Church of Ireland primate Archbishop Robin Eames has said "the time has come for Sinn Féin to come on board where policing is concerned" in Northern Ireland. He has also warned that a drawn-out peace process is producing a public indifference which is "dangerous for democracy".
Speaking to The Irish Times before yesterday's meeting with Sinn Féin, he said he could understand republican reservations about the RUC in the old days, but he felt the PSNI was deserving of cross-community support.
He led a delegation of bishops in the Church of Ireland's first formal meeting with Sinn Féin yesterday morning at Stormont. Accompanying him were other northern bishops, including Bishop Alan Harper of Connor diocese, Bishop Michael Jackson of Clogher, Bishop Ken Good of Derry and Raphoe, and Bishop Ken Clarke of Kilmore.
They met Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, Assembly members Conor Murphy, Caitríona Ruane, Alex Maskey and MEP Mary Lou McDonald.
The bishops said they addressed "an urgent need to make political progress", which they believe can only be achieved by full and equal participation in and commitment to the structures of democracy.
They emphasised the fundamental link between political stability and full civic participation by all. The Church of Ireland has already met the Ulster Unionist Party, Alliance Party, and SDLP representatives and is currently seeking a meeting with the DUP.
Archbishop Eames, who is the most senior primate in the world-wide Anglican Communion, retires at the end of this year, bringing to an end a clerical career which has spanned the entirety of the Troubles. Ordained priest in 1964, he became Bishop of Derry and Raphoe in 1975, and Primate of All-Ireland in 1986.
Referring to the experience of being primate during the Troubles, he said one of the privileges of being primate through such a period was having an opportunity to see "people at their best, when it came to courage and endurance".
It was to witness "honest human nature at its highest," he said. It also meant witnessing what "dreadful violence does to people, supporting them through bereavement, carrying out various funerals, and trying to help them make sense of it all".
That also entailed personal loneliness. "I have had my faith challenged, though I never lost it, over questions of good and evil."
The churches in Ireland had had "to develop a spontaneity to react to events. They became a social ambulance service, developing an instantaneous theology to find ways of interpreting Christ to people who suffered dreadful loss," he said.
Yet, despite seeing so much of the dark side of human nature during those years, there were also "some amazing happenings which could only be the workings of the Holy Spirit".
He recalled a woman who lost two family members to terrorism, and who said to him, "I cannot tell you why or how but I want to forgive them [ the killers], if only they would help me understand, why".
He felt that "how people deal with their memories" will determine so much of the future, for themselves personally and for the wider community.
He did not believe a South African-style truth and reconciliation commission would work in the North, but a way had to be found to help people find closure.
Detection, where crimes were involved, was best. But it would not be possible in all cases. Memory would probably have to be dealt with person to person.
He agreed with those who said the unsung heroes of the Troubles were "clergy, on the ground". For his own part, he interrogated himself as to whether he could have done more. "I am very conscious of what I have failed to do," he said.
He wondered whether he was "always as prophetic as I should have been in spelling out the consequences of the attitudes I came across". Or whether he had applied gospel imperatives as answers to situations he came across. He was also conscious "that, perhaps, none of us did all we could".
On the positive side there was the building of bridges at church leadership level, whereby Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich, Cardinal Cahal Daly, and Archbishop Seán Brady had become "personal friends". They had "shared responsibilities and worries, some of which never emerged in the public arena".
His own role in helping bring about the loyalist ceasefire "brought some satisfaction", and he was "very, very grateful" when loyalists also expressed regret. His role then opened doors to government and politicians. He was seen as a conduit to then Ulster Unionist leader Lord Molyneaux, a Church of Ireland member, but he saw himself as a conduit between the two communities.
He developed "a very good relationship with John Major, who is still a friend, and Albert [ Reynolds]." Had Mr Major remained on in office, "he would be seen today as the British prime minister who did more for peace in Ireland than any other. He was sincere and thorough, a tremendous listener".
The archbishop believed relationships between the Irish churches had come "a very long way", and he was himself "a committed ecumenist".
"Co-operation and understanding has never been better." There had been great progress on issues such as inter-church marriage and baptism, but inter-Communion remained divisive.
He felt churches had to learn that society was moving on and people were losing patience. But some were slow to recognise society was changing "where the usefulness of churches is concerned, and where they have to compete for people's attention".
Meanwhile sectarianism was alive and well, particularly in the North, which he described as a "frontier" society, while the South was "quicker to embrace" concepts such as Europe, for example. "In a church sense many in the North see their southern colleagues as more liberal, more accommodating of difference." Northerners would be "more traditional".
Also, "behind the smokescreen of the Troubles, secularism came of age - very much in reaction to the Troubles". Many had disengaged, with a-plague-on-all-your-houses attitude. There had been similar disengagement from politics due to the prolonged peace process, a disengagement which was "very dangerous for democracy".
