The 1916 Rising was being hijacked by different organisations for their own purposes, the Bishop of Down and Connor Dr Donal McKeown warned yesterday.
He said some of those people saw the events as "the only form of resurrection worth celebrating" and they saw themselves as "the high priesthood, the sole keepers of the pure flame of what it means to be Irish.
"Any such narrow dogmatic self-righteousness will serve the public interest poorly," Dr McKeown said. "Some would, equally stupidly, prefer to forget key events of the past and gloss over them."
Dr McKeown was speaking at a Mass in Arbour Hill Church, during the annual State commemoration of the 1916 Rising. The commemoration was attended by President Mary McAleese, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Cabinet Ministers, Oireachtas members and representatives from the public service, the judiciary, the Defence Forces and the Garda Síochána.
Dr McKeown said the deaths of 1916 had "profoundly affected the course of Irish history". The leaders of the Rising had their own motives, he said, as no one worked from pure idealism alone.
"But behind all their individual agendas, there was a recognition that something fundamental was wrong with the structures of power in Ireland and from that came a commitment to make a gesture."
He said historical distance and commemoration had inevitably "glorified and sanitised" what happened. "They made mistakes and they died for an ideal that many will see very differently nowadays. But they are part of what we are today. We come, not so much to glibly praise these people as to commend them to the Lord."
Afterwards, the Taoiseach praised the sermon and said we had to be careful in how we told young people about events such as the 1916 Rising. "We should be proud," Mr Ahern said, but we also had to be careful in the message we were giving to young people.
The commemoration, organised by the Department of Defence, was attended by relatives of those who died in the Rising. They included Fr Joseph Mallin, the son of the 1916 leader Michael Mallin. The Hong Kong-based Jesuit priest, who will be 92 in September, is the only surviving child of a 1916 leader. "It was very well done," he said after the ceremony. "I knew all the airs they were playing." His sister Maura Phillips, who died last month, was born 103 days after their father was executed on May 8th, 1916.
Michael Mallin was chief-of-staff of the Irish Citizen Army and commander of the St Stephen's Green garrison.
The attendance included Chief-of-Staff of the Defence Forces Lieut Gen Jim Sreenan; Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy; Attorney General Rory Brady; Chief Justice John Murray, Judges Susan Denham and Adrian Hardiman; Ceann Comhairle Rory O'Hanlon, Seanad Cathaoirleach Rory Kiely, and former taoiseach Liam Cosgrave.
