Church leaders should take stock of fact that Stormont has failed Protestants, apart from keeping IRA guns silent

I can fully understand why the Catholic church would like to see devolution restored. Unlike the Protestant churches, the Catholic church was actively promoting educational advancement, gaelic sport and Irish culture to the benefits of Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Unlike, the Salvation Army and some of the smaller, local ‘missionary’ churches, the record of the mainstream Protestant churches looking after the secular interests of their flock has been abysmal.

These Northern Ireland church leaders may be authorities on theology, they should however keep their collective clerical noses out of the business of politics unless they are prepared to be fully immersed in all political issues such as: educational needs, employability, cultural rights and urban regeneration.

In contrast to the main Protestant denominations, the Catholic church has a long history in acting as a political advocate for the social, cultural and educational well-being of the Northern Ireland Catholic population. This involvement has to a degree protected the church from the global abuse scandals that continue to rock the church hierarchy.

Not only does the Presbyterian Church in Ireland turn the other cheek to Queen’s University Belfast when the university withdraws support from the Union Theology College, it and the other mainstream Protestant churches neglect the collective secular needs of the NI Protestant people. The Protestant people are turning their backs on the Protestant churches.

I suggest that the Protestant church leaders take stock and ask themselves what the Northern Ireland Assembly has done to advance the social, educational, economic or cultural needs of the Protestant community?

The truthful answer is that other than ensuring that the IRA guns stay silent the assembly has brought no rewards to the unionist/Protestant community.

The churches have nothing to say when republicans collapse Stormont to advance their cultural war, nothing to say about the possibility that restoring devolution might be seen as reward for this tactic.

If the ongoing decline in the economic and educational status of the Protestant population is to be reversed, the last rites need to be said over the failed devolutionary experiment and the church leaders need to start reflecting the needs of their ever decreasing flock.

Dr Edward Cooke, Newtownabbey