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Presbyterian Moderator, Dr Harry Allen, has said that after the disastrously damaging months of the summer community relationships are currently existing on a knife edge effecting almost every aspect of our lives and now even involving football supporters.
Echoing resolutions passed by the Presbyterian Church's General Board at its meeting in Belfast this morning, Dr Allen said that no one should act or speak in ways which widen divisions or deepen mistrust. He called upon all those involved in boycotts of businesses and the picketing of churches to desist forthwith and suggested that Irish League Football clubs encourage fans to display only club emblems at matches.
"The disastrous events of the last few months have unleashed anger and intolerance and demonstrated that there is much prejudice and bitterness lying close to the surface in all of us. It remains important for us to seek peace and pursue it in whatever way is possible. The recognition of difference does not make cooperation impossible. We are stronger when we cooperate around our shared values and interests and we are weaker when we allow ourselves to be divided by our differences.
"I commend the loyalist paramilitaries for maintaining their ceasefire and would encourage the IRA to reinstate theirs. There is no justification for paramilitary violence from either quarter.
"Serious political negotiation is an urgent priority. It is important that progress is made, but this can only happen if the declared concerns of the different parties are taken seriously. People should be ready to welcome necessary accomodation."
Other resolutions passed by the Board welcomed the public debate concerning moral values and the importance of stable familes and deplored the introduction of the midweek lottery, 'since the official promotion of a gambling culture is gravely damaging to society.'
The General Board is the most representative body of the Presbyterian Church outside the General Assembly and is composed of approx 250 ministerial and lay representatives. The full text of the Boards resolutions are attached.
1. That the report be received.
2. The General Board of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland welcomes the renewed emphasis on the importance of loving, stable family relationships and of good parenting.
3. The Board deplores the decision that there should be an additional midweek national lottery in the United Kingdom, since the official promotion of a gambling culture is gravely damaging to society.
4. The British and Irish Governments are asked:
a. to recognise the desperate need for peace to be established in the Sudan and to press for peace initiatives that would bring an end to its thirteen year civil war.
b. through additional aid programmes to help relieve the suffering of the thousands of people, mainly women and children, who are without the basic necessities of life in the displaced persons' camps in the North of Sudan.
5. Since God's plans are for the good of all the people of this island, the General Board warns of the dangers of being trapped on the narrow ground of sectional self interest and calls instead for people to live within wider horizons which encompass the concerns and well-being of all the people of this island.
6. We commend the loyalist paramilitaries for maintaining their ceasefire and would encourage the IRA to reinstate theirs. We do not believe there is any justification for paramilitary violence from either quarter.
7. Serious political negotiation is an urgent priority and necessary accommodation must take the stated convictions of different parties seriously.
8. Recognising the disastrously damaging few months through which we have passed, and the knife edge on which many of our community relationships currently exist, we believe that no one should act or speak in ways which widen divisions or deepen mistrust. We call upon all those involved in boycotts of businesses and the picketing of churches to desist forthwith. We also call on Irish League Football clubs to encourage fans to display only club emblems at matches and we call on those organising protests outside football matches to desist forthwith.
9. We hope that the search for a resolution of the disputes about parades will be marked by both sensitivity and tolerance, recognising that "if we are to build a new kind of society, then it must be a genuinely multicultural society where the traditions of both communities are not only recognised, but affirmed and even celebrated". (1996 General Assembly resolution)
10. The disastrous events of the last few months have unleashed anger and intolerance and demonstrated that there is much prejudice and bitterness lying close to the surface in all of us. It remains important for us to seek peace and pursue it in whatever way is possible, personally and at congregational and community levels.
11. Since the policy of taking the law into our own hands is the way of anarchy, we call upon people to cooperate with the properly constituted authorities of the state and to support them in the difficult judgements which have to be made.
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