Bishops' police stance criticised by two priests

Priests in two Northern dioceses have been critical of a statement by the Catholic bishops there which called for support for a new police service.

Father Joseph Quinn, of Dungannon, Co Tyrone, said his parishioners were "absolutely disgusted and have expressed anger and disillusionment" at the statement.

Father Joe McVeigh, of Garrison, Co Fermanagh, said the bishops "might have waited". Many Catholics were "very annoyed" and "very hurt" at the statement which "seemed very co-ordinated, a very political exercise in support of one party".

Father Quinn said the bishops "have done it again, backing the SDLP and abandoning the ordinary five-eighths".

Father McVeigh noted how, by contrast, the bishops had "stayed silent for so long on so many important issues" where the Catholic people of the North were concerned. In "50 years of discrimination and injustice there was no great outcry (from them)", he said.

Over the past 30 years there had been "no strong statements about the constant harassment of the Catholic people by the British army, the RUC, and the UDR; about internment or - with the exception of Cardinal O Fiaich - about the hunger strikes".

There had been "no prophetic stance against the violence of the state, while there was plenty about the men of violence", he said. "We had no Helda Camera, no Oscar Romero here," he said. People, and some priests, were "very annoyed" at the bishops.

But as had been proved with the bishops' statement urging a Yes vote on the Nice Treaty, "the people make up their own minds now", he said.

Father Quinn asked: "If you were buying a car and the dealer told you he had reservations about it, would you buy it?" That was what the bishops had done in their statement last Sunday, he said.

There had been no consultation with people or priests before the statement was issued, he said. Had that happened it would have been clear to them that the SDLP was a middle class middle-aged party while Sinn Fein commanded most support among young people.

People outside communities such as his simply "do not know what the police are like here". He was one of the priests to administer the last rites to Ms Rosemary Nelson. He recalled a senior police officer there joking before her family and friends, "Who is she? Can anyone identify her?" while knowing full well who she was.

The bishops should have waited until the political parties had "battled it out" and "a fair and just document was on the table". Then they could have encouraged young people to join.

Instead, they had chosen to "roll in behind the SDLP". They "propped them up, bailed them out" at a time when the young people were "voting Sinn Fein in unprecedented numbers". He had to work with such young people. How could he tell them to join the new police service, he asked.