The Church of Ireland
Diocesan Press Release

'The things that belong to our peace' ­ The words spoken by Jesus over the city of Jerusalem heading for ruin because of the inability of people to recognise and take on board the things that belong to their peace. He would have wept for many other places this past week and for the same reason. The evil visited on New York and Washington and its people will be repudiated by all right thinking people. It defies belief that anyone could plan and carry out such outrages on totally innocent men, women and children. But they did and by any standard it was a sin against humanity in which all sense of pity or compassion even for a little child was surrendered to blind hatred. The capacity of the human mind for evil never fails to amaze us but neither does its capacity for goodness and self giving which were also found in the setting of those American ruins. In our anger and condemnation and any actions taken in response we must never allow them take from us those worthwhile values and principles that belong to our humanity for these are the things that belong to our peace.

We Have Suffered From Terrorism

In Ireland we have been here many times before ­ Enniskillen, Greysteel, Warrenpoint, and Omagh and across the water in Warrington, Manchester and London. We have known the pain and the loss and the anger too and those outside often seemed not to realise what it was like. But the world and America, in particular, insisted that in order to win peace we had to address the political and other defects in this island that created the climate in which terrorism, however unjustified, had taken root. That has been and continues to be a painful process for many.

Causes of Terrorism Must Be Addressed

Today we can speak back to the world community, especially the wealthy nations. `You must address the poverty, the alienation and oppression that drives people to despair and beyond.’ We all know about New York and the Pentagon and other tragedies ­ who will ever forget? But who remembers or cares about Tall Al Zatar, or Sabra or Shatela and the slaughter of thousands of Palestinian refugees in their camps by so called `Christian militia’. The grief of the mother who loses her child in Afghanistan or Palestine is no less real than the grief of the mother who lost her son in New York on Tuesday. Sometimes it is easy to pretend there is a difference when at the deepest human level there is no difference, only indifference. Such indifference ignores the pain of those who are considered undeserving of our attention and assistance. Somehow we have to find ways to assert the fact that every person matters and is entitled to live in peace and security with justice. But too often political and economic interests overrule and corrupt our humanity. As St Paul put it: `The good that I would I do not do, I do the very things I hate.’ We live by a confused, one eyed moral code that refuses or is incapable of seeing the whole picture. It is defined by prejudices and self interest and has no time for anything or anyone beyond. And it applies not only between nations, but within nations.

We Mourn New York Cops But Are Silent About RUC Officers

I don’t doubt for one moment the sincerity of our shared grief these past days but I just wonder is it consistent with the ambivalence that is all too evident as far as political violence is concerned. In Ireland we mourn New York cops and firemen ­ but we are silent about RUC officers. We have black flags for hunger strikers in our towns and villages but a shameful forgetfulness about countless other victims of our troubled past. We have commemorations of men and events going back a century and more but rarely a word about their victims. It is suggested that there may be state funerals sometime in the future for men executed by the British in Mountjoy prison. These were tragic victims living in tragic times but in honouring them is it possible we could remember all the victims of that time and since whatever their politics, whatever their religion, whatever their cause. Or are some considered worth remembering and others not.

Need To Challenge the Black Flag Mentality

We need to challenge the Black Flag mentality with its selective memory and the advocates of the bombs and the bullets in our world and use these days to come to terms with what violence really does and is still doing and what lies behind it. We know it destroys people, we know it breaks people’s hearts. Let’s teach our children, in our homes and churches and perhaps in peace studies programmes in our schools, the importance of justice and respect for every person and the sanctity of every life and so nurture a generation free from bitterness and resentment. Let them know what hateful violence really is about. In that way we would be showing them something of what it is to be truly human, to be truly like Christ who came to show us the things that belong to our peace. Terrorism in Ireland or America, pursued by vengeance or applause, will not be found among them.