CAPITOL
HILL — Irish-Americans are shocked (but hardly
surprised) that The Reverend Paisley has said "no"
again. But they are surprised that the Irish Government
backed his unreasonable demands for photos of the
IRA's historic decommissioning.
"Clearly
the photos were to be used to try and humiliate
the IRA," said Father Sean Mc Manus, president
of the Capitol Hill-based Irish National Caucus.
"Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who has shown magnificent
dedication to, and mastery of, the peace-process,
should never have gone along with that impossible
demand."
"Dr.
Paisley has squandered a historic moment, which
I pray can be redeemed. But if you spend your entire
life preaching hatred and sectarianism it is not
easy to have a death-bed conversion. Saying 'no"
to God and people can become an unbreakable habit
-- and I say this as one who has tried over the
years to be kind to Dr. Paisley," explained
Father Mc Manus.
"But
Paisley's rejection, like Trimble's before him,
surely proves that the issue was never really about
decommissioning, but rather about Unionists inability
to share power and accept Catholics as equals --
just as slavery and segregation in the U.S. was
always about racist Whites being incapable of accepting
African-Americans as equals", Father Mc Manus
concluded.
