The leaders of a Catholic church in London have said they were "duped" after members of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement held a meeting in their church hall at the weekend.
Father Kevin McLaughlin, from Magherafelt, Co Derry, who has been parish priest at the Sacred Heart Church in Kilburn, north London, for four months, told The Irish Times the priests and management of the church hall "knew absolutely nothing about this meeting. We were completely duped."
Details of the meeting, which took place on Saturday, emerged in a report in the Observer. It said one of the committee's leaders, Mr Francie Mackey, addressed the meeting, during which "true republicans" were urged to "force the British government to end its illegal sovereignty over part of our country".
The group had booked the hall in December, Father McLaughlin said, by sending a card to the manager "with a fiver in it" saying they wanted to hold a family reunion. When the group arrived and sat behind a screen at one end of the hall, the manager became suspicious. After nearly two hours, several journalists arrived and informed the manager of the group's real identity and the meeting was broken up.
"We would hate it if the impression was given that we welcomed or invited these people in," Father McLaughlin said.
The Observer reported that Mr Mackey told his supporters how "disillusionment" among republicans with the Belfast Agreement and the impasse over decommissioning were undermining support for the Sinn Fein leaders, Mr Gerry Adams and Mr Martin McGuinness.