio Ulster - that the idea of a petition to the rector and select vestry of the Church of the Ascension, Drumcree, urging them not to invite Portadown Orangemen to attend morning prayer on the first Sunday of July, was conceived and executed in Northern Ireland by Catalyst's members. The first thing Archbishop Empey would have known about the proposal was when our letter was delivered by the normal postal service.
Mr Taylor, whose insights appear to be political rather than religious, suggests that this is another Southern plot, an unwarranted and unwelcome intrusion by Dublin into the affairs of Northern Ireland. Mr Taylor is not a member of the Church of Ireland and obviously has but a flimsy grasp of how our Church is administered. It is the Church of Ireland and has no ambitions to enshrine Mr Taylor's narrow partitionist outlook.
The scandal stemming from the last four Orange parades to morning prayer have brought shame and hurt on members of the Church of Ireland throughout the island. Members in the South who are bewildered and scandalised that one of our churches should be regularly identified with violence and hatred have every right to voice their disquiet. - Yours, etc., Brian Fitzpatrick,
Lansdowne Road, Belfast 15.