TO SOME people inside the Church of Ireland, the call by the Primate, Dr Robin Eames, on the Orange Order to look again at its prohibitions on contact with the Roman Catholic Church was just one small step. Others in the church considered it "revolutionary".
This difference in perception goes to the heart of an anguish which has afflicted the Church of Ireland since Drumcree last July. This situation itself reflects the very plurality of the Church of Ireland's membership on this island.
It was the Very Rev Victor Griffin, the former Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin, who described it recently as "an all Ireland church with an all Ireland political inclusion". To be true to its name, he said, particularly in the North, it "should be very careful to avoid any action or policy which would support the view that the Church of Ireland is primarily, if not solely, the religious dimension of unionism and the British establishment".
Another church member, the unionist MP, Mr Willie Ross, would hold an opposite view, as would the many Orangemen who are also members.
"We are a church which embraces two jurisdictions, two cultures and contains within our membership almost every conceivable political and cultural outlook in Ireland," Dr Eames told the General Synod in Dublin on Tuesday. "We have survived the partition of Ireland, decades of violence, generations of political strife and periods when our island has been sharply divided over political issues."
However, the implications of what had happened at Drumcree last year "had torn at the heart of the Church of Ireland". In all his years of public life, he could not remember "a more anxious and tense time". No wonder, then, that Mr David Bleakley could speak at the synod of "the Primate's dark valley of the past year
DR Eames's central problem was what to do about the Orange Order following last July's events. But it was as important to deal with it in such a way as not to undermine the moderate majority within that organisation. "The Order is currently engaged in a profound debate about its ethos and future," he told the synod.
Events at Drumcree have also torn at the heart of the Order. For him to take harsh action against it at this time would cause him to abandon the moderates within to those extremists who seem intent on taking over the Order.
Dr Eames's room for manoeuvre was scant. Acknowledging that what was needed was encouragement for those who were honestly seeking to influence the Orange Order "in a realistic and Christian manner", he simply could not issue a general condemnation of the Order, whatever about Drumcree last year.
This would not seem to be entirely appreciated by many church members in the South but seems hardly understood at all by many Roman Catholics, North and South. To them, Dr Eames's refusal to condemn the Orange Order outright after Drumcree seemed almost an endorsement of what they perceive it stands for.
It was incumbent on him, therefore, to attempt to be "revolutionary" in his stance on the Order this week. He pointed out that "there is not, and never has been, any official link between the Church of Ireland and the Orange institution". The connection "if connection it is", he said, is through membership of the Order by members of the Church of Ireland.
Then he spoke of the constitution of the Order, wherein "there is what could be termed a strong religious tone". He continued: "Like so many aspects of life in Northern Ireland, it is all too easy for any body to become politicised.
"In the support of reformed Protestantism there is contained in the constitution of the Order reference to the Roman Catholic tradition. Such prohibitions as to contact with that tradition have led to the charge of sectarianism. As a churchman dedicated to building bridges in the community, I regret that situation deeply."
IN Northern Ireland terms, where about 80 per cent of the Church of Ireland's membership lives, many of whom are in the Orange Order, that is a brave statement and, in its own way, as generous to the Roman Catholic population there as Bishop Willie Walsh's apology for the hurt caused to "our non Roman brethren" by his church's regulations on mixed marriages.
In the same spirit of generosity, Dr Eames addressed the possibility of sectarianism within his church. A motion concerning an investigation into whether such sectarianism existed gave rise to an impassioned debate. This exposed some of the divisions which make up the remarkable diversity that is the Church of Ireland.
The gulf in experience between members in the North and the South seemed at times very wide. There was the Rev John Pickering, Rector of Drumcree, talking proudly of an Orange tradition of parades in the parish uninterrupted since 1807. And there was Mr J.F. Remington, from Meath, struggling to understand why people needed to march along a route because their fathers and grandfathers had.
Ms Clare McCutcheon, from Cork, spoke of how "others" would not welcome any comments from her about the North, "coming as I do from what is referred to as the Deep South, with all the connotations of ignorance and backwardness that the term denoted when used in the North American context".
Delegates from the North spoke repeatedly of how difficult it was to convey to people in the South how violence was affecting people in the North, the threat they experienced to their ethos and heritage. Southern delegates spoke of Northerners' lack of curiosity about the South.
Dr Eames detected "a peculiar sense of triumphalism in the attitude of our members in either jurisdiction when they look at each other". There existed "a credibility barrier" between both.
