An irreligious war:

...All this was brought home to me forcibly when half a dozen of us journalists who had attended the Thirteenth World Congress of the Catholic Press in Dublin traveled North to interview political and religious leaders as well as rank-and-file citizens and to see the situation for ourselves...

...At the moment great hope is being placed in the New Ireland Forum but that could turn out to be what the Irish call just another' 'talking shop...

...On the Nationalist side the main force, of course, is the IRA, the Provisional Irish Republican Army...

...It is not accurate to call the dispute a religious war, and one lays oneself open to criticism for doing so...

...One THING is clear: the slogan "Brits Out" so beloved of graffiti-writers and the IRA is too simple...

...No comparable study seems to have been done in Northern Ireland, and some argue that statistics from the U.S...

...TVECommonwealand what it stands for -a dedication to freedom, open discussion, human dignity, and Christian renewal-your support...

...A new political initiative is needed...

...Competing for Catholic votes is the Sinn Fein...

...A general strike of protest by Protestant Unionists followed, bringing the country grinding to a total halt...

...after listening to him speak in the name of Martin Luther on Reformation Sunday, no one could imagine that any changes in the Republic's family laws would alter his dark view of the pope and the Roman Catholic church...

...It is not impossible that some day there may be a solution in Northern Ireland, but that day will not be tomorrow...

...John Hume, one of the Forum's founders, described his goal for it: "The proposal is quite specific...

...The Protestant consensus on the school issue, on the other hand, was summed up by one minister who said, "The teaching of religious values should never be at the expense of reconciliation...

...the British were not alone in constructing walls between Protestant and Catholic...

...The hope of the Forum's founders is that a calm and reasoned consensus will emerge from its deliberations by early spring and that this consensus will be so compelling that no party involved in the issue will be able to dissent, including the governments of the Republic of Ireland and Great Britain...

...Northern Ireland is at war, war on a small scale but a genuine guerrilla war for all that...

...The Social Democratic and Labor Party (SDLP) headed by John Hume is the Nationalist party which has always appealed to moderate Catholics...

...Could anything be done to foster understanding and heal the deep religious wounds in Northern Ireland...

...It was such injustice that led to the predominantly Catholic civil rights marches some fifteen years ago, which resulted in a violent reaction from the Unionists and which in turn led to the assumption of power by the British government and occupation by the British troops who are there to this day...

...Anyone who doubts this has only to go, as I did, to a service in the Rev...

...Contraceptives are available only by prescription and only to married couples, and I was told that some pharmacists even then refuse to sell them...

...Its leaders deny that they speak for the IRA, understandably enough since that organization is illegal on both sides of the border...

...However, Bishop Cahal Daly said, "The question is, are we trying to create a homogeneous society or a culturally diverse population in which differences are respected...

...The Catholic church no longer has the favored position it once had under the Irish Republic's constitution, but Catholic values and attitudes are enshrined in law...

...The British government is showing a serious lack of imagination by not seeing Ulster in any terms other than a police operation and maintaining law and order...

...But statistics on the school population raise an interesting possibility...

...Use the order form below...

...There is no divorce in the South, even in cases where the Church has granted an annulment-a situation which leads to some strange anomalies...

...No, "Brits Out" overnight is no solution...

...Over 2300 men, women, and children have died in the violence, and more than 24,000 have been injured or maimed...

...What is needed is a constitutional solution that both sides accept, even if not happily...

...Said their spokesman: "We live on a dung hill that should be brought down and something else put in its place...

...The recent abortion referendum, making unconstitutional what was already illegal, seems to have polarized the country, some even calling it the second partition of Ireland...

...Unionists treasure their connection with Britain, and they take the ' 'Brits Out'' slogan to refer to them, as well as to the British troops...

...But all political parties in the South as well as the SDLP are participating, and proposals about a solution to the Northern Ireland situation are being received from community leaders of all stripes, North and South...

...In a country with a population of one and a half million, the killing of 2300 people is equivalent in proportionate terms to the killing of approximately 325,000 people in the United States...

...British troops on foot patrol or in armored cars are much in evidence, and entrance into the inner city is possible only by going through barriers where security men check you and your possessions for possible arms or bombs...

...Irish Catholics in general have larger families than do Protestants, and Catholic children now amount to 48 percent of the school population...

...This latter attitude of at least a limited, grudging approval of the IRA was reflected in recent voting...

...Ten years ago Britain created a new governmental system for Northern Ireland which included power-sharing to bring Catholics into the government...

...Although they are almost universally opposed to abortion, the Protestant churches were against the constitutional amendment...

...almost all Nationalists, who want a united Ireland, are Catholic...

...In heavily Catholic Derry the scrawls on the walls assure one and all that "You are now in Provoland.'' This may be true enough in Derry, but in Belfast they write "For God and Ulster," statues of Queen Victoria and various British and Unionist luminaries ring the City Hall, and at the end of a formal dinner given for us by the Belfast City Council all solemnly rose to toast the British Queen...

...in my opinion, though, such changes would have little effect on Protestants in the North, at least in the short run...

...But we also have an innate revulsion against unelected clerical power imposing standards of conduct - trying, even through censorship, to regulate ideas...

...In a situation where both sides have to be willing to compromise, the opposition of Protestant Unionists to the idea of a united Ireland is very strong, and Sinn Fein and the IRA will not quickly fade away...

...On the day we left Northern Ireland, three more policemen were killed, to add to the 2300 already dead, and a bomb along our route added a dozen more to the injured...

...It was an enlightening if not an encouraging trip...

...Catholics in Northern Ireland seem to have an ambivalent attitude toward the IRA...

...To a man, Protestant leaders took the opposite tack, citing long-held fears of Catholic political authoritarianism...

...Thousands of people have had to leave their homes, and one sees blocks of bricked-up buildings abandoned by former tenants because they were too close to the rival group's area.They now serve as a buffer keeping the tribes apart...

...One answer is a ministry of reconciliation, and some individual Protestant ministers and Catholic priests are engaged in that...

...That body is purely advisory in nature, to understate the matter...

...As far as I could determine, almost all Unionists, who want to keep North Ireland's ties to Britain, are Protestant...

...The Unionist parties in the North refuse to participate in the Forum, just as the Nationalist SDLP refuses to join in the Assembly...

...According to a recent study, there have been over 43,000 separate incidents of shootings, bombings, and arson during the past fourteen years...

...Extend its influence...

...Anticipating this, some Unionist leaders are already suggesting that a two-thirds vote rather than a simple majority be required for any major change in the political system - a Northern Ireland Catch-22...

...Now, as Le Monde remarked about Ulster:' "The problem is deadlocked...

...Eric Gallagher, formerly president of the Methodist church in Ireland, take a more positive view...

...My impression, however, is that such men represent a minority...

...the British in London caved in, and the power-sharing experiment quickly came to an end...

...Of these three major possibilities, the federal solution seems to me the most likely and the most workable...

...So far the options suggested are three: first, a unitary state with pluralist constitutional guarantees for all...

...The Catholic hierarchy as a body issued a reasonably moderate statement, but their example was not followed by some individual bishops and by many pastors...

...Both were explicit in their condemnation of IRA violence, as are the rest of the Irish hierarchy...

...The problem is that the British try to act the role of the neutral intermediary, of the honest broker, when what is needed from them is recognition that they are part of the problem...

...it has absolutely no power.'' THE MOST SIGNIFICANT political activity in Ireland at the moment centers around the New Ireland Forum...

...are irrelevant in this case, given the special problem that exists in Northern Ireland...

...It is only when one reaches the more central parts of the city that the results of years of political and sectarian strife are inescapable...

...he said he opposed all war and violence, but saw no sense in condemning IRA tactics unless he could offer a viable alternative in their place...

...And as Bishop Cahal Daly pointed out, "Unionists lived in Northern Ireland long before there was a white man in America...

...It seeks the unification of Ireland but is completely opposed to violence and has always sought to use only political means...

...At the moment some aspects are favorable: the Republic in the South has a newly elected prime minister, and Mrs...

...Protestant leaders do not talk about the Roman Catholic church in terms as bitter as those used by the Sinn Fein spokesman, but there is no doubt they fear Catholic power...

...IVE yourself a swift and simple way to please and inform: your favorite niece, the friend you love to debate, the monsignor who has everything, the young person searching for religious roots...

...But no solution will be easily attained, if indeed it can be won at all...

...last, dual sovereignty, with Dublin and London sharing authority in the North...

...And as far as I could determine, there is absolutely no British pressure on the Unionists in the interest of change or reform...

...After talking to a variety of people, my own impression was that the Republic should make changes in some laws in order to reflect a better understanding of the proper relationship between church and state...

...Among the Catholic laity we talked to, a minority condemned the IRA lock, stock and barrel, but a larger group, while insisting that they disapproved of random violence, still pointed out that less than ten percent of the Royal Ulster Constabulary were Catholic and that they regarded the IRA as an indispensable protection for Catholics against possible attack...

...Apparently the true figures are closer to a little over 900,000 Protestants and a little less than 600,000 Catholics...

...Heaven knows that the strife has caused economic chaos: in some Catholic districts of Derry, according to Bishop Edward Daly, male unemployment runs over 50 percent, unemployment in Northern Ireland in general is the highest in Western Europe, and the Forum estimates that fourteen years of violence have cost both countries a total of some $16 billion in security costs and economic losses...

...Incidentally, American Catholics of Irish descent who contribute to causes linked to the IRA and Sinn Fein would probably have been shocked to hear the Sinn Fein's spokesman in Belfast: he was bitterly anti-hierarchy, anti-clerical, anti-church...

...Enlarge its audience...

...On the other hand, many ask what they could have done in a situation where many people will not even talk to each other...

...In general, Catholic leaders tended to pooh-pooh the idea, saying that in any case it was inevitable that a country that is 95 percent Catholic will reflect Catholic values in areas like family law...

...Their view is plain...

...however, Sinn Fein is generally taken to be the political arm of the IRA...

...In any event, any change in the school status quo seems unlikely in the foreseeable future...

...The approaches and outer edges of Belfast seem peaceful enough...

...as one priest-journalist with me remarked, "The Assembly is like most parish councils...

...In one sense, the status quo is witness to the fact that they have failed miserably...

...From its very beginning more than fifty years ago Northern Ireland was a gerrymandered state, with its borders artificially contrived to ensure a Protestant voting majority...

...Don't wait...

...On the Unionist sides there are terrorists too, like those in the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defense Association, although these are less active now that the British troops are there to carry out a war on the IRA...

...As Roman Catholic Bishop Cahal Daly of Belfast says, it may not be a religious war, but the religious dimension is inescapable...

...It is commonly said that there are in Northern Ireland one million Protestants and half a million Catholics, but this is journalistic shorthand...

...Protestants in the North are as opposed to abortion as Catholics but the tactics used in the referendum campaign in the South strengthened old prejudices and fears...

...We have more than our own fair share of illiberal dogmatists...

...Ian Paisley's church...

...In the most recent local election the moderate SDLP got only 137,000 votes, while the Sinn Fein total rose to 102,000...

...And before it arrives there will be, I fear, many more dead and maimed...

...Have the Christian churches done what they should to bring peace...

...We talked to Bishop Cahal Daly of Down and Connor, which includes Belfast, who is considered by many to be the Irish hierarchy's intellectual, and to Bishop Edward Daly of Deny, as the Nationalists insist on calling it, or of Londonderry, as the Unionists would have it...

...As John Hume of the SDLP put it, "Why should the Unionists change their minds as long as they have a British guarantee to stay on indefinitely...

...This is the case even though the polls show that 58 percent of those queried oppose the total ban on divorce...

...NIGHT THE CATHOLIC church in the South help the situation in the North by adopting a stance more suitable to a pluralistic society...

...Typically, one minister spoke of "the Protestant distaste for any entrenched influence the Catholic hierarchy exercises over aspects of the Republic's secular policies...

...Others, like Dr...

...The situation in Northern Ireland is complex, but its main outlines can be stated rather simply...

...Both, interestingly enough, cited the IVE a friend or family member a year's worth of thought-provoking, independent commentary on religion, public affairs, books, and the arts...

...And do your Christmas shopping in a few seconds...

...Today the government is run exclusively by the British (with much improved conditions for Catholics), and the only nominal participation by Northern Irish politicians is an emasculated General Assembly...

...TERRORISM is the curse of Northern Ireland, and almost every day the newspapers feature stories of bombings or political assassinations...

...Without exception Protestant ministers and people we talked to said common schools for Protestant and Catholic children would be of inestimable value...

...Demographers estimate that in thirty years or so the tables in the North will be turned and Catholics will be in the majority...

...Granted, Paisley represents an extreme, but his views are to at least some degree shared by many, and his Democratic Unionist Party attracted as high a proportion of Unionist votes as Sinn Fein did among Nationalists...

...he suggests that Protestant Unionists would be wise to create a constitutional set-up now which would include Catholics but which would guarantee the future liberties of Protestants...

...Thatcher's majority is so large that she no longer needs the votes of Unionists from Northern Ireland...

...would call a social activist, serving in a very poor Catholic working-class distict...

...This was accompanied by a perhaps ill-conceived proposal for a National Council of Ireland which further alarmed those afraid of Irish unity...

...Most of the clergy would probably share this view, we were told, although we talked with one priest who was what we in the U.S...

...Some Protestant ministers we talked with insisted that this Unionist domination had not resulted in discrimination against Catholics, but the evidence seems inescapable that there was in fact serious discrimination in such crucial areas as jobs and housing...

...It is that the parties on this island, the elected democratic parties that believe in a new Ireland, should for the first time come together in a body, should examine the problems that lie in the way of a new Ireland, the economic problems, the church-state relations, and then having done that, should produce a blueprint for the shape of that new Ireland which demonstrates very clearly that it is an Ireland whose definition of Irishness includes all the strands of Irish opinion...

...In many ways, though, the distinction seems to be one without much difference...

...This was the case at least for this American visitor, long accustomed to television scenes of violence in that strife-torn city...

...The Catholic bishops have always rejected this idea, and so too did the two bishops we interviewed...

...second, a federal solution in which North and South would be separate units like New York and California under one central government, but each with rigid guarantees of religious liberty and each with its own laws on such matters as contraception and divorce...

...Greeley-Rossi report to show that Catholics who attend parochial schools are less prejudiced against others than Catholics in the public schools...

...The gap between the two religious groups is too great for any easy remedy...

...Most political commentators take this as a sign of a growing frustration among Catholic Nationalists at the inability of the SDLP to win any serious concessions from the Unionist majority by peaceful political means, rather than any particular sympathy with Sinn Fein's goal of a socialist Ireland...