A quarter of a century on from the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement we should all honestly ask ourselves: have we done enough to secure the precious gift of peace, to dismantle the barriers which divide us? Are we open to establishing the full truth of our past in order to facilitate forgiveness and healing?
I remember Senator George Mitchell observing that the peace process is not just about demilitarisation and decommissioning of weapons. The bigger challenge, he said, is to "decommission mindsets".
I am convinced that our inability, and perhaps even our unwillingness, to decommission mindsets and to find a way of sensitively opening up the wounds of the past and allow deep, inner healing, has prevented us from achieving the kind of conflict transformation envisioned in the Good Friday Agreement and mandated by referenda, north and south, on May 22 that year.
Twenty-five years on, we need to keep reminding ourselves that the Agreement was not simply about the cessation of hostilities and the silencing of the bomb and the bullet; it spoke more widely about the building of a peaceful society through a restoration of relationships.
Yet almost a thousand sectarian hate crimes continue every year; the recent inexcusable and life-changing attack on Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell reminds us of where we’ve been and where we do not wish to return; the security threat is once more deemed to be ‘severe’; human rights and dignity remain threatened by ongoing paramilitary-style intimidation and punishments; too many communities remain barricaded off from each other behind so-called ‘peace walls’.
In communities with multiple deprivation, including the highest levels of child poverty and destitution, self-harm and suicide - those very communities which were most impacted by paramilitary activity and security force presence during the conflict - there is little to celebrate by way of a peace ‘dividend’.
We need to take risks and be proactive in pursuing whatever might lead to reconciliation - a much used and abused word whose meaning in our context is rarely fully unpacked and dissected.
For Christians, being reconciled in Christ is not just a personal quest. Reconciliation also calls for truth, conversion and transformation at societal and ecclesial levels.
To build a more reconciled community means confronting the scandal of sectarian violence, asking forgiveness for the crimes, bloodshed and strife that were often fuelled by the distortion of religious allegiance, terms, symbols, occasions and labels.
We have not yet substantially reflected openly and honestly as Churches on how our relationships have been scarred as a result of recent conflict, or on the deeper generational wrongs and traumas that lie underneath, unaddressed, and continue to drive in a sinister way much of the sectarianism that we see today.
The work of reconciliation is compulsory for Christians. Reconciliation was not an optional extra in the Gospel message and teaching of Jesus: it was a core value.
The Cross confronts us to go beyond ourselves to the other, and to make sacrifices for peace, harmony, forgiveness and healing.
This link in Christian theology between 'reconciliation' and 'the Cross' reminds us that reconciliation is costly; it expects something of us - a sacrifice, a self-emptying.
The German Lutheran pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed for his opposition to the Nazis, contrasted what he called 'cheap' and 'costly' grace. In his classic work Discipleship he says: “Cheap Grace is the mortal enemy of our Church."
According to Bonhoeffer, 'cheap grace' is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance; 'costly grace', on the other hand, is a call to follow Jesus who gave His life on the Cross to reconcile us to God and with one another; forgiveness and, correspondingly, reconciliation are therefore rooted in a contrite heart and spirit.
If a truth recovery process is to lead to genuine reconciliation it will include an authentic and honest critique of the past which recognises the immense pain and life-changing trauma which actions or inactions have caused to a fellow human being.
It will entail a readiness to honestly share the truth of what happened; to express contrition for the long-lasting suffering that has been caused, a firm purpose of amendment - ‘never again’ - and an openness to repairing the damage in whatever just ways might still be possible, even many years after the events.
Reconciliation therefore entails sacrifice, crossing the road to the other in a sincere desire to repair damaged relationships - be they personal, communal, societal - and from a faith perspective, our spiritual relationship with God.
I believe now is the time to engage much more widely in cross-community conversations and dialogue about how we can sensitively heal the wounds of the past and present and address the restless yearning for clarity that still imprisons so many families here.
Those who hold vital clues and information are getting older and some are dying. Memories are fading. Victims and their family members are themselves getting older. Some have already gone to their rest.
But the unanswered questions do not disappear with death. They linger on, as a constant nagging reminder to the next generation of unfinished business, of a grief that is unsatisfied with silence, a pain that does not go away but lies beneath, an unhealed wound that is passed down the generations.
The emergence of cross-community initiatives like Healing through Remembering and WAVE Trauma Centre are already enabling victims and survivors to find mutual support through dialogue and solidarity with one another.
The experience and painful vigil of the families of the Disappeared has many lessons for the wider healing and reconciliation of our troubled past. Perhaps more than others, they appreciate how precious it is when someone comes forward and shares details of what they knew or did.
No-one is naive enough to think that finding a successful truth recovery process will be easy. To date it has proven difficult to find either the will, or the way. Even the defining of terms ‘truth’, ‘victim’ and ‘reconciliation’ has proven controversial.
With all the differing, complex and sometimes competing narratives regarding events, the questions are: Whose truth are we telling? Who are the victims? Whose stories are most important?
The presence of so many obstacles has led to some suggesting that we would be better with a kind of agreed ‘amnesia’, pretending that we can somehow draw a line under the past.
But our failure to recover the truth will only continue to undermine the foundations on which our peace is built and stifle the opportunity for ongoing peace-making and reconciliation.
Past wounds will remain open, festering and infecting the present, fuelling an ongoing compulsion to blame, and leaving the door open for revisionism.
Experience tells us that those who understand the past more deeply and honestly will be more likely to be open to engage in the work of reconciliation. Investment in truth recovery is therefore an investment in the dissolving of intolerance and prejudice.
The responsibility to seek truth and to restore wounded relationships rests with all of us, particularly those of us who profess to be disciples of Jesus Christ, who asked us to love our enemies.
He emptied Himself totally, accepting even death on the Cross to reconcile us with God. The engagement of people of faith in support of truth recovery springs from our desire and hope for the restoration of relationships and repair of divisions; the work of finding truth and reconciliation is therefore the work of God.
Twenty-five years on from the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement it is obvious that we are simply not managing on our own to overcome the centuries of sectarian hatred and distrust which has sparked into violence on so many occasions.
Christians here must have the humility to acknowledge our human limitations, be open to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and cooperate with the ‘costly grace’ of God in doing something new.
Perhaps in that way it will be possible to achieve conversion of even the most hardened of hearts and facilitate the speaking of truth in charity.
Archbishop Eamon Martin is Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. Abridged from his talk on 'Truth Recovery and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland – a faith perspective' at the 'Living the Agreement – Legacy Matters' conference at Queen's University Belfast.
