THE Presbyterian Church has called for "honourable compromise" on parades. It condemned those whose actions led to recent disturbances and warned that "tradition" should never be more important than peace making. The DUP called the comments "an outrage and a disgrace".
The church issued its statement after a special meeting in Belfast yesterday, as the British government announced details of a review of parades and as attitudes on both sides to next month's Apprentice Boys march in Derry appeared to harden.
The Apprentice Boys have repeated they will not talk to the leadership of the Bogside Residents Group which is spearheading opposition to the parade planned for August 10th. The group has been accused of provocation in staging a march from the mainly Protestant Waterside district of the city tonight.
The Presbyterian Church, in its statement, expressed the hope that politicians would facilitate and encourage "honourable compromise at the local level" on the issue of parades.
But it condemned the "scandalous behaviour" which accompanied and followed the stand off at Drumcree, adding that "those who initiate actions in volatile situations cannot evade total responsibility for the consequences of what they begin".
When the Gospel was compromised by the demands of tradition, the statement continued, "it is a Reformation principle that tradition must be modified or reformed. Failure to do so turns tradition into a false god". The Bible taught that "even an act of worship should be interrupted to facilitate the making of peace".
The church added that the threat of greater violence which led to the RUC's U turn on Garvaghy Road was "understandably perceived by our Roman Catholic neighbours as a lack of even handedness in contrast to the apparently sensitive policing of most Protestant civil disobedience".
But the DUP's deputy leader, Mr Peter Robinson, called the churchmen "pathetic and weak compromisers", and said their comments were "an outrage and a disgrace".
"To blame the unionist people for the violence which the republican community perpetrated on the streets of Northern Ireland is beyond belief. The Orange Order were totally justified in their stance and indeed they were only pursuing their civil and religious liberties. For a Protestant church to attack this is absolutely incredible."
To interrupt an act of worship for the sake of peace implied "that everybody should refrain from worshipping if it is opposed by republicans", Mr Robinson said. "Real Protestants will not cease from worshipping Almighty God to appease anyone.
