Don't condemn Orangemen for sins of others

Letters – 12 July 2011

Northern Ireland is the devil's playground. Look at pages 1482 and 1483 of that tombstone of a book, Lost Lives.

In the first of those two pages, under the heading 'Responsibility for Deaths', we learn that Irish republicans were responsible for 2,139 deaths, while on the following page we learn the sombre truth that 'the Provisional IRA alone accounted for almost half of all deaths'.

Every organisation or grouping responsible for the taking of lives between 1966 and 1999 is listed on table 16. These include, for example, the Army, INLA, the UDR, the LVF, IPLO.

However, the Loyal Orange Institution of Ireland is not listed. The Orange Order murdered no one.

But republicans, who were responsible for the deaths of 2,139 people, tell Orangemen how to behave. How does that work? The Orangemen are condemned as 'triumphalist, sectarian and anti-Catholic'. Yet Roman Catholics voted by the thousand for Sinn Fein, which gained political advantage through a campaign of murder.

Northern Ireland's religious life is dominated by two of the great traditions of Christianity: Roman Catholicism and the Protestant and Reformed Faith. Yet the commandments, 'Thou shalt not kill', 'Thou shalt not commit adultery', and 'Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour' are treated as a matter of personal preference.

But we needn't worry: we all have a human right to go to Heaven.

DR CLIFFORD SMYTH

Belfast