EVIL CANNOT TRIUMPH OVER PEACE
Evil cannot be allowed to triumph over peace, says Brady
TODAY the Belfast Telegraph reproduces the full text of Archbishop Sean Brady's address at the funeral of Mrs Mary Grimes in Beragh yesterday:
"OUR hearts go out to the Grimes family as we gather for the funeral of Mary, loving wife, devoted mother, and outstanding grandmother.
"The death of a beloved wife and mother always brings great pain and sorrow but when that death coincides with the tragic killing of her daughter. Avril. the grand-daughter. Maura, the pain becomes unbearable, the grief incredible.
"If this triple tragedy was due to natural causes or an accident, it would be already immensely sad. But this is the work of fellow human beings and our hearts are filled, not only with sadness, but with anger and outrage.
"That it was carried out under the pretext of patriotism, adds shame to that outrage and sorrow.
"We are joined bv hundreds of thousands of people who are thinking of you at this time. We pray especially that your pain may be eased and your sorrow lessened and your memories healed.
"We know that God pardons those who turn to him with a sincere heart, no matter how terrible the sin. But we mortals find it more difficult to forgive. It would make it easier if those responsible were to show remorse and indicate a change of heart.
"The efforts made in recent days to offer an explanation show that the bombers realise that something went terribly wrong. They need to go further, much further. They need to realise that their whole campaign is utterly wrong and totally evil and completely devoid of justification.
"How could the murder of baby Maura, of baby Breda Devine of eight-year-old Oran Doherty, of nine teenagers of twelve adult women and of four adult men. all of them innocent victims, be other than something very evil?
"If those responsible will not listen to the voice of the ballot box. let them at least listen to the voice of revulsion, expressed so clearly and so powerfully and so consistently.
"Let them listen to the voice of their own conscience and ask: Is this the kind of person I really wish to be? Are these the kind of values . I wish to live by? Let them answer those questions honestly and end this senseless campaign of violence permanently now.
"The Omagh bomb has united a community in grief. Let it bring us all together to work to ensure that the hopes of peace are not ruined. Let it unite us all in praying and hoping that the worst atrocity may in fact prove to oe the last.
"To do anything else other than to work and to hope and to pray for peace is to yield to despair and to give in to the temptation to believe that such peace is impossible. That would be the final surrender to those who instill terror and inflict violence.
"We owe it to the memory of those who have died to make sure that "this does not happen and to do all we can to guarantee that they have not died in vain."
TODAY the Belfast Telegraph reproduces the full text of Archbishop Sean Brady's address at the funeral of Mrs Mary Grimes in Beragh yesterday:
"OUR hearts go out to the Grimes family as we gather for the funeral of Mary, loving wife, devoted mother, and outstanding grandmother.
"The death of a beloved wife and mother always brings great pain and sorrow but when that death coincides with the tragic killing of her daughter. Avril. the grand-daughter. Maura, the pain becomes unbearable, the grief incredible.
"If this triple tragedy was due to natural causes or an accident, it would be already immensely sad. But this is the work of fellow human beings and our hearts are filled, not only with sadness, but with anger and outrage.
"That it was carried out under the pretext of patriotism, adds shame to that outrage and sorrow.
"We are joined bv hundreds of thousands of people who are thinking of you at this time. We pray especially that your pain may be eased and your sorrow lessened and your memories healed.
"We know that God pardons those who turn to him with a sincere heart, no matter how terrible the sin. But we mortals find it more difficult to forgive. It would make it easier if those responsible were to show remorse and indicate a change of heart.
"The efforts made in recent days to offer an explanation show that the bombers realise that something went terribly wrong. They need to go further, much further. They need to realise that their whole campaign is utterly wrong and totally evil and completely devoid of justification.
"How could the murder of baby Maura, of baby Breda Devine of eight-year-old Oran Doherty, of nine teenagers of twelve adult women and of four adult men. all of them innocent victims, be other than something very evil?
"If those responsible will not listen to the voice of the ballot box. let them at least listen to the voice of revulsion, expressed so clearly and so powerfully and so consistently.
"Let them listen to the voice of their own conscience and ask: Is this the kind of person I really wish to be? Are these the kind of values . I wish to live by? Let them answer those questions honestly and end this senseless campaign of violence permanently now.
"The Omagh bomb has united a community in grief. Let it bring us all together to work to ensure that the hopes of peace are not ruined. Let it unite us all in praying and hoping that the worst atrocity may in fact prove to oe the last.
"To do anything else other than to work and to hope and to pray for peace is to yield to despair and to give in to the temptation to believe that such peace is impossible. That would be the final surrender to those who instill terror and inflict violence.
"We owe it to the memory of those who have died to make sure that "this does not happen and to do all we can to guarantee that they have not died in vain."
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT/0120
Published Date: 20-Aug-98
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