The Catholic Primate, Archbishop Seán Brady, has called on the IRA to disband, insisting that violence cannot be justified.
Interviewed on BBC Radio Ulster's Sunday Sequence yesterday, he said: "We must dispel any ambivalence in our own community about the presence or actions of non-democratic and totally unaccountable armed groups in our own community.
"I'm calling on people to forsake once and for all the armed struggle."
The interview followed an address he delivered in London last Wednesday in which he called on both the nationalist and unionist communities to repudiate violence in their midst.
Mr Ian Paisley jnr of the Democratic Unionist Party described the address as "outrageous" and "disgracefully intransigent".
Yesterday Mr Paisley pressed for a further declaration from the Catholic primate that the IRA's activities, which had left hundreds of police and soldiers dead, could not be excused by the Catholic Church.
"His call on the IRA to disband is welcome," he said. "I would ask him to include in his new thinking a statement that at no time has any violence by republicans against the police and army or the civilian population been justified. Such a statement would go the extra mile in identifying the illegitimate nature of paramilitary violence."
Mr Paisley insisted the archbishop was in an unrivalled position to influence his own community, many of whom refuse to join the new police force because it has been boycotted by republicans. "It's imperative that he makes it clear to the Roman Catholic population that they must wholeheartedly support the police," he said. "It's evident that the much clearer language from Seán Brady is helpful in reducing community tension than his previous ponderous speech."
In that speech, while expressing disappointment with police reform measures in the North, the archbishop called on Catholics to share responsibility for policing. He also said the North's Special Branch must be reformed.
He was critical of the British government for not honouring commitments arising from the Cory report, and said its refusal to hold a public inquiry into the death of solicitor Pat Finucane was "unacceptable".
He spoke of the negative effect that "endless allegations of collusion" involving the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries were having on the Catholic community.