The European Union "is the best example of conflict resolution in the history of the world", Nobel laureate John Hume has said. "And the principles at the heart of the EU are the principles which are at the heart of the Northern Ireland peace process," he added.
Delivering the Humbert School's Bishop Stock address during a service of morning prayer in St Patrick's Cathedral, Killala, Co Mayo, yesterday, he spoke of Tip O'Neill, former speaker of the US House of Representatives.
"He once said all politics is local. At this divine service it can also be said that 'all worship is local'."
It was John Hume's first time to give an address in an Anglican cathedral. He is patron of the Humbert School and had been refused permission to deliver the Bishop Stock address in St Patrick's Cathedral, Killala, 15 years ago as the then Church of Ireland Bishop of Tuam felt it inappropriate. He was warmly welcomed there yesterday by the current Bishop of Tuam, Most Rev Richard Henderson.
Mr Hume said Bishop Stock, who was in Killala at the time of the French invasion led by Gen Humbert in 1798, was "a man of peace and reconciliation" who ensured there were no sectarian killings by Catholics when the French forces landed.
A first principle of conflict resolution, whether in the EU or Northern Ireland, was "respect for difference - love thy neighbour. Difference is an accident of birth. There should be total respect for difference", he said.
A second principle was "the setting up of institutions which respect those differences. Such as the Council of Ministers, the European Commission and the European Parliament in the EU, where all the people were represented," he said.
Similar institutions now existed in Northern Ireland, he added, including the Assembly and the Executive.
A third principle of conflict resolution was "the spilling of sweat, not blood," Mr Hume said.
In a world grown smaller through technological, communications and transport revolutions we all should work for peace, based on those three principles, he said.
Mr Hume recalled his first visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, standing on the bridge there, looking to France on one side and Germany on the other and reflecting that 30 years before no one could have envisioned their coming together in a body such as the EU.
He said "a great deal of progress has been made" in Northern Ireland. "I believe we have turned the corner. Let us turn our attention to better days and the better times we all deserve," he said.
He remarked how the Humbert School was the only such institution in Ireland which celebrated the links between this island and France.