The Orange Order celebration of the Twelfth this year has been the most sombre and solemn for many years. Over all the parades and banners and bands there hung a black pall; it was the smoke from the sectarian inferno which killed three children in Ballymoney. Northern Ireland, indeed all of Ireland, has been numb with shock at this atrocity.
Ballymoney was the market town for my native parish of Loughguile. Its shops and businesses were almost all Protestant-owned, but relations between all these and their Catholic customers and neighbours were excellent. Ballymoney was a town of inter-community co-operation, even if the harmony usually required careful avoidance of any discussion of religion or politics.
The horrible deed in the Carn any estate on Sunday morning has already led to earnest soul-searching across Northern Ireland. One hesitates to speak of a turning point in our troubled history. We have used that phrase so often before, only to have hope once more blighted by another horror.
There is a widespread feeling that this time, things will be different. Church leaders have been unanimous and strong in their calls for a radical change of direction in both communities.
Clergy like the Rev William Bingham, an Orange Order chaplain, have shown extraordinary courage in calling on Orangemen to leave Drumcree, and they have been supported by many within the Orange Order in doing so.
The Orange Order is officially committed to civil and religious liberties for all, and is committed, both politically and religiously, to respect for crown and parliament and government and the rule of law. Yet its officers and members at Drumcree have looked on as its protest was turned into attacks on the forces of the crown and into flagrant breaches of the law.
We may well be on the threshold of a profound reappraisal of the way forward for Orangeism and indeed for unionism in a changed Northern Ireland. It has been gratifying that nationalist areas remained almost completely free of violence over the past week, and this in spite of so many incidents of sectarian violence on the loyalist side.
The residents in the Lower Ormeau Road kept their protest peaceful, silent and dignified. That this happened even in sections politically dominated by Sinn Fein can surely be seen as evidence of the genuineness of Sinn Fein's rejection of violence and its commitment to democratic politics.
Perhaps the most heartening development of the past week has been the manifest solidarity and mutual respect and trust between David Trimble and Seamus Mallon as First Minister and Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly. They have worked side by side to understand the feelings and sensitivities, the grievances and the fears of the other community. Only meeting and dialogue can facilitate that understanding.
Fears expressed by Orange Order spokesmen that Drumcree is their "last stand" for the very survival of their culture and tradition, or indeed of their faith, seem neurotic to nationalists, yet for Orangemen they are real, and they must be addressed honestly and seriously.
Some of the sections in the resolutions passed at the recent Twelfth demonstration offer hope in this regard and should be further explored. Much of resolution Two on "The Faith" would be perfectly at home in any Catholic sermon.
It would help if the Orange Order could decide to amend some paragraphs in its official statements of Orange and Protestant principles, particularly in its pledge to "strenuously oppose the fatal errors and doctrines of the Church of Rome and scrupulously avoid countenance (by presence or otherwise) of any act or ceremony of Popish worship".
Their pledge of fidelity to Protestant and Reformed faith is perfectly legitimate, but to define this, as they do, in terms of opposition to the Church of Rome, puts this Protestant organisation at variance with most of world Protestantism; it conflicts with a series of joint documents signed by participants in bilateral ecumenical dialogues between the Catholic Church and almost every mainstream Protestant Church in the world.
Some spokesmen within the order would, of course, explicitly reject the very concept of ecumenism. In doing so, they are out of step with the rest of the Protestant world. It is perfectly possible to affirm one's Protestant faith without attacking Catholic faith, and it would be helpful if the Orange Order could in time bring itself to do so.
The Good Friday Agreement and the Assembly based upon it are most carefully designed to provide an instrument for dialogue and search for mutual consent which alone can gradually build the necessary trust between the two communities. It will succeed. It must succeed. The events surrounding Drumcree 1998 have once more and definitely proved that there is no other way.
(Reprinted courtesy of the Tablet magazine)