THE PRESBYTERIAN Church has upheld a complaint by the North’s Parades Commission against an east Belfast district of the Orange Order.
The clerk of the Presbyterian Assembly in Belfast, the Rev Dr Donald Watts has written to the Parades Commission accepting that language used by No 6 Ballymacarrett district of the order, of which the Rev Mervyn Gibson is chaplain, was “unhelpful and unacceptable”.
The effective apology was issued after the commission took the unusual step of complaining about a press release issued by the Ballymacarrett district over a controversial parade by the Orangemen in east Belfast in February.
The commission had ruled that the lodge should play only the hymn Abide With Mewhen passing St Matthew's Catholic Church in east Belfast, which caters mainly for the nationalist community in the Short Strand area.
The commission issued its ruling based on complaints that instead of hymns, the band or bands leading parades regularly played The Sashwhen passing the church.
The Orangemen, in their press release, complained the commission had indicated its “intention to increase this jihad against the loyalist people of east Belfast, in an action worthy of the Taliban religious police, by dictating” that only one particular hymn could be played.
“What have the Mullahs of the Parades Commission got against other hymn tunes?” added the press release. “One of the pillars of the institution is our reformed faith; to restrict an expression of that faith by rules and regulations goes against the principles and practice of religious freedom,” it said.
In the release, Mr Gibson wrote: “Sitting in their Windsor House ivory tower, the commission are fanning the flames of division and destroying the good work that many people on the ground have invested time and energy in.”
Dr Watts, replying to the commission’s complaint more than two weeks ago, said while any public body “must and should be open to challenge, the language used should also not be intent on causing offence or harm”.
He said the press release, with its references to jihad, the Taliban, religious police and Mullahs drew “from a highly emotive vocabulary of Islamic fundamentalism and really could only be used with the intention of causing offence and is therefore unhelpful and unacceptable”.
“It may also cause offence to our Islamic neighbours,” Dr Watts added.
He also stated: “The Presbyterian Church has consistently taken the view that dialogue is by far the best way to communicate with those who have a different viewpoint in order to offer a constructive challenge.”
Mr Gibson made no comment on the reply other than to express his disappointment that the Presbyterian Church had not spoken to him before it wrote to the commission.
He said he has also issued freedom of information requests to find out what correspondence the commission has that relates to him.