THE Catholic Primate, Cardinal Cabal Daly, has issued a powerful plea to the IRA "to think again and to think long and hard before plunging this community again into the deep, dark pit of violence".
He warned that "in the end they too will have to build a new peace process; but it will be much harder to build and it will be no better for them than the peace process which they are now threatening to destroy. That peace can still be saved. I most earnestly implore them to save it - for God's sake, for their own sake and for all our sakes."
Cardinal Daly said the London bomb attack and the accompanying IRA statement constituted "the bleakest message which has been delivered to the people of this country for a long time. Friday was and will long remain a Black Friday in Irish history".
He condemned the bombing as "morally evil and gravely sinful". He said that 17 months without violence meant that "people have had an opportunity to reflect on its nature and its consequences, and to see both how morally wrong it is and how politically futile it is. The possibility of a full scale resumption of violence fills people with dread. We must continue to hope that, in spite of everything, this is not the IRA's intention".
The cardinal urged everyone to "humbly and honestly ask ourselves how much we, each of us, failed to do or to say things that might have helped the cause of peace, and whether things we did or said hindered the cause of peace over the past 17 months".
Cardinal Daly said the Canary Wharf bomb was "a disaster and a tragedy for the republican movement itself. It not only shook London's Docklands; it shook the peace process which members of that very movement had worked so hard and so painstakingly to construct over many years.
"It will be extremely difficult to repair that shaken peace process; but this must be done."
The Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop Robin Eames, urged people not to allow their "disappointment and disgust" at the London bombing to "blind us to the need to go on searching for a complete end to the violence".
"The world which has seen Northern Ireland at peace for over a year will not easily forgive those who want to lead us back into the nightmare. No excuse can possibly justify an end to the ceasefire. I appeal to those who were once involved in paramilitary activity to resist the trap being set for them by Friday's events. Do not be drawn into the web of violence again."