THE multi party talks on Northern Ireland's future were doomed to failure unless there was community reconciliation, the Rev Kenneth Best said last night.
Appealing to the IRA to call a permanent ceasefire, the newly installed president of the Methodist Church in Ireland said those who indulged in violence were not furthering their cause but creating greater divisions which would take generations to heal.
Mr Best, whose installation in the First Presbyterian Church, Bangor, Co Down, was attended by representatives of all the main churches, said the bitterness, hatred and distrust of the past 25 years could never be quantified.
"I am aware that we who live closer to it may point to its political and historical roots and legitimately to the enormous good work all the churches have done over these years of community strife," he said.
"I have no doubt that without the prayers and influence of the churches, these years would have been infinitely darker. But there is so much to be done to leave behind years of hurt and mistrust and division and prejudice."
The men of violence had driven a wedge between the communities of Ireland, leaving a trail of broken lives, said Mr Best.
"Here tonight I too would call on the Provisional IRA - in God's name, and for the sake of progress and the good of Ireland, declare a ceasefire and make it permanent," he said.
Mr Best said it was the politicians who had to bring the people together.
"But it will be lost if people are not reconciled. That will not be easy. We who follow Christ must be at the forefront of it," he said.
To refuse to travel the road of reconciliation could result in "community violence and division unknown before", warned Mr Best.
He urged greater understanding, not just between the Protestant and Catholic churches, but within Protestantism.
"I am asking that for the sake of the gospel we might learn to love each other and trust each other and listen to each other," he said.
"I am asking that when some cross over the religious divide and reach out the hand of friendship, even in worship, that we would not be treated with suspicion or thought of as `unsound'.
"Our disunity undermines the Gospel. We must guard against Protestant Roman Catholic sectarianism and that sectarianism which can be just as real in the relationships of Protestant churches with each other."
The church's annual conference, which opened briefly yesterday to approve its constitution and the appointment of committees, gets down to serious debate today.