Poyntz urges North `truth commission'

The former Church of Ireland bishop of Connor, Dr Samuel Poyntz, has suggested that a truth, repentance and reconciliation commission, on similar lines to that now operating in South Africa, be set up in the North. He had deliberately included the word "repentance", which is not in the title of the South African commission, he said, believing that as well as confession, it was essential to the achievement of reconciliation.

Such a commission could also handle the various prisoner issues while catering to the mental and spiritual health "of all who must face the enormity of their atrocities", Dr Poyntz said.

Speaking at the 15th meeting between members of the Irish Episcopal Conference and the member churches of the Irish Council of Churches at the Emmaus centre in Swords, Co Dublin, at the weekend, Dr Poyntz said only God could forgive, but many hundreds would need "public reconstruction and reconciliation as they face desperate emotional turmoil and trauma if the peace process succeeds".

He also asked whether there should be a public confession of sorrow, repentance and mutual forgiveness involving the churches in Ireland. He wondered what sort of "dramatic or eloquent gestures" the churches could make which would show they meant business in their approach to the Northern conflict.

The churches together should make a common confession of guilt and state a common desire for reconciliation, Dr Poyntz said. He suggested that the meeting might set in train a group to draft such a confession. This could be ratified by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy, the General Synod of the Church of Ireland, the Presbyterian General Assembly, the Methodist Conference and other appropriate bodies. The statement could prove as historic as the post-second World War Stuttgart German Churches statement and the Kairos South African Prophetic Call, he said. He also called on politicians to make "symbolic acts of penitence," and recalled Willy Brandt's kneeling at the memorial in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. Introducing Freedom, Justice and Responsibility in Ireland Today, a document prepared by the inter-churches Department of Theological Questions, the Bishop of Limerick and department chairman, Dr Donal Murray, said no political loyalty could claim the unconditional commitment of all one's heart and soul and strength. That belonged to God alone and any cause or thing which is given such unconditional commitment becomes by definition an idol, he said.

Such a risk existed in the Northern Ireland, he said, where different attitudes to the constitutional question corresponded fairly consistently to denominational divisions. "We need, perhaps, to be more aware of the fact that the wider world is full of Catholics and Protestants whose faith does not lead them to have any particular views on the Irish question, except to pray for peace."

Dr Murray asked that particular attention be paid to the disadvantaged. Referring to the "Celtic Tiger", he said tigers usually stalk the land "in search of defenceless prey". Economic growth made the issue of our willingness to build an inclusive society "more, rather than less, urgent".