A FORMER Catholic priest who acted as an intermediary between the British government and the IRA for 25 years has said the proposed day of reconciliation agreed by the British and Irish governments at Hillsborough last Thursday should be planned as an all-embracing act of generosity and not as an act of surrender.
Mr Denis Bradley, who was a curate in the Bogside area of Derry between 1970 and 1976 and acted as an intermediary between the British government and the IRA between 1972 and 1996, said that the chances of an overall political settlement in the North could suffer a setback if the act of reconciliation was not handled properly.
"The day of reconciliation must be extremely well thought out. This could be a major problem. People should not underestimate how big a problem it is for the IRA, because no matter what way you dress it up, it has the possibility of looking like surrender, and if I know anything about the IRA it is that they will not surrender.
"This day or act of reconciliation, which is a clever idea, must be so dramatic and so powerful that it supersedes the emotions that exist around the action of doing a gesture about the decommissioning of arms.
"It has to involve everyone. It must be so powerful a statement that we have all hurt each other, and that we need to move forward, that it actually lets the IRA off the hook, lets nationalism off the hook, lets unionism off the hook, lets the British off the hook, and actually allows Sinn Fein into government. That is how powerful it must be."
Mr Bradley said that reconciliation went to the core of Christian belief. "It is about people being able to forgive each other and being able to heal each other. It has to be about Protestantism facing up to what they have done to Catholicism and about Catholicism facing up to what they have done, and asking for forgiveness.
"Everyone must be involved, but it must not be driven by the politicians. It must be driven by the churches. The last few decades have been bad for the churches, and if there was another organisation that I could think of, more powerful and more embracing than the churches, I would go for them, but I can't think of another group, so it has to be the churches."
Mr Bradley continued: "The fact that it is based on reconciliation puts the churches right at the heart of it. I think that Sean Brady and Robin Eames and the head of the Presbyterian Church and Basil Hume and George Carey all have to do something in this.
"The event must take place throughout the islands. The participants must reconcile themselves to the fact that we have killed each other in the name of a political aim for too long.
"There is nobody within republicanism who wants to fight another war and, in my opinion, there is nobody within loyalism who wants to fight another war. Nobody wants to go back, but emotions are very powerful and they could drive us back.
"There has been a friendlier and warmer attitude within the [Ulster] Unionist Party to Sinn Fein recently, and we could lose all of that by the emotions which drive us, so we have to find an even more powerful emotional situation that can get us over this final gesture to bring us into real politics.
"It must not have the feeling of surrender, and unionist politicians must be very careful that they do not put the IRA into a situation whereby it appears to be an act of surrender. It has to be an acknowledgment that we have all got blood on our hands."