"Why do they hate us so much? What is so terrible about Catholics?" The middle-aged priest, speaking on Tuesday's Spotlight programme, asked the question with a sense of genuine bewilderment.
A woman spoke of her brother's death: "My heart is in 5,000 pieces. I have never known pain like that I'm feeling now." Alistair McDonnell of the SDLP described the fear in vulnerable nationalist communities that what is now happening is the beginning of a pogrom.
It was brave and timely of BBC Northern Ireland to transmit such a programme on the night that the Loyalist Volunteer Force issued its chilling threat to continue its campaign against the Catholic community. It forced our attention back to the reality of terror and unbearable grief on the streets, and it reminded us of just what is at stake if the peace process collapses.
The Chief Constable of the RUC was interviewed and repeated, almost as a mantra, that his force was doing all it could to bring the bloodletting to an end. Ronnie Flanagan looked grey and exhausted as he appealed for co-operation from the public, with little real hope that this would be forthcoming. Many Catholics feel that the RUC could do more to protect their community, but no security force can provide adequate guard against the vicious, random terror that has been inflicted on innocent people in recent days.
This was a local programme and so was probably not seen by the politicians taking part in the talks at Lancaster House. It's a pity. It might have shamed some of them, even acted as a brake on the kind of play-acting we saw when Jeffrey Donaldson tore up his copy of the Framework Document. David Trimble's merry quip about unionists "going back to what we do best" - that is saying "No"' - didn't sound very witty when set against the scene from a recent funeral of a blind man being gently guided by other mourners to help carry his brother's coffin.
We must hope that, as some of the participants have told us, the change of scene to Lancaster House and Tony Blair's direct appeal to the parties will bear fruit. Despite the rival claims on my attention (President Clinton's fight for survival, something which also has hugely important implications for the peace process), I watched most of those who were interviewed going to and from the talks in Lancaster House.
Only Monica McWilliams's impassioned defence of Gary McMichael's continuing presence in the talks and David Ervine's plea to the Ulster Unionists to become seriously engaged with Sinn Fein seemed to reflect the terrible reality of what is now happening on the streets.
The point has been made that the new document, on cross-Border institutions, presented to the parties this week shows that the two governments are now determined to exercise firmer control in driving the process forward. It has gone some way to steadying Sinn Fein, at least if one is to judge by Gerry Adams's description of it as "a step in the right direction."
Equally, it might be argued that this is yet another example of the governments' yielding to the latest pressure point, in this case reports of anger within Sinn Fein and fear of a breakdown in the IRA ceasefire. Thus, two weeks ago we had the Propositions for Heads of Agreement, designed to keep David Trimble in the talks and mollify the loyalists. Now we have a document, once again produced after many false alarms, which the Ulster Unionist leader rejects as "irrelevant" and nationalists claim as a victory.
The Northern Secretary, Mo Mowlam, has urged the parties to exercise "ownership" of the process. But what is needed, even more urgently, is that the two governments should demonstrate that they have a clear strategy and that they will not be deflected from it by whoever seems to be adopting the more threatening posture at any given moment.
This applies to the conduct of the talks itself as well as the meat of the negotiations. The dithering over whether or not the UDP should be allowed to remain in the talks is a prime example of the kind of muddle and indecision that abounds. Nobody wanted to be seen to be taking a step which might threaten the whole process and provoke further loyalist violence. Equally, no one dared to question the validity of the sacred Mitchell Principles, although everybody knows that these have already been violated by groups linked to several parties in the talks. Mo Mowlam spoke of a "moral dilemma".
ONLY the Women's Coalition, which has no paramilitary wing, was prepared to argue that Gary McMichael and his colleagues had worked extremely hard to try to get the UFF ceasefire restored and that nothing would be gained by excluding them. In other words, we have now reached a stage where the solemn adherence to the Mitchell Principles threatens to frustrate progress, but nobody is prepared to say so because of all the trouble these and other barriers to inclusive talks have caused in the past.
Instead, we got a fudge of a patently hypocritical nature, with both governments expressing the wish that the UDP will be back as soon as possible. But this is exactly the kind of case where Dr Mowlam and David Andrews could have made the judgment call, grounded in their assessment of Gary McMichael's contribution to the talks.
Dr Mowlam took a much more controversial step when she decided to visit loyalist prisoners in the Maze because she believed this was necessary to protect the peace process. She was widely applauded for her courage on both sides of the Irish Sea and faced down those critics who said she was giving in to terrorist pressure. On this occasion, too, it would have been worth taking the risk to strengthen Gary McMichael's position within his own community, particularly if the two governments were seen to be acting together on the issue. We are told that the talks are entering a critical phase. Some progress has been made since the publication of the Propositions for Heads of Agreement, and the parties are now more focused on the substance of negotiations, even if some of them still refuse to talk to one another. Determined optimists say the transfer of this week's session to London was beneficial, that the unionists are edging ever so slowly towards Sinn Fein, despite appearances to the contrary.
But the May deadline is approaching and, if there is to be any realistic hope of meeting it, there is going to have to be some faster and more visible movement. The time is fast approaching when the parties will have to accept that not every issue can be resolved by fudging and smudging the differences that exist. The two governments must make this clear, sooner rather than later, for all our sakes.