TWO men will appear in court today charged with an arson attack on a Catholic church in Carrickfergus, Co Antrim. The building was badly damaged by fire early on Saturday. The men, aged 18 and 19, will appear at a special court in Newtownabbey.
An RUC patrol noticed smoke coming from the church in Minorca Place early on Saturday.
The arsonists had started fires at seven different locations inside the building.
Describing those responsible as "godless", the Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr Walsh, said:
"There is no way in which we in the Catholic Church are pointing fingers at the Protestant community because the people doing this are not attending their own church. It's an obscenity, a blasphemy and a sacrilege."
The Church of Ireland Bishop of Down and Connor, Dr James Moore, who visited the scene on Saturday, said: "I am very distressed that this has happened to our Roman Catholic neighbours. It is an evil in our society that we would like to see stopped."
The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, said those who burned Catholic churches were "defacto allies" of the IRA. "They feed the prejudices without which the IRA could not exist," he said.