YOUR leading article (29 November) was positive, constructive and refreshing. Continuing that approach, now might be the time for the Catholic clergy to play a positive role in getting decommissioning under way. In the years of the truce and subsequent civil war and after, clergy were sometimes involved in negotiations about a hand-over of the IRA arms.
If this were to happen now, the clergy might help with a hand-over of IRA arms to the government of the Irish Republic. This would avoid the sensitive issue of Republicans handing arms to the British. And it would not be a case of the Catholic Church interfering in politics: but rather of it helping an ailing process and furthering "peace on earth to men of goodwill". (Luke 2:14.)
FR JOHN BUCKLE
Southampton, Hants
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