Mourners at the funeral Mass of Mr Andrew Kearney (33), who died in what is believed to have been an IRA punishment shooting last Saturday night, heard his murder described as "barbaric and savage", by the Bishop of Down and Connor, the Most Rev Dr Patrick Walsh. Mr Kearney, a father of four children, one a new-born baby, another recently diagnosed as autistic, is believed to have been shot by Provisional IRA members from west Belfast.
His family has blamed the IRA, saying he had had a fight with an IRA member and feared he would be the subject of a punishment shooting.
He bled to death when one of the bullets severed an artery in his leg. His killers pulled out the telephone in his flat and blocked the lift in the flats to delay the emergency services.
At his funeral in Twinbrook in west Belfast, the parish priest, Father Laurence McElhill, read a statement from Bishop Walsh saying: "The manner of his murder was a chilling reminder of the depths of inhumanity to which man can descend when he turns away from God and sets his hardened heart on evil.
"May those who showed no mercy to Andrew Kearney sincerely repent of their sin and prepare themselves to stand one day, as they surely will, in judgment before Almighty God."
In his sermon, Father McElhill said the peace and happiness of Mr Kearney's family had been shattered by his "terrible" death.
The family's sorrow had been captured by newspaper pictures of his mother, Maureen, holding her son's two-week-old daughter, Caitlin Rose.
About 200 mourners stood in silence and watched as Mr Kearney's remains were removed from his family home in the Twinbrook estate.
His coffin was carried in slow procession by his father, Tommy, brothers, Joe and Tom, and other family members the short distance to St Luke's Church for funeral Mass.
Burial was at Our Lady's Cemetery, in Hannahstown.
The chief mourners included Mr Kearney's estranged wife, Paula, and his partner, Ms Lisa Darragh, who was present when masked men forced their way into the 8th-floor flat she shared with him and their daughter in the New Lodge area of north Belfast.
Mr Kearney had three daughters from his first marriage.