The Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop Robin Eames, said peace will not be achieved in the North until both sides abandon their notions of "what is possible to change, what is acceptable to change and what they would prefer to remain unaltered".
Archbishop Eames spoke yesterday at Trinity College Chapel in Dublin and included the Northern Ireland peace process as a part of his sermon.
"In the years of what is termed 'the Troubles' in Northern Ireland, we saw secularism emerging behind the smokescreen of pain and suffering. On one hand, religious fundamentalism, so often collated with self-accepted political dogmatism, co-exists with spasmodic attempts at cultural liberalism.
"On the other, the mores of fundamentalism find it impossible to accept that community change means that outdated attitudes or preconceived perceptions of others have got to accept they may be well past their sell-by date."
He said these blinders had prompted Irish secular society to intervene and and "ask about the nurture of human rights, ethical concepts and notions of justice in new and untried ways".
He said that, "for many caught up in that on-going progression often equated with... the peace process", their memories of "what is possible to change" have stalemated any possibility for peace.