The Catholic and Church of Ireland Primates, in marking the 10th anniversary of the IRA ceasefire yesterday, urged politicians to build trust and take risks to propel the peace process.
Archbishop Seán Brady and Archbishop Robin Eames separately spoke of the requirement to make political progress so that society could see "tangible proof" that life was continuing to improve in Northern Ireland.
The Catholic Primate, Dr Brady, in "celebrating" yesterday's tenth anniversary of the IRA ceasefire, paid tribute to all the churches that had helped facilitate the securing of the republican cessation on August 31st, 1994. He said politicians must use talks in Leeds Castle in Kent later this month to make progress.
He particularly praised the Protestant clergy who engaged with republicans ahead of the ceasefire. "From a church perspective, I wish to pay tribute to those clergy who played such a vital part in building trust amongst those who had the authority to progress the peace process and bring about the ceasefires," he said.
"I wish to commend in particular those Protestant clergymen who, with great persistence and courage, risked their own lives and livelihoods during the earlier parts of the Troubles to engage with the republican movement," he added.
Dr Brady said yesterday's anniversary was a "great day" for Northern Ireland and for the island of Ireland. "Ten years on from the first ceasefire, we are now experiencing a culture of peace developing in our land." While a stable society needed to be worked at, there was reason to celebrate the anniversary.
Dr Brady added: "It is a welcome fact that in the year ahead I will administer confirmation to children in Northern Ireland who, for the first time in several generations, have grown up free from the daily memory of killings, bombings, funerals and tears.
"More than anything, this much-improved situation should make us grateful for the progress of the last ten years, however imperfect and incomplete." He said it should spur everybody on to achieve even greater progress.
Dr Brady said it was "again time for all sides to take risks" and that such an opportunity would be presented during the Kent talks.
The Church of Ireland Primate, Dr Robin Eames, said that the sense of euphoria at the time of the IRA ceasefire "was very quickly overtaken by suspicion and by questions" and that there was a great need now to develop trust so that the political process might work.
Of the ceasefire anniversary Dr Eames said: "I would feel that in the years since there has been a gradual awareness that we haven't had the level of atrocities - if I may put it that way - that we were experiencing before that."
He said there was suspicion because punishment shootings had continued and there was no "satisfactory and clear renunciation of violence". He told BBC Radio Ulster that he thought people were now looking for "a reinstatement, or a creation of a new sense of trust - that they can believe what they are being told".
