Ben Lowry: The church leaders attack London on legacy yet they are not beyond criticism themselves on their handling of the topic

In his address to the centenary service for the Irish Council of Churches, Archbishop Eamon Martin called on the denominations to be “ambitious” in seeking to “address the legacy of pain and mistrust that continues to hang over us”.

This call was widely welcomed, including some letters to this newspaper. However, I want to outline where I think some leaders in the churches have failed when it comes to the legacy of the Troubles.

First though I want to acknowledge that since the late 1960s many church men and women have kept communities together, have been mostly unequivocal in their denunciation of violence, have often provided solace to despairing victims, and sometimes worked confidentially to steer people from attacks, and so on.

But I think latterly there has been no meaningful engagement with the critique of legacy that says that the whole process is vindicating terrorism.

I am not suggesting that church leaders should agree with those of us who say that the past is being examined in a way that will destroy the reputation of the security forces (or, if not that, then conclude that state forces and terrorists were equally culpable). I am saying that they should at least engage with that view and occasionally express concerns about particular developments in legacy that help to subtly vindicate terror.

Research suggests that 70% of nationalists now believe that the IRA campaign was necessary. I think that unless the relentless distortions about the past are countered by people of influence, from academics to commentators to ex civil servants to ex judges and yes church leaders, this support for the IRA will soon spread beyond the Catholic community.

You would think that the churches would be concerned about this, given the their near unanimous denunciation of terror (and given that in the 1980s approaching 90% of voters in Northern Ireland and 97% in the Republic rejected the party that justified paramilitarism, Sinn Fein).

Dissident Irish republican terrorists will have noticed that support for the Provisional campaign is growing in hindsight.

Two weeks ago I wrote here about my belief that the planned new legacy investigative body will turn against the security forces (see link below). Since that article I now fear that this new inquiry into Omagh will turn against the RUC, rather than the barbarians who are solely culpable for it, and who emerged from a long tradition of car bombs.

The soldier who was convicted of the manslaughter of Aidan McAnespie last week was not jailed. But when someone such as me says that charges against soldiers for historic killings have become disproportionate, a chorus emerges to dismiss the idea. But the imbalance is stark (see below for link to a 2020 article in which I argue why I think so).

There has been a particular failure of Protestant churchmen to challenge what is happening.

The Roman Catholic church was a vital influence in curbing support for the IRA, and its current leader is very thoughtful – I saw Archbishop Martin at the 2016 Somme centenary service at the Ulster Tower in Thiepval and he later called on nationalists to recognise unionist desires to mark the centenary of NI.

But he does, as you would expect, reflect the political concerns of his community. He has called for a return to 50-50 recruitment to bolster Catholic PSNI numbers, he said that he would like to see a border poll, he criticised partition in the Armagh centenary service in 2021 (in which none of the Protestant leaders celebrated Northern Ireland), and recently he said that the treatment of the hooded men was torture (the European Court of Human Rights refused repeatedly, over decades, to designate it as such).

Given the immense trauma of the Troubles, and given that republicans killed by far the largest number of people, Protestant leaders have a duty to speak out against any sanitising of that terror.

But with a few of exceptions, such as Canon Ian Ellis, who wrote for our 2018 Stop The Legacy Scandal, they have not done. If they read that series of essays they will understand the breadth of people who are outraged at how the past is being distorted. Or if they had read the recent essays by the small, unfunded Malone House group, most of whom are of retirement age yet who have been carefully documenting this scandal, they would at least occasionally express concern.

Yet in a recent joint essay in the Financial Times with Archbishop Martin, the head of the Church of Ireland Archbishop John McDowell did not cite any of those concerns. Instead he criticised the UK Legacy Bill for not complying with ‘Article Two’ of the European Convention, seemingly unaware or unconcerned that this article has been repeatedly cited to justify the imbalanced focus on the security forces, to the neglect of other articles on the right to a fair trial, right to a reputation, etc and the way the security forces are being denied this.

He also told a national audience that Stormont House had widespread support when backing for it had crumbled among unionists and he criticised the “effective” amnesty in the bill without reflecting concerns about the imbalance against state forces in probes.

One of his predecessors Lord Eames also failed to focus on these concerns in his speech to peers on legacy.

Previously, a former president of the Methodist Church in Ireland Rev Dr Harold Good joined a secret meeting on legacy that included republicans, the Irish government, but excluded unionist politicians, groups that work with victims of terror such as South East Fermanagh Foundation, and legacy critics such as Malone House.

I think these admirable church leaders could perhaps speak out in a more nuanced way on the topic of legacy, rather than in a way that will be seized upon by critics of the state’s past role in the Troubles.

• Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter editor

• Ben Lowry January 20: We are still heading towards legacy that will vindicate the IRA

• Ben Lowry January 27: Unionists are not looking for Lundies

• Ben Lowry in 2020: There is a grave imbalance in the number of soldier prosecutions