A “senior member” of the Orange Order said to Lá Nua; “They might think they are being smart issuing that type of answer but it is showing that they are burying their heads in the sand. Many members have been very positive about the suggestion internally but nothing has happened at an official level yet”
A spokesman for the Order said that “we’re a pro-Protestant organisation, not an anti-Catholic one, we’re an All-Ireland body and we have members in nine counties in the Republic.”
The source in the Order said that the rules existed because Catholicism was a threat to Protestantism in Ireland historically, but that those days were long gone now. Ireland has changed so the Orange Order should change too,” he said.
Given the tendency of some senior unionist politicians to play close to the Pope Benedict’s Un-Enlightenment line on scientific thought, the old fracture lines have less resonance today more than ever?
Wrap up...
