Last week, Archdeacon Gordon Linney, a senior figure in the Church of Ireland, said in a speech the State should give legal recognition to gay civil unions. However, in an apparent side-swipe at the Catholic Church, he also said: "I have to ask how people who are so certain about homosexuality being evil could have been so indifferent and even devious when it comes to facing up to the issue of child abuse?"

Archbishop Martin countered yesterday that questioning the sincerity of another church's search for the truth is not the best way to bring about Christian unity.

Without referring to Archdeacon Linney by name, he said: "When new differences arise we should always attempt, however, to address them in charity and respect for the sincerity of each other's searching.

"It would not be honest of me speaking here today in a Church of Ireland cathedral not to refer to a certain hurt that I felt in these days by words attributed in the press to a Church of Ireland figure - which somehow gave the impression that those who hold different theological positions to the author on the subject of homosexuality, were perhaps less sincere, even fundamentalist, or were associated with having been 'devious' on other serious issues."

He continued: "Roman Catholic tradition is not distant from the protestant tradition of 'searching'. The Roman Catholic tradition also 'struggles and suffers' as it wrestles with the joys and hopes, the sorrows and the anguish of the people of each generation.

"The answers arrived at may in various cases not always have been fully authentic. The same can be said of complex conclusions drawn in good faith by all our traditions.

"What we should avoid is to claim that these conclusions were any less the fruit of heart-rending searching."

David Quinn
Irish Independent