A SENIOR figure in the Orange Order has said he would like to see a separation of the institution from the Ulster Unionist Party. Speaking at the 34th Glenstal ecumenical conference in Co Limerick yesterday, the Rev Brian Kennaway said he would like to see a "realignment" of the order's association with the UUP and have it "stand alone".
He did not think the order should have links with any political party and felt what it should be about was "reaffirming the religious nature of the order". He believed such a separation from the UUP would be of benefit to both the party and the order.
Mr Kennaway, who is convenor of the Orange Order's education committee, said "the partition of minds" on the island was "the great tragedy of Ireland". He regretted the perception of the order as antiCatholic and said he would like to see its affirmations changed so they could be seen to be more proProtestant than anti Catholic.
He said that parading had become "inextricably linked with Orangeism", but it was "not essential" to the order. Parades allowed for a bonding of Protestants of all denominations and social groups as equals, he said. He went on to describe the many charitable pursuits that make up the greater work of the order.
In an earlier address to the conference he lamented the degree of ignorance that existed about the Orange Order, what it does and what it stands for. "We need to explain ourselves," he said.
Mr David Porter, a director of the Evangelical Contribution on Northern Ireland (ECONI) group, said "good community relations and ecumenism must not be seen as two sides of the same coin."
That view, he said, "rules out 200,000 people in Northern Ireland." Fundamentally, Irish nationalism and British nationalism could not be reconciled, "but we can learn to live together without killing each other." To achieve this what was required was "tolerance, not reconciliation".
Dr Cecilia Clegg, who heads the "Moving Beyond Sectarianism" project of the Irish School of Ecumenics, warned against presenting ecumenism as an answer to sectarianism, as it was seen by some as imperialist in intent, and as such contributed to the reinforcement of sectarianism.
She defined sectarianism as "a distortion of natural, positive, human needs for belonging, identity and the free expression of difference".
Outlining the work of the North Review on parades and marches, of which he was a member, Father Oliver Crilly explained how they had met 93 groups and, "pretty well without exception, people were extraordinarily honest and very concerned about the resolution of difficulties."
Describing as "prophetic" Dr Clegg's insight into the perception of a link between sectarianism and ecumenism, Father Dermot Lane, president of the Mater Dei Institute in Dublin, spoke of the need for new models and paradigms of unity between the churches, "a unity within diversity ... not an imperial unity, but a mosaic".
Winding up the proceedings yesterday, the Abbot of Glenstal, Father Christopher Dillon, asked whether, where ecumenism was concerned, we were "as unified as we are ever going to be". He wondered whether "maybe we are as unified as we ever want to be".
