THE Hierarchy's pastoral letter on the Famine lacked a "spirituality of forgiveness", a prominent Irish Jesuit has claimed.
Father Michael Hurley, founder and first director of the Irish School of Ecumenics, said yesterday that the word "forgiveness" had not been used even once in the document.
"In remembering the past, the Great Famine in particular, is it not also necessary to ensure that forgiveness is offered to all those involved by association in the perpetration of past wrongs, so that any remaining ill will is assuaged and exorcised and that British Irish relations continue to improve rather than deteriorate?"
Father Hurley, who was speaking at a service in the chapel of King's College, Cambridge, said that despite outstanding exceptions, "a politics of forgiveness and a spirituality of forgiveness" were not yet the predominant characteristics of British Irish relations.
It seemed to be missing in the Home Office's treatment of Irish paramilitary prisoners and in its prison policies generally, he said.
Despite the Council of Europe's convention on the transfer of sentenced persons, and the urgent need to promote the peace process and facilitate a renewal of the ceasefire, the repatriation of Irish prisoners from British jails was proceeding very slowly.
"The most notorious and almost unforgivable case is that of Patrick Kelly, who is terminally ill with skin cancer."