The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, has said Northern Ireland needs politicians who can "rise above 'the tribe' and lead people into a new future of co-operation on all levels within a broad European perspective."
Dr Martin said that for too long, and still today, religion and politics have been entwined in Northern Ireland in the wrong way. "My hope is that with farsighted Church leaders, at all levels, we can move to a new vision where all religious groups can free themselves from historical prejudices."
Archbishop Martin was speaking in Milan at a five-day forum which concluded at the weekend on the theme "War and Peace in Northern Ireland: the voices of the faithful".
Speaking at the same forum, the Church of Ireland Bishop of Clogher, Right Rev Michael Jackson, described Ireland as "deeply Christian, profoundly denominational and politically antagonistic all at the same time."
Christianity in Ireland had "for too long been understood in terms of independent and mutually exclusive denominations rather than in terms of a human experiment in the expression of the divine unity," he said.