Page 1, 9th September 1994
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THE. MOST IMPORTANT task of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland, following last week's announcement of an IRA ceasefire, is to reassure Protestants that they are not intent on immediately removing the Border.
"Catholics want to reassure their Protestant Unionist neighbours that they have no wish to take away their legal or political rights and have no wish to change their constitutional position".
This was the thrust of an article written last week by Fr Denis Faul, one of the most controversial campaigners for peace and justice during the last 25 years. Writing in the Irish Times, he said that Catholics were anxious to have equal treatment and were not to be oppressed by either the IRA/Sinn Fein or the security forces,
Fr Faul urged the two governments to immediately embark upon "positive, progressive, political action and schemes of reconciliation and community building".
He said that the solution to Northern Ireland's problems would come through a whole series of small developments and community building in local areas, not through a Moses solution.
"Gerry Adams is not Moses, neither is John Hume, John Major or Albert Reynolds and nobody will win a victory except the victories of life and labour".
Fr Faul added that many Catholics were poor because they had been discriminated against in public and private employment; as a result they regarded the welfare system as essential for their children.
He ended optimistically: "Education has been the great liberator for the Catholic community, which now accounts for 43 per cent of the population,"
Page 3: The Irish clergymen behind the peace process.
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