Historic Paisley, Brady meeting looks set

Paisley is a life-long opponent of the Catholic Church, saying it is not a truly Christian church, calling the Papacy “the Anti-Christ” and the mass blasphemous. He also believes in an international conspiracy to return Northern Ireland to Catholicism.
Famously, Paisley he once was physically ejected from the European Parliament in 1988 when it was being addressed by Pope John Paul II. He repeatedly heckled the Pontiff, holding up a banner and shouting, “I renounce you as the anti-Christ!”
But a member of his party has written to ask Brady for a meeting and says his party leader would be in the delegation at the meeting, if the church agrees to it going ahead.
If it does, it will be the first time Paisley has formally met the head of the church in Ireland and could be seen as a step towards improved relations between the two sides.
The invitation was announced by Gregory Campbell, a senior Paisley aide, less than a fortnight after a call from Brady for all the major political and community figures in the North to meet in the near future.
In the British general election last month, the DUP reinforced its position as the dominant unionist party in Northern Ireland. The DUP is resolutely opposed to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and refuses to speak to Sinn Fein.
Brady’s spokesman welcomed the move, saying Campbell’s comments “are a welcome development and the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate looks forward to exploring all the issues further in due course.”
Speaking last month at a conference in Milan, Brady had said he looked forward to “the prospect of engaging with ministers from all parties in the exercise of the civic, social and educational responsibilities of the Catholic Church in a modern pluralist democracy”.
He has also called on the DUP to clarify its position on sharing power with Sinn Fein. A Catholic Church source said that amongst the issues likely to be discussed were education, policing and the peace process.
He also said there were issues on which Paisley and the church had broadly similar views, such marriage and abortion.
Campbell himself said such a meeting could be an opportunity for the DUP to make clear to Brady that it was not opposed to power-sharing, just opposed to sharing power with a party (Sinn Fein) that it considered was inextricably linked to terrorism.
The Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, has again challenged the DUP to take the “difficult” decision to enter dialogue with republicans. He said the party might find it “a very uninviting prospect”, but their current position was not sustainable.
Adams said he awaited a positive response from the IRA to his appeal for them to declare a purely non-violent democratic future – and said there was now an unprecedented opportunity to make political progress.
In a direct message to the DUP, he said their electoral successes had given them the leadership of unionism and they could not opt out of their responsibilities. “Their increased mandate brings with it increased responsibility and an imperative to deliver for their electorate”, he said.
“The DUP needs to engage in a meaningful way in the political process and that means engaging, negotiating and talking with Sinn Fein,” said Adams. “We can all find excuses not to engage.”
Sinn Fein, said Adams, recognized and respected the DUP mandate and knew that a necessary element of any conflict resolution process was the primacy of inclusive, unconditional dialogue.
That demanded a serious, good faith effort to engage with political opponents, he said. “Dialogue with political opponents may be difficult, as much for Sinn Fein as for the DUP, but dialogue is the only way forward,
“The public position of the DUP is unsustainable. At some point the DUP will have to enter the world of real politics. How else do they hope to deliver for their electorate?”
If the DUP rejected the Agreement, that was their choice and they could refuse to participate, he said. But the unionists could not stop the process of change -they could only “play for time and slow it down”.
So far there’s no response from the DUP, but when it comes it’s likely to be hostile to the idea of any talks in the foreseeable future, pledging never to speak to republicans until the IRA has disbanded and a lengthy period of time has elapsed without any activity.
In a statement this week, not in response to Adams but giving further indication of DUP thinking, its MP for Lagan Valley, Jeffrey Donaldson, said “continued focus must be kept on Sinn Fein/IRAs ongoing criminal and terrorist activity” and their unsuitability to sit in government.
“As some would seek to deflect attention away from the inability of republicans to demonstrably commit themselves to exclusively peaceful and democratic means”, he said, “it is essential that the rest of us who live in the real world continue to keep our focus on the failings of Sinn Fein/IRA”.
“Sinn Fein are inextricably linked to an armed and active paramilitary organization that is involved in all forms of illegal activity including murder, robbery, recruiting, training intelligence gathering, weapons procurement, shootings, assaults, fuel and tobacco smuggling and money laundering.
“The rest of us cannot simply sit back and wait for republicans forever. Democracy and the will of the vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland to move on must be met.
“The DUP has shown that we are more than willing to work with other constitutional political parties at a local government level. We firmly believe that this is the way forward for restoring devolution. Democratic parties should be allowed to work together and that is what the DUP is fighting for”, he said.
“Words from Sinn Fein/IRA have been supplied before. On each occasion, republicans have failed to meet the democratic standard. Unionists are not interested in meaningless words. It is time to move on from a process that was built on the appeasement of terrorists”.
Meanwhile, speaking after returning from a two-day visit to Washington and New York, Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, said all shades of political opinion in the US remained “rock solid” behind the Agreement.
“People in the United States recognise the enormous progress that has been made over the last ten years and are committed to building on that”, he said. “In December, the DUP accepted the core elements of the Agreement. They must now be held to that position”.
“The two governments must make clear that there will be no dilution or erosion of the Agreement. The DUP can be part of the process of making peace or they can stand outside. That is their choice.
“But they cannot be allowed to veto a process, which has the overwhelming support of the Irish people and of international opinion”, he said.