Sir, - Your religious affairs correspondent, Patsy Mc Garry, informs us about the editorial in the current issue of the Church of Ireland Gazette (The Irish Times, March 26th).
It says that members of the Church of Ireland must accept that the solicitor Rosemary Nelson "might still be alive today but for the events connected with our church at Drumcree". It goes on to describe the deputy leader of the Ulster Unionist Party as "disingenuous if not perverse" in blaming her murder on misguided loyalists who found justification for their action in the fact that IRA guns remain.
"At this point we do not need another politician embracing the extremists and the die-hards within fringe loyalism," the editorial said.
These statements by the Church of Ireland Gazette are to be welcomed and hopefully they are signalling the church's intention to distance itself from the Orange Order protest at Drumcree.
Of course, the murder of Rosemary Nelson is just the latest in a long line of atrocities inflicted on the nationalist community as a direct result of the Parade Commissions' ban on the Orange Order parading down Garvaghy Road. The three Quinn children were burnt to death in Ballymoney and Robert Hamill was kicked to death in Portadown, allegedly in front of a number of RUC personnel. It should not be forgotten that a member of the RUC, Frankie O'Reilly, was also a victim of loyalist thuggery.
I believe the Church of Ireland is demeaned by its association with, and its indulgence of, the Orange Order. During the "marching season" it is not unusual to see some ministers of this church with bibles in hand marching behind "Kick the Pope" bands.
This Irish Christian tradition, which embraced the likes of Tone, Swift, Burke and Berkeley, to name but a few, seems to have ended up in a field in Portadown, a field which is under the ownership of the Church of Ireland. However, I am heartened by the editorial in the Gazette, as I am sure many are, and I hope that the road the Orange Order takes after its church service at Drumcree this summer will be the road to reconciliation, not confrontation. - Yours, etc., Tom Cooper,
Knocklyon Woods, Dublin 16.