A leading Northern clergyman, Mgr Denis Faul, has criticised the Patten report on policing for not paying a "sufficient, decent and detailed tribute" to RUC officers killed and wounded in the Troubles.
Mgr Faul, based in Carrick more, Co Tyrone, fears that the report, by being insensitive to officers who lost their lives defending both communities, could aggravate divisions rather than heal them.
"The issue of policing is of greater significance than even the setting up of the Assembly or decommissioning," he told The Irish Times. "An opportunity for unity was lost in the failure to honour and respect the 302 RUC men and women who were murdered, and almost 9,000 who were severely injured defending the Catholic and Protestant parts of the community."
While the Patten report did refer to the suffering of officers and their families, this should have been "spelt out more clearly", Mgr Faul said.
"Certain gestures should be made to the memory of the people who died. People who lost their loved ones would like to feel that they were not forgotten."
Mgr Faul wants the new police service to have two names - RUC as well as Northern Ireland Police Service. "The cap and badge should be retained, if maybe slightly modified - such as placing the crown and the harp side by side rather than one above the other."
He dismissed criticism by the Sinn Fein spokeswoman on policing, Ms Bairbre de Brun, who had accused him of "being out of touch with nationalist opinion".
Ms de Brun said Mgr Faul's comments would cause "offence to those relatives whose loved ones were killed or mistreated by the RUC".
But Mgr Faul said he had been the first to protest against RUC malpractice in the past. "I work for human rights on all sides - that is my understanding of true republicanism." Republicans needed to reach a new understanding of the true meaning of the term "republicanism", he said.
Mgr Faul also made an appeal to the Sinn Fein negotiators involved in the Mitchell review, saying: "It is of the utmost importance that whatever steps are necessary, whatever gestures are requisite, whatever sacrifices are demanded of Irishmen individually or in groups, the moral unity of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter should be re-established by the safety of non-physical force republicanism."