Northern Ireland: A Land of Warring Christians

Northern Ireland has too many Catholics and twice as many Protestants, but very few Christians. — Anonymous

Protestant and Roman Catholic Christmas shoppers scurried warily past one another in drab, sooty Belfast, grimly preparing to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace. Without much conviction, carolers sang Joy to the World outside Belfast's city hall, where a Union Jack hung limply from its pole and a signboard listed the latest number of military and civilian deaths—1,140 since 1969. Even the seasonal slogan jointly adopted by Ulster's Catholic and Protestant church leaders had a desperate quality about it: "For God's sake, let peace begin in our land this Christmas time."

After more than five years of sporadic terrorism and civil strife, few Ulstermen, regardless of their faith, had much hope that the slogan would ever reflect reality. This Christmas, however, promises to be a bit more tranquil than some that Northern Ireland has suffered in the past. Last week the leaders of the Irish Republican Army agreed to an eleven-day cease-fire starting Dec. 22. Terrorist operations were suspended, the I.R.A. announced, to let the British government consider the I.R.A.'s conditions for a permanent ceasefire.

Whether or not the truce holds, Ulster-men will celebrate Christmas in a mood of nervous suspense. Many a Christmas present will be refused or opened gingerly: it may contain a bomb. Children will not be getting toy guns as gifts: too often edgy British soldiers have mistaken youngsters in the gloomy streets of the Lower Falls Road or the Bogside for Provo gunmen.

As always, Christmas services will subtly reflect a seemingly irreconcilable dispute between two inimical bodies of partisan Christians: Christ the Catholic will be honored in one church, Christ the Protestant in another. As both sides hymn Christian peace, they are also hesitant and fearful about the prospect of Christian war. For if the truce does not hold and violence erupts on a large enough scale, it will be a religious war as well as a political one, a throwback to the bloody Catholic-Protestant battles that followed the Reformation.

Christian disunity has always been a shame and a scandal.

Even greater a blot on the memory and message of Jesus is mortal strife between two groups of so-called believers—and for that reason the bitterness in Ulster is spiritually as ugly as the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

In a sense, the troubles in the North are religious in name only: there is no theological quarrel involved, no real fear of religious persecution, and many of the militant extremists on both sides have little or no religious commitment. Throughout most of the struggle, the churches have seemed to be impotent bystanders, occasionally deploring the violence but grudgingly supporting the troops. The troubles began with a struggle by Ulster's 500,000 Catholics to gain equality with the 1 million Protestants, and the issues involve such conventional reasons for civil war as tribalism, economic injustice and political quarrels about who is to rule Ulster and how.