It could not have come at a worse time for the peace process. A public meeting in Fitzroy Presbyterian Church, which was organised by well-meaning people as a healing, confidence-building contribution to the debate on decommissioning, has demeaned politics and damaged the political process. Our Northern Editor, Gerry Moriarty, who attended the meeting on Wednesday night, characterises it as a sorry episode that cannot but upset "the structures shakily holding politics and community relations together".
Father Alec Reid is a bigger man than the figure caught up in the current row about who did what to whom in Northern Ireland over the past 85 years. He is a decent man. The pivotal role he played behind the scenes in convincing the IRA to call its ceasefire in 1994 is acknowledged by all. And it will remain so irrespective of these unfortunate events.
For all of that, right-minded people will be dismayed to hear Fr Reid compare the unionist treatment of the nationalist, Roman Catholic people of Northern Ireland with the Nazi treatment of the Jews. To put unionists in "the same category as Nazis" is as outrageous as it is untrue. The comparison is grotesque - both to the 20th century history of the North and to the place the Holocaust occupies in world history. Fr Reid had to apologise and he was right to do so.
These are a critical few weeks in Northern Ireland where the credibility of the independent IRA decommissioning process is under examination. That one of the two "independent clergymen" who witnessed the process of putting the IRA's arsenal beyond use should have let down his guard in this way has damaged the prospect of early acceptance of these acts by the unionist community. Granted Fr Reid, according to those in attendance, was baited by Willie Frazer from the Protestant victims' group, Fair. But this does not justify his unwise comments.
At the same time, it should be said that no favours will be done to aspirations for a new Ireland of equality, respect for human rights and democracy if it becomes impossible to articulate - in appropriate language - what 53 years of unfettered unionist rule in Northern Ireland was like for the minority population. Some of those who attacked Fr Reid yesterday wished to portray Northern Ireland between 1920 and 1973 as a place where sweetness and light abounded. In reality, for many people Northern Ireland was, as the Nobel Peace Laureate and former unionist leader David Trimble had the generosity to acknowledge, a "cold house for Catholics". There was institutionalised sectarianism and rampant discrimination in employment, education, housing, policing and politics.
t does not help now to rake over the past. Fr Reid has apologised personally and quickly. The unfortunate thing, however, is that words - once uttered - cannot be withdrawn in Northern Ireland.